This Life II

by Dee, Cara

  The police at its finest.

  As Kellan pulled into the carport, I received a message from my brother.

  Boat is clean. Colm wants permission to transport Conn to Dublin and meet up with us in Germany.

  I deleted the text before answering. We used an app where our texts were encrypted, not to mention they self-destructed after twenty-four hours, but that meant shit to me.

  Granted. Tell him we’ll do a memorial when all this is over.

  I stepped out of the van with Kellan, Eric, and Sullivan. The others would be here in an hour or so.

  “Do you think Luna was in a relationship with Conn?” Kellan wondered. “She’s never this rattled. I thought they were just casual.”

  I was too exhausted to give a flying fuck about secrets, so I laid it out there. “I reckon she feels guilty. You might wanna help her snap out of that.”

  Kellan frowned. “Why would she feel guilty?”

  Oh, right. I might wanna bring up the actual secret. “She’s pregnant.”

  That stopped all the guys in their tracks, Kellan, most of all.

  “It’s new,” I said. “She was gonna tell Conn after tonight. From my understanding, she told Emilia in Dublin, and I dragged it out of Luna yesterday.” On the way to the door, I slapped Kellan on the shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Conn will live on, mate. And you and Colm are gonna be uncles.”

  Kellan mustered a tremulous little smile. It was too soon to celebrate anything, but I hoped it would bring Colm some comfort eventually.

  We entered the house, and I looked forward to taking a hot shower before I snuck under the covers with the wife. I needed her energy. I was gonna steal it from her. Like a good husband.

  Christ, it was headache-inducing to think we’d get back on the road in three hours. I’d get two hours of sleep at the most. Thankfully, we’d made reservations at some secluded hotel outside Montpellier where we could recoup. We just needed to put a few hours between us and the scene of the crime, so to speak.

  I grinned faintly as I crossed the den. Emilia had put one of those fireplace videos on the TV. She and I had done that at home in Philly once. Before we got married. She’d found it on Netflix and thought it was a marvelous idea to make love in front of our city fire.

  “I’m dead on my feet,” Eric said. “I’ll see you guys soon.”

  “Yeah. Goodnight.” I aimed for the kitchen, where I opened the fridge to grab a bottle of… What the hell? I furrowed my brow and picked up my iPad. Why was it in the fridge? I scanned the shelves and scowled. The plastic bag with our memory drives was there too.

  I glanced over at the kitchen island. It was where Eric and I had left all our tech gear. What the fresh fuck—we’d had a stack of laptops there before.

  “Finn!” Eric yelled from upstairs. “Autumn’s not in her bed!”

  My blood turned cold, and I stared at the iPad and plastic bag in my hands. “Check Emilia’s and my bedroom,” I demanded, swallowing my dread.

  This didn’t mean anything. They had sleepovers in our bed all the time. I’d lost count of the times I’d carried a listless Autumn back to her and Eric’s room.

  “They’re both gone!” Eric snapped.

  Nausea crawled up my throat, and my heart started pounding furiously. Don’t fucking lose it. I heard Kellan and Sullivan snap into action to search the house. My hands shook, and I just stared. Holy fuck. Oh God. No, this wasn’t happening.

  Eric rushed down the stairs, and I looked up just in time to see the panic in his eyes.

  I swallowed hard.

  Frustration tightened my chest, my jaw ticked, and a ball of rage dropped into my gut. I had to move, goddammit. Time was everything. I was failing Emilia—move, for fuck’s sake! Do something!

  I blew out a harsh breath and flipped the iPad in my hands, and I brought it to life. And all I saw was a string of notifications from our security system. Motion detected on camera three, motion detected on camera two, motion detected on camera six, motion detected fucking everywhere.

  At long last, my mind began working again. I snapped my stare to the kitchen island where the iPad had been earlier. I calculated the distance to the den. Emilia must’ve heard the alerts going off. She didn’t have the password to open the tablet, but she could see the alerts.

  I licked my lips and let my brain draw conclusions. Motherfucking hell, she had to have been afraid. And yet, she’d reacted. She’d covered our tracks and…maybe left clues?

