by Bethany-Kris
Rich slammed the door.
Liliana kicked it right after.
Fuck him; fuck all of him.
And fuck his stupid nickname, too.
She hated that nickname.
“Welcome home, my queen.”
Liliana looked up from her hands to see a gate opening to allow them entrance to a long, twisting driveway that led up to what looked like quite an estate. She didn’t recognize the place, and since Rich had forced a hood over her head for long portions of the drive when he became sick of talking to her, she really had zero fucking idea where she was.
She might have been impressed by the estate were it anyone else showing it to her, but instead, all Liliana could really feel in those moments was a heavy sense of dread settling into her stomach. She didn’t know where she was. The estate was quite private, by the looks of it. Several guards stood around the property as the car was parking.
How in the hell was she going to get out of this one?
“A home fit for a queen,” Rich said.
Queen, like the Lilibet thing. Actually, that’s how he came up with that stupid fucking nickname. She despised people calling her Lily—kids used to tease her when she was younger because of her brother. They said Johnathan was crazy when he acted out, and then stories spread like wildfire. They’d call her Silly Lily, and she hated it.
Rich liked Lily.
Instead, he settled on Lilibet, like the old former queen’s nickname, because that’s what he told Liliana she was going to be. His queen.
And then he beat the hell out of her.
“Please stop calling me that,” Liliana muttered.
It was the only thing she could think to say.
Rich passed her a dismissive glance. “What, you’ll wear their princess title, but not the queen’s crown when it’s all but handed to you?”
“It’s principessa,” Liliana uttered, “I am a principessa della mafia and it would do you well to remember that, Rich.”
Except he didn’t care, she knew.
That was half of the problem.
This man believed he was untouchable.
“Get out of the car,” he deadpanned.
Fine.
Whatever got her farther away from him, she was game.
Unfortunately, the second she got out of the vehicle, she was dragged to Rich’s side again. She couldn’t even try to hide the shiver of disgust that wreaked havoc up her spine at the feeling of his hand gripping tight to her waist, never mind the taste of bile growing stronger in her mouth when he kissed the side of her head.
Her fists twitched.
She was going to hit him again.
If he kept that shit up …
“Let me show you around,” he said, “and then you can get yourself familiar with whatever rooms you prefer. It’s all made for you—every room, every floor. All the things I know you love, and things I love to watch you do. For a while, I’m sure it’ll seem like a prison to you while you work out your problems, and we work out our issues, but that’ll pass.”
Their issues.
He expected them to live together, and work out their issues.
“You’re delus—”
“Happy,” he interjected, squeezing her side hard enough for it to hurt. “I am incredibly happy because right now, I have everything I want, Liliana.”
Oh, God.
The disgust was back.
It burned her throat.
“Don’t try to run—you won’t make it far,” Rich told her as they climbed the stairs to the entrance of the large mansion. “And despite what you may think, I don’t like it when you force me to teach you a lesson.”
Liar.
Bastard.
Monster.
“You first,” he sat, patting her on the ass.
The door was opened, and Liliana moved inside. Anything to get the fuck away from him, or at the very least, put a few feet of space between them. It might help her to control herself, if nothing else. She needed to stay alive, after all. Provoking Rich into some kind of physical altercation was not going to keep her alive and breathing until Joe or her father could find her.
Rich took great pleasure in showing Liliana around. It kind of stunned her how a lot of the layout of the place reminded her of her grandparents’ mansion. She had mentioned once to Rich how much she loved their home and how comforting it made her feel when she visited. He’d gone with her once or twice to the Marcello mansion, as well, and clearly hadn’t forgotten anything.
“And I think you’ll like this room quite a bit,” Rich said, turning to face Liliana as he leaned against the wall. Waving at the entryway to the space, he added, “Go ahead, and take a look.”
She peered in.
Her stomach dropped.
It was a dance studio—barres along one wall with floor-to-ceiling mirrors behind them. Large windows covered the other wall. Lights hung from up above, and the brightness made the cherry oak floors gleam.
“I’ve missed watching you dance,” he murmured.
Jesus.
He was right in her ear.
How had he gotten so close?
“Our room is down the hall,” he added, “and you have your own closet full of clothes, shoes, bags, and whatever else your heart might desire. Care to take a look at it with me?”
Like fuck.
She wasn’t stupid enough to put herself in a room with a bed—certainly not with this man, anyway.
“I’d rather not, actually,” Liliana said.
She didn’t tamper her tone, or the disgust. It all came spilling out in that one sentence with those four fucking words.
She should have known better.
She had pressed his patience.
She had tested his good nature enough.
Liliana didn’t even see his fist coming until it was too late, and by the time she realized what was happening, she was being dragged down the hall by the hair on her head. The stinging in her scalp and the ringing in her ears reminded her of being in the backseat of the limo, and she swore it was like her body froze.
