Duty & Death (Foster Family Book 3)

by Zavi James

  “Yes, but not many. That phone,” Angelo gestured to the table where it laid, “has the number for a few different realtors. Was this guy looking at moving?”

  “Realtors?” Luc and I asked at the same time, sharing a look.

  “What the fuck was he looking for?” I said.

  “Local?” Luc asked. “Or further out.”

  “Still in the state, if that’s what you’re asking,” Angelo answered.

  “Anything else?”

  “There was another number from around here, but no one picks up. Probably another burner. I’m trying to trace it to see if I can get you a name or an exact location.”

  “Someone here is keeping an eye out for him,” Mia said, looking a little pale.

  “He’s got Gabe for that,” I told her.

  “He doesn’t trust Gabe,” Luc said. “I wouldn’t either. Gabe’s not going to let that position go easily.”

  “Then who?” Mia asked. She jumped as her phone rang. Pulling it from her pocket, she looked at the screen and declined the call, but Luc had glanced over her shoulder.

  “What does Vittoria want?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know,” Mia said sharply. “If she wants to talk, she can come to the house. She’s been calling me all day.”

  “She might be the one feeding information back,” Luc said. “Wouldn’t be the first time Xavier’s played them off against each other.”

  The twins may have been close, but they were also vicious. Growing up, Xavier had often pitted them against each other in his subtle manipulative ways and Tori usually fell short, all thanks to her gender. Xavier might have been protective of her, but he didn’t see the use in a daughter other than to spend his cash and keep his wife company.

  “She wouldn’t,” I said, but even I couldn’t guarantee that.

  “She wouldn’t need a burner,” Mia told us quietly. “She said Xavier calls in to check on Gabe. They aren’t trying to hide that communication. What would be the point? Whoever has that phone was probably behind the shooting,” Mia tried pulling together everything we had at hand. “Xavier might not have been that far away all along. Or maybe he left and came back but he’s definitely still pulling strings around here.”

  “I want to know the minute you find out who or where this number is,” Luc told Angelo.

  He gave a mock salute, and I resisted the urge to smack him upside the head. I had to give him some credit for making some headway with this. If Xavier was home, then it meant we were closing in on him and we could finish this business sooner rather than later. We could knock Gabe from the top spot without too much damage being done to our credibility.

  “D, are you coming for dinner?” Mia was always the one with the invitation, the manners. They were ready to leave and regroup but I wouldn’t be joining them tonight.

  I waved her off. “I’m good. I have a few things I need to do.”

  “Okay,” Mia said, and she and Luc left.

  “I’ll see you in work tomorrow,” Luc said to me over his shoulder.

  “Not even a fucking thanks,” Angelo said when they were clear of the room.

  “He’s paying you. They don’t need to thank you,” I swiftly reminded him. “I need to make a call.” That was as much of an explanation as I gave him before walking out into the yard, slamming the door shut behind me to get some privacy.

  “What do you want?” Tori fired down the phone the moment she picked up. Good to know that she hadn’t deleted my number. I still held some potential use to her even if neither of us were clear on what that would be.

  “Why are you trying to get a hold of Mia?”

  “She doesn’t have time to pick up the phone, but she can run to you about it,” Tori said.

  “She didn’t run to me,” I replied, resting my head on the wall. “You called when we were all here. What do you need?”

  “Nothing from you.”

  “I might be able to help.”

  “I want to talk to her.”

  I considered how painful it would be to smash my head against the wall. Caving in my skull seemed like a very attractive prospect in comparison to dealing with Tori when she was like this.

  “Luc’s on a warpath, Vittoria,” I told her. “You’d be best to leave her alone.”

  “Mia’s more than capable of fighting her own battles. She doesn’t need you or Luc stepping in for her.”

  “No, she doesn’t need us, but we’ll keep doing it anyway,” I hissed angrily.

  “What is it with all of the men in my life?” she almost screamed down the line, and I pulled it away from my ear. “You with Mia. Gabe with Chas. Dad with literally everyone else. Am I invisible in this life?”