  “Nothing inside!” Kellan yelled. “We’re heading out! Sullivan, you take the back.”

  I caught Eric reaching for the TV remote in the den, and I blurted out, “Just pause it. Don’t shut it off.” Then I hurried into the den and ignored his confused expression. I grabbed the remote from him and pushed pause.

  It was a video from YouTube. She’d had an evening of Netflixing planned with Autumn, and Emilia knew there was a fireplace video, or several, on Netflix. Why had she picked one from YouTube?

  “Get on Netflix on your phone,” I told Eric. “Search for fireplace videos.”

  He frowned but did as told.

  I checked the time on the clip on the TV. There were three hours left on an eight-hour-long video.

  Bloody fucking hell, my wife was a genius.

  “Here.” Eric extended his phone, and I clicked on the three available videos and saw they were all an hour long.

  I felt myself nodding along with her line of thinking. She’d gone for YouTube because it would be the only video still playing when we got home.

  Thanks to her, we knew exactly when something had happened. Approximately five hours ago.

  “She’s left us crumbs.” I handed back the phone and rubbed a hand over my mouth. “Okay. Okay. Let’s not touch a fucking thing.” I looked around us, and a few things struck me at once. How the hell did anyone know where we were? And there couldn’t be anyone other than the Avellinos, right? This had to be Gio. He’d sent his men for Emilia—and Autumn. In which case, I could at the very least draw comfort from the fact that they were alive. Yeah, no, he’d use them against us, but he wouldn’t hurt them. I couldn’t see it happening. Especially not considering Elena was close to Gio, and she was Emilia’s own goddamn mother.

  Emilia must’ve deduced something similar. Having enough time to leave us clues meant she’d been able to push past the fear. She hadn’t panicked. She’d jumped into action quickly.

  Had she left a note?

  And if she hadn’t left a note, what did that mean? Scribbling a note took no time at all, but one needed privacy in order to do it.

  I rushed back to the kitchen and opened the fridge again. I rummaged through it, shelf by shelf, and I almost started crying when I found her phone. It was tucked in between two packets of pastrami.

  After punching in the code, I got access to the phone, and the last thing she’d done was to type me a message. But she hadn’t sent it. I read the message box.

  at least 2 avellino cars + men + called me ms avellino

  She would’ve written more if she’d had the chance. I was sure of it. But this meant…they’d been in the house. She’d given us the clues while the men had been here. They’d called her Ms. Avellino? Fuck that.

  I gripped the phone tighter and gritted my teeth.

  There was no word to describe how much Gio was going to suffer for this.

  He’d kidnapped my wife—my pregnant wife—and a little girl.

  I literally felt how all my internal boundaries disappeared. How some wrongs suddenly felt right, how certain approaches were now possible, and how a few risks were morphing into nonissues.

  The Avellinos were done.

  30

  Emilia O’Shea

  “When I grow up, I’m gonna have my own fireplace in my house,” Autumn announced. “They’re super cozy.”

  “They are, aren’t they?” I grinned as she restarted the video of a fire.

  We’d abandoned our movie night pretty quickly to play games instead. A
fter a while, Autumn had become bored with that too, and she’d wanted to show me funny clips on YouTube. When that got boring, she’d wanted to play games again. She’d mentioned how cozy we’d had it “back home” in London, where we had a fireplace, at which I’d made a silly attempt to get her the quick-fix version. A fire on Netflix.

  Autumn being Autumn, a younger product of my YouTube generation, had said we’d probably find a better fire there. And, admittedly, she had. This was the fifth time she was playing a short clip of a driftwood fire that turned the flames blue.

  “Can we go again?” Autumn asked.

  “Of course.” I cast an annoyed glance at the kitchen. It was the third time Finnegan’s tablet had dinged with some alert. All it did was remind me they were risking their lives tonight.

  Autumn shuffled the cards for another round of Go Fish, and I took a sip of my soda.

  “I think we should do this all night,” she informed me.

  I chuckled. “I know you do, but we gotta go to bed early.”

