by Eva Ashwood
“What. Is. This. Deal?” Hale speaks each word slowly, like he’s giving Leland a chance to reconsider that weak-ass excuse.
“It’s big!” Leland repeats, as if he didn’t already tell us that. “She’s been planning it for months. That’s all I know.” He swallows. “She’s convinced that when it goes through, she’ll be able to push us aside—”
“The Novaks,” Hale corrects. It couldn’t be more clear that he doesn’t consider Leland one of us anymore.
The traitor blanches. He’s getting more and more jittery the longer we talk. His gaze darts to Ciro before shifting back to Hale. “She thinks that this deal will bring the Novaks down, so she can start taking over our—your territory. Resources. Businesses. She seemed very pleased that it was going through.”
Hale mutters a curse under his breath. “How soon is it going through?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know or you’re choosing not to tell us?” Hale demands, and Ciro takes a single step forward as if on cue.
Leland flinches. “No! I don’t know anything else about it, I swear—”
Hale stops Ciro with a small movement of his hand. Looking at Leland long and hard, he clenches his jaw. The man squirms in his seat as Hale scrutinizes him.
“We need more.”
“I told you, I don’t have any more,” Leland says, and there’s a hysterical edge to his voice. “I got everything I could. She runs a tight ship, only the people who need to know are made aware of important deals. I’m not in that category. She still considers me a Nov—”
“If you finish that sentence, I’ll fucking kill you.” Hale’s voice cuts through Leland’s babbling. “You are not a Novak, and you don’t deserve to utter that name.”
When the man snaps his jaw shut, Hale cocks his head slightly, narrowing his eyes.
“You don’t have anything else now,” he corrects, “but you will be going back and getting us more.”
Leland’s face falls. “I can’t. I can’t do that.”
“Yes. You can.” Hale smiles viciously. I never want to be on the receiving end of that smile, because it means nothing but pain. “Unless you want to put your family in danger. And since you’re such a fucking family man…” Hale’s voice trails off, almost lazily. “I’m sure you’ll see the importance of giving us what we need.”
“No!” Leland snarls. “You can’t do that—”
“Would you rather have them die at Camilla’s hands?” Hale demands, his voice growing heated. “At least with us you know it would be quick, painless. I don’t like that your children and wife should have to atone for your betrayal. I don’t believe that’s how things should be done. But at least it would be a mercy to them, to kill them before Camilla could.”
“You’re asking too much,” Leland pleads. “Do you know how much I’ve already had to risk for just the information I gave you? I told you, I’m not as high up in her forces as I am with the—”
He breaks off so fast it’s like someone cut out his tongue. Hale’s jaw clenches, and I know he’d like to kill Leland for even thinking his family name, but he doesn’t make a move.
Leland swallows, gathering himself before he speaks again. “I’m not supposed to ask questions. I get my assignments, complete them, and keep my head down. That’s all. If I start asking questions, Camilla is going to realize that I’m working for her enemies, and she’ll kill me. She’ll kill my family.”
“And we’ll kill them if you don’t help us.” Hale’s voice is cold. “Looks like you’ve found yourself in a bind, Leland. Next time you decide to betray your family, maybe think it through a little more.”
Leland spits out a string of curses, helpless rage making his entire body shake. He has a hard choice to make right now—a choice no man should ever have to make. But I remind myself that he didn’t end up here by accident. He willingly betrayed his brotherhood, knowing full well what that would mean.
He helped kill Damian.
No matter how much mercy or sympathy I could start to feel for him, it’s quickly stamped out by the truth. He may as well have pulled the trigger himself.
“We need to know what she’s planning,” Hale says. “And you’re going to find that out for us.”
“Fine. I’ll do it. I’ll try,” Leland chokes out. “But I want you to promise to put my wife and kids in protection.”
Hale doesn’t say anything in response. I know he has an image to uphold of an iron ruthlessness that shows no mercy, but I also know he has no desire to hurt Leland’s family. Hale isn’t so coldhearted as to kill innocents in cold blood—not even after his own father was just shot.
“When you come back with something actually helpful to us,” my friend says coolly, “I will consider sparing your family. You have three days, just like last time.”
Hale turns away first. It’s a clear dismissal, and the rest of us follow after him. Only Ciro remains, absently watching Leland, still in a world of his own.
“He’d better find something,” Hale says as soon as we’re out of the room, strain clear in his voice. “Now we know Camilla is planning something. But what good is that information when we have no way of anticipating it? Of guarding ourselves against it?”
The tension is a pulse that beats through the room, the thought hanging over all of us.
We need Leland to find something. Need him to get actionable intel on the Rooks.
Because he’s the only lead we have.
Hale keeps me and Zaid on babysitting duty over the next several days, but we cut back on our surveillance of Leland quite a bit. It’s too fucking risky to tail him closely, and even at a distance, we run the risk of Camilla noticing and getting suspicious. So we keep tabs on his general location and on his family, making sure he doesn’t skip town and trusting that his sense of self-preservation will keep him from doing anything stupid.