  We were a carefully constructed house of cards, built over decades and suddenly the foundations were crumbling. Everything we knew was changing and if you didn’t like change, then you were going to suffocate in the subsequent avalanche when the entire structure was collapsed and reshuffled. Vittoria had clearly lost her footing. She wouldn’t side with us, Gabe had found something to fixate on and Xavier had left them without so much as an explanation. She was looking for someone to pull her from the rubble but there was no one reaching out.

  “Maybe if you acted like you needed people once in a while, they’d be there for you. Maybe if you gave something back to them,” I told her.

  The line went dead. Once again, I hadn’t played to her narrative. Tori wanted someone to sympathise with her and as much as I ached for her, as much as I wanted to go to her and comfort her and tell her she had never been invisible to me, it was too big of a risk.

  I’d done everything within my power to protect her from everything that was on the horizon. I made Mia promise me that Vittoria wouldn’t be a direct target in all of this mess. She’d agreed without hesitation, but I knew there were caveats. If Tori did anything that put Link or Luc in danger, then I fully expected Mia to go back on her word. For that not to be the case, Tori needed to keep her shit together but there was no guarantee of that. She was sounding desperate and lost.

  Pushing myself away from the wall, I walked back into the house ready to put the pressure on my good-for-nothing cousin in hopes of avoiding the worst case scenario.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Mia

  “Black doesn’t suit you,” Dante said as I walked into the living room. “It’s too...” He waved a finger around in my direction, trying to find the word. “Dark.”

  “Good thing she’s not parading at a fashion week,” Luc quipped, his eye twitching. He wasn’t happy about this and I was hoping to slip out without a complete meltdown this morning. “It’s a funeral.”

  Dante gave a sheepish grin and kissed Link’s forehead before handing my son to me. “You’re a better woman than the rest of us, Mia. No one’s sad to see Silas go.”

  “She’s not doing it for him,” Luc snapped, and I was ready to step between them. “She’s doing it for Chastity. Though why you feel like—”

  “Enough, Lucas,” I told him, and his head whipped around to me. It wasn’t often I called him Lucas these days, but we’d gone round and round with this argument since news of the funeral broke.

  Gabe’s sudden protective streak had caused a stir. Dante was right in what he said. No one was sad to see Silas go. Chas had quietly informed the family of the funeral arrangements, quick and simple and miles away. Everyone I mentioned it to in passing scoffed when I asked about their attendance, including Luc.

  He’d made it perfectly clear that he had no inclination to spend the better part of his day fake-mourning a man he was happy to see put in the ground. When I suggested that I go, Luc looked ready to pop several blood vessels. Mourning Silas Perkins would not look good for us and we couldn’t afford to put a step wrong since Gabe had just got rid of a blight in the family. I’d argued back just as fiercely that for once, I didn’t want to do something for appearance but because Chas deserved a friendly face on what would be a difficult day fo
r her. He folded eventually but it felt too easy and I was wary he might stop me before I left the house.

  “Babe.” I softened again and reached up to kiss his cheek. Luc relaxed under my touch. “We both know what it’s like to lose a parent.”

  “Charlie and Hector weren’t homicidal maniacs,” Dante muttered under his breath and I shot him a look.

  “This isn’t about Silas,” I told them both, thoroughly done with the conversation and wanting to move away from it before Luc changed his mind. “It’s about supporting Chas.” I picked up Link’s changing bag and slipped it onto my shoulder, but Luc instantly took it from me and walked out of the room.

  Dom joined us in the hallway and as we stepped out of the house, my heart sank. Three black cars were lined on the drive, windows tinted so you couldn’t see the occupants.

  “Oh God. What’s happened?” I asked, feeling the blood drain from my face.

  “Breathe,” Luc said, placing a hand on the small of my back. “They’re for you.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I’m not comfortable with you going to the funeral with Dom and Franco.” He nodded to the cars. “They’ll attend with you and escort you home.”