  Pretty much everything was packed. I had to clear the kitchen of food and grab the linens from all the beds, but I’d do that right before we took off. That way, I could prepare some sandwiches for us to eat on the road.

  “Oh, for chrissakes,” I said abruptly. “I’m just gonna put Finnegan’s tablet on silent or something.” It dinged three times, and I’d had it. If I couldn’t access it, I’d bring it upstairs.

  It dinged once more as I reached the kitchen, and the display was lit up when I picked it up off the counter.

  What…?

  Motion detected…

  I stiffened. These were live alerts for the cameras Finnegan had installed around the property.

  “I can hear a car!” Autumn hollered excitedly. “Uncle Eric is back!”

  “No, wait!” A burst of panic flew out with those two words, and I had to take a calming breath. Something was wrong. “Sit tight, sweetie. It’s important.” I stared at the screen, at the seven alerts, and the little thumbnail-sized images at the end of each box. They were grainy pictures of whatever the cameras had captured. There was a clear image of a man in one. It looked like he was running past. Camera four—that was the one by the pool. Oh my God, someone was actually here.

  Fear tore through me, but I gathered enough wits to dig through one of the bags on the counter. I’d seen Eric leave three handguns in there. I grabbed one and hid it at the base of my spine, tucked into my sweat pants. Then I tugged down my hoodie and made sure the gun wasn’t visible.

  You don’t stand a chance.

  I swallowed a whimper and another surge of panic.

  I didn’t wanna look out the window in case I was caught, so I asked Autumn, “Did you see what kind of car it was? And whatever you do, do not look out the window right now.”

  Think, think, think, think.

  We couldn’t hide. I mean, we could, but they’d find us. And kill us? Oh God. Wait, no. Who was it, even? Avellinos? They knew where we were? But Gio…

  “I dunno. It’s dark out,” Autumn answered. “It’s the one Kellan drove in Dublin, I think. Is something wrong?”

  Except, it couldn’t be that car. We’d been escorted in black town cars in Ireland. Here, we only had three vans, one RV, and two motorcycles.

  I took a deep breath. I had a baby and a girl to protect.

  The Irish saying Finnegan had used came back to me. He who ran away lived to fight another day. And when running away wasn’t an option?

  “I’m gonna keep you safe, Autumn,” I said calmly and grabbed the iPad again. At the sight of Eric’s bag of memory drives and USB sticks, I took that too. And I put them all in the fridge. Hopefully, no one would look there. “I think we’re about to have company from some bad men we don’t like.” I rejoined Autumn in the living room and sat down next to her, and I grabbed her hands. I hated the fear in her blue eyes. “Listen to me, sweetie. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just leave the talking to me, okay? If they ask you anything, don’t answer. I might lie about some things, but I’ll explain everything later.”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and she scooted closer and clutched my hands. “I want Uncle Eric and Finn to come back.”

  They have to find you…

  My gaze shot to the TV.

  The sound of car doors closing reverberated in my head, gaining speed alongside my heartbeat.

  “We will never let anything bad happen to you,” I told her, cupping her cheeks. “If the men take us—”

  “Emilia,” she whimpered. Tears quickly spilled over, and she couldn’t sit still. “We can hide. Please, I don’t want to go anywhere.”

  “Hey, shh. Sweetheart, please listen to me. I promise, okay? I will take care of this.” I watched her all but fall apart, and selfishly, it made me grateful. Because the more upset she became, the more the opposite happened to me. I grew resolute and confident—not to mention fucking pissed at the motherfuckers who were about to seal their fates.

  Flicking a glance at the terrace doors, I debated pulling out my phone to send Finnegan a quick warning, but I couldn’t fucking know if anyone was watching us right now. Goddammit.

  Two firm knocks on the door let me know time was up.

  Autumn cried out and tried to cling to me.

  “I’ll fix this,” I implored. “Stay here, Autumn. I swear you’ll be safe.”

  She collapsed on the couch in tears, and I shoved aside every urge to run away and hide. It was useless. I didn’t know what we were up against, I was outnumbered, and I had everything to lose.

  I was also Gio Avellino’s niece, and that had to be the best card for me to play.