But when another two days go by without any information from Leland, I start to get antsy. I know he can’t push too hard, too fast without setting off alarm bells in Camilla’s head. He’s savvy enough to play things subtly, to try to win her trust before digging for information. It’s just a waiting game now.
But I’ve never exactly been known for my patience.
On the fifth day after our meeting with him, we’re in the middle of dinner when a heavy thud from outside makes us all look up. Tires screech in the distance as someone peels away in a hurry.
My muscles tense. Shit.
“What was that?” Grace looks around the table, and I can see on her face that her mind has jumped to the exact same thought as the rest of us.
Hale mutters a curse under his breath, shoving his chair back as he stands quickly. Ciro, Zaid, and I follow, moving almost as fast as he does.
This time, we don’t leave Grace behind. Like she’s been doing all week, she stays with us, moving as one of us as we stride across the foyer, weapons in hand.
But as soon as Hale opens the front door, I flinch in regret. She takes one look at the body that’s been dumped on the doorstep and lets out a strangled noise. Her hazel eyes go wide as she stumbles backward.
“Shit. Get her out of here,” Hale mutters, a string of curses following his words.
We all shift into memorized positions—positions that were never assigned to us, but ones that we’ve adopted on instinct for times like these. Ciro shields Grace’s body with his own but doesn’t touch her as she turns away from the scene. She presses a hand over her mouth, her body heaving as she struggles not to vomit.
I cringe again, fighting the urge to abandon my job and help her.
My brother quickly snaps me out of it as he brings out a body bag, and without hesitation, we reach down and try to get as much of Leland’s mangled body into the bag in one piece as possible. With the thing so fucking destroyed, it’s nearly impossible.
Whoever killed Leland did it in just about the most gruesome way I’ve ever seen, and I actually find myself hoping he died quickly. There’s
no fucking doubt in my mind that he was dumped here to send a message.
Camilla knows.
And this is her way of telling us.
“That woman is a fucking psycho,” I mutter.
Zaid nods, his lips pressed into a tight line.
My twin and I haul the body down to the basement. Our forensics team will go over it and examine it as soon as possible. In the meantime, we set the lumpy, blood-soaked bag on a metal cart. Leaving my brother to check over the body one last time, I start to backtrack, cleaning up the mess we made on the way.
“Lucas, get back over here,” Zaid calls.
There’s something in his voice that makes me freeze. I stride quickly over to him, and the look on his face confirms what I heard in his voice. Whatever he found, it’s not good.
“What? What is it?”
His expression is grim, his lips pressed into such a tight line that they’ve gone white at the corners. He holds out a small piece of heavy grade paper, about the size of a business card. It’s streaked with blood, and it must’ve been attached to the body somewhere or maybe stuffed into a pocket. It reminds me eerily of the tag the butchered dog wore—the one with the name reading Grace.
Zaid presses the note into my hand with a low curse. I turn it over, reading the words written in an elegant scrawl. When I look back up at my brother, all I can do is echo the word he just said.
“Fuck.”
7
Grace
The scene outside the men’s house was so similar to the last time, I’m not sure why it took me so off guard. But I suppose your first time seeing a body so mangled like that, so dehumanized…
Nothing can prepare you for that.
This time, the men didn’t leave me in the dining room when the sound came from the front hall. None of them tried to stop me when I followed behind them. Lucas immediately pushed me back when we all realized what exactly was on the front stoop, who exactly had been dumped there, but not before I soaked in every detail, a new image forever seared into my mind.
The dead dog is long gone in my memories, replaced by that.
That absolute mutilation.
She’s sick. My mother is absolutely sick to even order something like this. To be able to give the order, knowing full well what the end result would be…
Who is this woman?
How the fuck did she give birth to me?
How do we share even a shred of DNA?
Even though the body has been carried away, I can’t control the nausea churning in my stomach. Taking a shuddery breath, I swipe at my mouth with the back of my hand, the taste of acid coating my tongue. I’m never going to eat fucking chicken parmesan ever again. Even the thought of sitting back down at the dinner table after this makes me want to vomit all over.
As soon as they realized what was on the stoop, all four men sprang into action. Lucas and Zaid moved like lightning, grabbing a bag and loading the hacked-up body into it before carrying it away. It was almost scary how calm they all acted in the face of such carnage. While they dealt with the body, Ciro disappeared briefly and came back with a bucket of chemicals.
Now he throws them down over the front steps, washing away the crimson stain that mars the stoop.
Hale has been on the phone since the twins disappeared with the body, calling various members of his organization and arranging for a forensics team to come examine the corpse for clues. He paces across the foyer, running a hand through his dark hair as he speaks into the sleek phone that’s pressed to his ear.
“I want you to bring Leland’s family in,” he says. “Yes, all of them. Pick them up and put them under protection. There’s a hit out on them.”
Shit. I hadn’t even thought about Leland’s family. His wife. Kids. They lost their dad in the worst way—not just because he was murdered, but because they’re also likely about to find out that he was a traitor. They’ll have to live with that for the rest of their lives.
And still, even though Hale hated Leland more than any other man in the world… he’s willing to put aside his hatred and protect innocent lives, regardless of the family connection they share with the traitor. He’ll protect Leland’s wife and kids, despite the sins of their husband and father.