Unable to fight.
Unable to breath.
Unable.
And then she did snap out of it just long enough to try and get out of his hold. She kicked and fought, despite the way it probably ripped hair right out of her head from his unrelenting grasp. She clawed marks down his arms, and called him every name she could think of.
It didn’t bother him at all.
He barely reacted.
Like he expected this.
Rich stopped walking long enough to throw Liliana inside a room—she got one good look around, and it scared her. Bare mattress on the floor. One blanket, no pillow. Boarded up windows, and no lightbulb in the light hanging from the ceiling.
He stood in the doorway while she laid on the floor, prone and in shock. Her ears were still ringing, too. She bet her face was swollen, or at least, bruised all to hell.
Rich probably liked that.
“Maybe a few days in here will make you more agreeable,” Rich said.
Then, he slammed the door.
Liliana heard the lock twist, too.
She was alone.
It was dark.
He couldn’t see her.
She could be quiet.
At least like this, she was safe.
And finally … finally … she cried.
SEVENTEEN
JOE WALKED FASTER.
They still talked.
He didn’t have any need or reason to open his mouth and verbalize the same thing the rest of them were—this was bad.
Bad, bad, bad.
“What’s the stats?” he heard his uncle, Theo, say. “After forty-eight hours, the survival rate drops in half, right? We’re approaching that, Damian.”
“Could you not right now?” his father growled.
“I’m just saying—”
Joe could practically feel his father’s eyes nailing to his back. “Well, don’t, Theo. Jesus Christ
.”
“He wants her alive,” Joe muttered.
He didn’t even bother to turn around when he offered that statement. He really didn’t see the point in looking at them while he talked. Besides, he had better things to do, and he felt that them coming to New York and taking time away from his effort to find Liliana was nothing more than a waste of his time.
More men in the pit.
More ideas they couldn’t use.
More loud voices.
Except … maybe Joe was wrong about that, and his father and uncle would be of great help. He really didn’t know, but his mood was too fucking low to care about anything else except for his own goddamn agenda.
And his agenda was getting Liliana back.
“He didn’t go through whatever effort he went through,” Joe continued, “just to get her back, and then kill her within forty-eight to seventy-two hours. He wants her. He likely wants her so that they can pick up right where they left off.”
“Good point,” his uncle said.
“Joe—”
“Please, don’t.”
His father cleared his throat. “All right, son.”
A sweet, small sense of relief flooded Joe even as his father’s hand came up to pat him on his back. It was a traitorous feeling—he didn’t deserve to feel anything except rage and fear until he got Liliana back, and only then could he worry about the rest.
Yet, he felt it then.
Because his dad was there.
Damian understood Joe.
It mattered.
His father came into step with him while his uncle stayed a couple of paces behind. “Cory is working resources—pulling whatever he can to help. He’ll give us a call should he find something worth using, or that might take us to the Earl man. He said he could do that work here, too, but I know when it comes to you your brother can be a little …”
Distracting?
Intense?
Difficult?
All of the above, but Cory would also feel the need to get Joe’s mind into a better place just because of what was happening. It was his younger brother’s thing. He was wild, but he was also a fixer when it came to his family. And it would only make Cory feel like shit when he realized this couldn’t be fixed.
No, it was far better for Joe to be here, and for Cory to stay in Chicago at the moment. They could each focus on what they were good at without one feeling like they had to compensate for the other, and then they could meet together in the middle again at the end.
That’s it, that’s all.
“How hard was it to keep him in Chicago?” Joe asked.
“I threatened to lock him in a cage,” Theo muttered behind them.
Joe’s lips twitched.
An itch of a smile.
It didn’t come all the way.
Pain seared through his chest—a random sensation he had been feeling ever since he woke up in that hotel room, and realized Liliana was gone. The pain happened if he was thinking for too long, talking too much, walking too often, or shit, breathing.
It happened because she wasn’t here.
And he fucked up.
He should have never stopped looking for her from that point forward. He could have been on their trail, or caught up to them later. Instead, he followed the direction to get back to New York, and now he was even further behind Rich and Liliana than before.
This fucking sucked.
And he was useless like this.
Completely fucking useless.
Joe stopped in the hallway, and put his back to a wall. He stared up at the ceiling, and wished that if even for a second, it would come down and swallow him whole. Take him away to somewhere else where he didn’t have to think or feel, and then maybe his brain would work like it was supposed to.
Maybe then, he would find her.
Or he would know how.
“God,” Joe grumbled, dragging his palms down his face. “I need a second.”
“All right.”
Through his fingertips, he saw his father nod at Theo, and then gesture toward the hallway. The two men walked the rest of the way to Dante Marcello’s office themselves, and Joe only took his hands away from his face after he heard the door click closed.