  I headed out into the hallway and took a deep breath before I stopped at the door. “Who is it?” I called.

  There was a chuckle. “Open the door, Ms. Avellino. We know you’re alone with a child.”

  I straightened and stared in disbelief at the door. Then I looked down at my left hand. At my engagement ring and wedding band. Had Gio been serious in Paris? Did he really view me as family? In that case, he wouldn’t lay a finger on me.

  I’d made sure to withhold any positive feelings toward Finnegan in Paris.

  I made the decision to slip off my rings, and I tucked them into the pocket of the only jacket that hung in the hallway. It was Eric’s.

  “That’s not my name,” I told…whoever was on the outside.

  “The boss is gonna give you a better future,” the man replied. His Italian accent wasn’t very pronounced. “You can put up a fight if you want, but in the end, you’re coming with us. So is the girl. Up to you—if you, uh, want to scream and struggle first. We have you surrounded.”

  Was that even possible? I mean, could I put up enough of a fight to stall…? Yeah, no. I knew what time it was. Finnegan and the others wouldn’t be back for several hours. Speaking of, my husband would need as many details and clues as possible.

  “The O’Sheas will be back soon,” I said, just to see what kind of reaction I’d get.

  One of them laughed. “Not that soon—not for hours—if at all. Now, open the door.”

  Fuck. They knew where Finnegan was.

  Deep breaths, deep breaths.

  No. I had to trust him to be able to handle himself. Finnegan was a professional, and he prepared for multiple outcomes and scenarios. I couldn’t worry about that right now.

  “I just wanna go home to the US,” I said. “I’m sick and fucking tired of all of this. Can’t all of you criminal shitheads burn in hell?”

  They found that one funny too.

  The man spoke again. “Look, miss. We have our orders. We are to bring you and anyone you’re with.”

  I gnashed my teeth. Fine. They were about to meet the devil’s niece, and she didn’t play nice.

  “Get Gio on the phone for me,” I demanded. But rather than waiting for a response, I ran into the den and grabbed the tablet Autumn had used to pick YouTube videos. In the column next to the video window, I spotted the perfect clip. Eight hours
long. It would have to do. I pushed play just as I heard another man accuse me of stalling. He warned the other one that maybe I was trying to contact “O’Shea.”

  A beat after that, they were trying to kick the front door in.

  Fucking idiots. It would’ve been easier to break one of the glass doors.

  Ignoring Autumn for the time being, I hurried into the kitchen and opened the fridge. Once there, I retrieved my phone from my pocket and started typing a message to Finnegan.

  at least 2 avellino cars + men + called me ms avellino

  I had to assume there’d been two cars. The cameras had caught movement before the arrival of the car Autumn had spotted.

  I jumped at the sound of two shots, then hurriedly snuck my phone between two packets of cold cuts. Adrenaline pumped its way through me. I snatched up the six laptops on the counter next, and I stowed them away in a bottom cabinet.

  Autumn cried out when two men entered the den, and I hurried toward her.

  “You don’t go near her,” I snapped.

  “Give us your phone,” one of them growled.

  “It’s right there.” I snarled and gestured at Autumn’s phone on the coffee table.

  Autumn scrambled off the couch and plastered herself to me.

  The other man, a bigger guy with stereotypical goon features—stocky frame, craggy face, menacing expression—waved his gun at me. “We are out of here now.” His accent was thicker. “Let’s go.”

  “Where are you taking us?” I shot back.

  “Do you not see me holding a gun?” He glowered.

  I raised a brow. “You think my uncle would like it if you used it on me?”

  The first guy chuckled and offered his friend a look, as if saying I had a point, before he turned to me. “We won’t shoot you, of course. But I am sure the boss would rather see you with a bruise or two than an Irish husband.” His humor faded. “Now, we are leaving.”

  Autumn fell asleep in my arms, all cried out for now, after a couple hours in a car with tinted windows. They were blacked out for me too, and I couldn’t see where we were. Autumn had been spot-on when she’d guessed what kind of car it’d been before; the only difference between this town car and the ones we’d ridden in all over Dublin was that this one had a partition that made it impossible for me to look out the windshield either.