  It made sense now why he’d agreed and said no more on the matter. Luc had cooked up his own idea on how to make this more palatable and had conveniently not mentioned it to me until now.

  “Luc, this is beyond excessive.”

  “Nothing is excessive when it comes to my family’s safety,” he said, looking down at me. There was a fire in his eyes that dared me to argue but I wouldn’t. If this made him comfortable in his decision to let me attend, then I’d let him hand off half his men to me for the morning.

  “If it helps, I told him it was overkill,” Dante informed me, earning him some points. “Enjoy the funeral, Mia. Is that the correct sentiment here? Enjoy?”

  “Go,” Luc ordered him, pointing towards the car, and Dante ducked his head and went. “Call me as soon as you get home,” Luc said to me. “Stay out of trouble.”

  I mimicked crossing my heart but something about Luc’s expression said he didn’t believe that I was capable of it. We parted on the drive after a kiss and I slid into the car, securing Link into his seat.

  “Florist’s first?” Dom checked from the driver’s seat.

  “Please.”

  The sense of dread grew as we collected the flowers and drove to the church where the service was being held. Not our church. And by our church, I meant the family church. Silas was not a welcome member and Chas had more sense than to hold the funeral there. Instead, she’d chosen St Mary’s. A quick Google search had revealed that Chas had picked somewhere an hour away from home though whether out of respect to the family or because it was the only church that could hold a funeral at such short notice wasn’t clear.

  “We’re going to be late,” I said, drumming my fingers across my leg as we hit traffic.

  And I wasn’t wrong. By the time we reached St Mary’s, we were half an hour late and I walked through the church doors with Link in my arms, rather than wrestle with the stroller and wasting more time, to see the space completely empty.

  “Graveside?” Franco suggested.

  The grounds of the cemetery attached to St Mary’s was firm and covered with frost. Each step I took was cautious as I spotted Chas at graveside with the priest. She wasn’t quite alone. Gabe would never have allowed for that but the men who accompanied her kept their distance as they’d been trained to do. Paulo caught sight of us, eyebrows raising and hand moving towards his weapon. Franco went ahead to speak to him before gesturing us forward. Franco was a familiar face and a safe bet. They trust him more than the rest of us and once again, I was grateful to have him around.

  The guard’s surprise was subtle compared to Chas whose face turned into a caricature as I joined her side. She didn’t say a word. The priest eventually concluded the ceremony and I mumbled ‘amen’. Dom was the first to move, placing the flowers that I’d bought down at the head of the grave before he stepped back to allow us some privacy.

  “That’s sweet of you, although I’m not sure he deserves it,” Chas said, staring at the bright-coloured blooms.

  “I wasn’t sure what the proper protocol was, given the circumstances,” I told her. “I’m sorry I’m late. I assumed there would be more people here.” There was a stunning lack of mourners in attendance and it had nothing to do with the drizzle that had begun to form. I knew that Silas’s reputation had made him an outcast, but I hadn’t banked on Chas being completely alone in her grief. My heart ached painfully for the woman standing next to me. “Gabe—”

  “I told him not to come,” Chas said. “I haven’t forgiven him for doing it.”

  “You’re mad at him?” I couldn’t keep the surprise from my voice.

  The silence made me wonder if she’d heard me but then she spoke, “I know it’s weird, but I wouldn’t be here without him, so I feel like I owe him some type of loyalty in some strange and twisted way. He still looked after me, even when Mom...” She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms, smudging black around her eye sockets.

  “Dom,” I called gently, and he came to my side. I handed Link over to him and placed a hand on Chas’s arm.

  What she did next surprised me. Chas turned and collapsed her weight against me and cried. There was a moment of shock before I wrapped my arms around her and rubbed her back gently, letting her sob. Nothing in life was straight forward. Regardless of what her dad had or hadn’t done, Chas had just lost the last of her family.

  She straightened up and sniffed, her mascara trailing down her cheeks and I reached over to wipe them from her face.