My heart squeezes in my chest.
My mom would kill the whole family in cold blood if she had the chance, and Hale’s going to make sure she never gets that chance.
It’s messy fucking business, mafia politics. There is no black and white, just a muddled gray mess of morals and conflicted feelings. Hale may be the leader of one of the most ruthless organized crime syndicates in Chicago, but he isn’t going to let a family be murdered simply because they are no longer his problem.
And I love him for it.
Zaid and Lucas look grim as they walk back into the foyer. Zaid hands a small white piece of paper to Hale. As Hale’s blue eyes glance over it, the color drains from his face. His gaze shoots to me.
My stomach twists into a tight knot, my lungs aching with the effort of dragging in air.
Whatever it is, I know I don’t want to see it.
But I have to.
He hands it to me without a word. The paper is expensive, thick and smooth beneath the tips of my fingers. I turn it over in my hand, trying to ignore the way it’s spattered with blood, the vibrant red smeared by Zaid’s fingerprints.
I read over the note several times, and each time I do, my gaze sticks on three little words.
Grace.
Meeting.
Camilla.
My mother wants to meet with me.
She obviously knows I’m aware of her existence, since she figured out that Leland was gathering information for us—I’m sure she tortured him into admitting everything he told us. And now she wants to speak to me, face-to-face.
I shove the note back at Hale as if it’s burned my fingers. “Thank you,” I say, swallowing. “Thank you for showing it to me.”
He nods slowly, watching my reaction like he’s trying to figure out what’s going on inside my head. Inside my heart.
But the truth is, I’m so numb I don’t know how to react. How I should react. All I can hear is the rush of my heart, blood thundering in my ears.
“Maybe we should take a second,” Zaid suggests, his gaze flicking from me to Hale. “We’ll finish dealing with the mess, then we can sit down and figure out what to do.”
Hale nods, although he doesn’t look away from me. “I’ll have a team come pick up the body. Ciro, will you stay with Grace?”
“Yes.”
I’m a little surprised at Ciro’s immediate answer. I’ve gotten the feeling he specifically tries to avoid being alone with me ever since the night he attacked me while in the grip of a night terror. Even though I tried to make him see that I’m not afraid of him, that I still trust him, I don’t think he trusts himself.
Despite the shock ricocheting through me at my mother’s summons, I shoot Ciro a grateful glance as he walks beside me into the living room. He leads me over to the couch, then steps toward the liquor cabinet to pour me a stiff drink.
I’m honestly not sure I can keep anything down right now, but I don’t tell him that. I know he wants to take care of me, and I think we both need something to focus on.
To my surprise, when he hands me a crystal glass with a finger of whiskey in it, the rich, smoky smell doesn’t turn my stomach. I take a tentative sip, and the warm burn travels all the way down my throat, soothing me a little.
It doesn’t take long for the other three men to join us. Whatever business they had to attend to, they clearly rushed through it so that we could discuss this new development as soon as possible.
They each grab a drink too, although instead of sipping his like I am, Hale downs the contents of his glass in one swallow.
“I’m not going to allow a meeting to happen between Grace and Camilla.” He grimaces, picking up the bottle and pouring himself another. “It’s too fucking dangerous. We know what she’s capab
le of now, if we didn’t already. And letting Grace see her mother would be like feeding her to a lion.”
I respect Hale’s leadership, and I trust him more than I ever would’ve thought possible when he and the others first crashed back into my life—but that doesn’t stop the flare of anger that wells up inside of me. That’s not his call to make, and refusing to meet with her would only focus her wrath on the four men who are trying to protect me. I can’t let that happen.
“I want to see her,” I say, surprising myself and thankful for the strength in my own voice. Hale’s gaze jerks toward mine, and I force myself to continue. “I need to see her.”
His jaw twitches, the only outward sign of irritation. “It’s too dangerous.”
Hale doesn’t like his orders being challenged, but I’m not going to put my head down for this one. Camilla is not just his enemy, she’s my mother. My biological mother, the woman who gave fucking birth to me. She’s just as much a part of me as my father was, whether or not I like it.
I need to know how she became the woman she did, what made her do it. I need to confront her on it, need to assure myself that whatever is in her, I have none of it.
That I’m not in danger of becoming like her.
“No, Grace. I’m not going to let you anywhere near that fucking psychopath.” Hale spits out the last word. “She’s too dangerous—”
“Hale,” I say firmly, “that psychopath is my mother. That psychopath who kills without remorse wants something from me. And if talking to that psychopath is the only way I can help with this, the only way we can prevent her from taking more lives—because she’s not going to stop at just your father and Leland—then I’m not going to cower in fear. I’m not going to let her think for even a second that she can get away with what she’s doing. I’m not afraid of her.”
I hardly realize that my voice has been rising until my last words die out. The room goes quiet, filled with nothing but the whisper of our breathing.
Hale doesn’t respond, but the tempest of anger on his face tells me enough. Without a word, he turns and strides across the room, hurling his glass against the wall. Glass shatters and whiskey drips down the plaster in slow moving trails as Hale storms out, leaving the rest of us behind.