He stared upward again.
He couldn’t see the heavens here, but then again, he wasn’t one of those people who looked up at the sky and thought that was it, too. He’d only ever felt close to heaven and God in church, and … well, with Liliana, too.
For entirely different reasons.
Give her back, he prayed, holding tight to the rosary hanging from this neck. Give her back to me. Please, give her back to me.
He didn’t bargain.
He didn’t offer this for that.
That’s not how God worked, anyway.
Besides, now that Joe had taken a second and said his peace to Him—for what felt like the hundredth time today—he was slightly better again. At least, for a time. That pain in his chest had stopped, but Joe knew it would be back.
It kept coming back.
He didn’t have time to think about it right now.
Moving down the hallway, he didn’t even bother to knock on the office door before he walked into Marcello pandemonium.
Or chaos.
Two men were arguing with one another. Another—although far older—man was sitting by himself. The Chicago men were on their phones. A redheaded woman stared out the window with her arms crossed, and her expression pensive.
It was only Lucian, leaning against the far wall and ignoring his arguing brothers, quiet father, and distant sister-in-law, not to mention, Joe’s father and uncle. It was only him who looked to Joe when the man came into the office.
Of course, Joe recognized them all. He knew them all. He just didn’t care right now. Until one of their thoughts or phone calls manifested into some kind of fucking information about how they could safely retrieve Liliana, he didn’t give a shit.
“Anything?” he asked Lucian.
The man shook his head, quiet and cold. Joe didn’t think he’d ever seen the man this blank before. His control was … frightening.
Yeah, that was as good of a word as any.
“I think we’re looking in the wrong spot,” Lucian said.
Joe’s brow furrowed. “Pardon?”
“We’re looking where we expect him. Just like when we watched him before, and trailed him. We did that knowing what we were looking for, or looking at. And I think we missed something because we inadvertently overlooked something else. Do you understand what I’m saying, Joe?”
He did.
But what had they missed?
And when?
“So, you’ve got nothing?” Joe demanded.
Cory sighed. “I have aliases, man, and it’s going to take us a bit to go through shit for that, too. What do you have on your end?”
“A forty-eight hour mark that passed ten minutes ago.”
His brother sucked air through his teeth, and then murmured, “You know it’ll be fine.”
“I don’t know anything at all, actually.”
“Joe.”
Well, it was the truth.
Horrifying, but true.
Joe didn’t respond to his brother, and finally Cory got irritated enough that he asked, “What are you doing right now, anyway? I know Dad and Theo are looking into some shit.”
“Threatening people, you mean.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what they do best.”
Joe rolled his eyes as he came up to a coffee shop he recognized, and sighed. It was his third stop of the day, and he likely wasn’t going to get shit from here, either. Just like all the other places he had gone to in an attempt to backtrack Liliana’s steps in New York. He had to try something different, and he had to keep moving.
Otherwise, he felt useless just sitting the fuck around and waiting for something to happen. That wasn’t his style.
Instead of going into the coffee shop while he was still on the phone
, Joe opted to end his call first, and then continue on with the rest of his business. Cory would understand … eventually.
“Listen, I have to go, but call me if—”
“Have you considered the alternative to Rich following her?” Cory asked suddenly.
Joe stiffened. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
“The obvious answer, Joe, is that Rich is obsessed with her. He was probably following your girl. Maybe you didn’t see him, or maybe he just outsmarted you all. That’s the obvious answer to how this happened, right?”
As much as Joe hated to admit it—and fuck, he hated to think it, too—Cory was right, as usual. “Thanks for the info I already know, but I don’t need you shoving that fuck up in my face right now. It’s already obvious enough without you doing it, too.”
“No, listen, fuck-head.”
Jesus, save him.
Because Joe was going to kill him.
“I’m saying,” Cory continued, “that it’s easier to look at the obvious because that’s typically where the answers are, Joe, but what if in this case, that’s the wrong place to look.”
Joe hesitated, and then asked, “How so?”
“What if while everyone was busy looking at her and him, he was looking at you.”
“Cory—”
“I know, I know, Joe,” his brother rushed to say, coming off snappish and defensive, “you’re the fucking Shadow, and nobody sees you if you don’t want them to. But you’re not goddamn invisible, Joe. All right? You’re not. And you got mixed up with a woman who clearly had some baggage that you weren’t made aware of going in which might have made you a little more careful in some of the shit you did with her. So, tell me if it’s not remotely possible that someone was watching you, and you weren’t aware because of that.”
Well …
Shit.
“It’s possible,” Joe settled on saying.
But he didn’t like it.
“You don’t think it’s the case, though,” Cory argued, “I can hear it in your voice.”
“Wrong—I don’t want to think it was the case. Big difference.”
“Why not? It could mean you might find something someone else hasn’t found, Joe.”