  “I think you’re mad, Mia,” Chas told me as she took over, roughly wiping her face. She looked like she’d gotten into a fight and lost.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Certifiable. Wanting to marry into all this. Wanting this. You don’t quite fit the mould but here you are. Why on earth do you want this?”

  “Love,” I told her simply because that was the reason. If I wanted Luc, then I had to give up living a traditional life that most people knew. I sacrificed what was ordinary for a love that was extraordinary. “The same reason you’re with Gabe and chose to step back into the fold.”

  “There’s no love between us,” Chas told me quietly.

  “You haven’t been together long.”

  “No. It’s not that,” Chas told me. “It’s just a mess,” she breathed.

  “Chas,” I said, suddenly worried about her. “Is everything okay between you both? If something’s wrong—”

  “Nothing’s wrong. I’ve just gotten myself into a situation, and I don’t know.” Her eyes started to grow glassy again.

  “You can tell me.”

  She looked at me for a few moments, most likely weighing up the pros and cons of telling me what was on her mind. I couldn’t blame her. Then she whispered the words, “It’s an arrangement.”

  “An arrangement?” I echoed.

  Chas turned away, angling herself so her face couldn’t be seen by those there to protect her. A gesture that said she was taking a risk in talking to me about this. “He found me. It’s no secret that I want out, Mia. Gabe promised to help me. Cash, passport, new identity. Anything I needed to get away from all this if I just attended some events with him. Then Xavier left and Gabe needed me to move in and then he did this,” Chas explained, pointing at the open grave where her father was. “He was furious.”

  “Because your dad tried to kill him.”

  “That’s what I thought but...” She trailed off. “I don’t think that’s the case. We used to talk so he could prep me for events and fill me in on everything I needed to know. When I moved in, things got a little blurred. It’s been a lonely few years, Mia. I didn’t want to risk pulling anyone else into this. Gabe, he can be so gentle when he’s away from everyone. One thing led to another. I don’t know. I thought it would be only once.” She didn’t need to draw
me a diagram. “We were two strangers who signed a contract. Ever since the shooting, he’s been different. I’m worried he won’t let me go.”

  “But you signed a contract,” I repeated.

  Chas looked at me. “Do you really think that matters?”

  I let out a shaky breath. “What do you plan to do if he doesn’t keep his word?”

  “I’m waiting to hear about Dad’s will,” she said, wringing her hands. “To see if he left me anything. It’ll be the last bit of business before the Perkins family is just me. I don’t answer to anyone. I don’t have to look over my shoulder.”

  “Gabriel,” I said, seeing the fatal flaw in her plans.

  “I’ll figure it out,” Chas said to me. “I have to. I can’t stay here when this is all there is.”

  In telling Gabe about Silas, I thought I was helping Chas out, but I had locked the cage and thrown away the key. There were plays I wasn’t aware of panning out, and I’d stuck my foot in it and pushed it off course.

  My hand slipped into Chas’s and I squeezed it tight. “If you need help, all you need to do is ask.” It was the least I could offer her when this boiled down to my misguided actions.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dante

  “That makes a lot more sense,” I said, staring up to the heavens. I’d taken my usual position at Mia and Luc’s place — on the floor, in front of the fireplace with Cerb dozing beside me. I was proud to say the big slobbering mongrel was keener on me than he was on Luc.

  “And it’s to be resolved between themselves,” Luc pointed out and I rolled my head to the side to look at him. He lounged on the couch with his head on Mia’s lap.

  “There’s nothing we can do to help her?” Mia asked, raking her fingers through his hair.

  “There’s plenty we can do,” I told her.

  “But we won’t do a thing,” Luc finished.

  “That doesn’t seem right,” she muttered, and Luc sighed.

  “We are not getting involved, Mia. There’s a target on our backs and you want to get into more trouble?” Mia had stopped moving her fingers and stared down at him. “You got lucky with Gabe. Don’t let it get to your head.”