He hung up.
Again.
I stomped over to the door and jerked it open. The woman nearly fell against my chest in an attempt to stay upright.
I glared so hard my eyes burned. “Don’t speak.”
She gulped.
“Keep up and lose the heels.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The number doesn’t matter. This guy’s going to wipe out an entire family line. It’s beyond their control. He’s beyond their control. He died right along with her. Send me in, and I’ll do what they can’t. What they won’t.”
— Notes from interview with Agent P, FBI
Luciana
If I didn’t get my shaking under control, I was going to be worse off than I already was. I hobbled on one foot and pulled one heel off then grabbed the other, leaving me completely barefoot in a stranger’s home.
His tanned back was covered in tattoos.
His rock-hard stomach.
Neck.
Arms.
Ink was everywhere, in every different color of the rainbow; some of it looked new, as if he was trying to cover up the maps drawn all over his body.
The only reason I was able to look away from what I’d already decided was the most beautiful and angry man I’d ever met in entire life was because he scared me more than he intrigued me.
His words were harsh.
His tone menacing.
He carried himself like the world owed him everything — and with every fiber of my being, I believed he’d stay alive until he felt as if he’d squeezed every drop of what was owed him into his waiting hands.
The longer the silence stretched between us as he scrolled through his phone, the more uncomfortable I got.
Nikolai didn’t mention a cranky underwear model with too much money.
And yet there I was, standing in a mansion that looked as if it was either in the process of getting remodeled or gutted.
Pieces of furniture were covered in black tarp; some still in plastic as if the store had recently dropped them off. A large dining room set was shoved against one wall in the entry, and a bare marble table with a small black lamp was in the center of it. The walls were red, picture frames lined the floor leading up the stairs, and it was dark, so dark it was like walking into a cave, despite the fact that it had numerous windows and an open floor plan.
I did a slow circle, my heels crunching a piece of glass. “Are you… gutting it?”
“Did I ask you to speak?” He didn’t look up from his phone.
I flinched.
I’d never been treated so horribly in my entire life, and I worked with a man people called a sociopath.
So…
I jumped when the guy shoved his phone back in his pocket and put his hands on his hips. Every muscle was hard-earned; you could tell in the way they stretched taut across his stomach like trophies. Dark and red ink swirled near his right hip; a huge eagle spread across his chest with blood dripping down from its feathers. It would be pretty…
On a normal day.
In a normal situation.
Like, if I was sitting at a bar and the guy just spontaneously ripped his shirt and asked me to take a picture for his Instagram.
I highly doubted this guy even knew what Instagram was.
“May I—”
He glared.
Death wish, that was what I had.
I kept talking.
“May I use the restroom?”
“I let you in my home, and now you want something from me? Is that how this works?” I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or teasing.
His nostrils flared.
Yeah, he didn’t have a teasing bone in his body.
Nothing but anger up in there.
And something else I couldn’t quite place and didn’t want to even fixate on; the faster we got started, the faster I could leave. According to Nikolai, I’d be working with the heads of each family, except for Nixon, who was too busy to deal with me.
Those were the exact words given to Nikolai.
“Well?” He crossed his bulky arms. “Have an answer for me?”
So. Condescending.
So cruel. And for what purpose? To make me feel bad about myself? Talk about hostile work environment.
“Look.” I tried to match his glare. “I’m being paid to be here. I have a job to do. If you could just point me in the right direction, I can get started and get the hell away from you.”
His eyes flashed.
Poor life choices just kept getting made, didn’t they?
I jumped when a knock sounded at the door, followed by someone letting himself in.
He had dark hair past his chin, looked a bit older than Mr. I-Can’t-Even-Adult-Today, and at least wore a ghost of a smile across his full lips. Hey, at least he was wearing a shirt, unlike some people.
“Miss Smith?” He winked.
Chase snorted. “Smith? The name they give people who have bad last names. Could you be any more generic? Plain? Boring?”
“Enough, Chase,” the man snapped. His eyes were lethal as Chase held up his hands and shrugged. “Now…” He turned his attention back to me. “…my name’s Sergio. I’ll be giving you electronic access to all the files you need. You’ve already signed the NDA?”
I nodded and finally found my voice beneath all the giant balls I’d swallowed in my throat after being insulted for being plain, boring, basically the stupidest person on the planet. And maybe I was. I took the damn job without asking if I’d be put in the seventh circle of hell with Satan, aka Chase. “All the paperwork has been signed, yes.”
Sergio exhaled loudly and glanced between me and Chase. “Is this going to be a problem?”
I frowned. “The job?”
He shook his head slowly. “Nikolai didn’t give us any warning. The only person capable of handling you right now…” His voice trailed off. Please don’t say Chase. Please don’t say Chase. “Is Chase… He promised…” He spat the word promise as if it was a blood oath. “…to take care of finding a new lawyer, and since the ball was dropped, it’s his new job to show you the ropes. You’ll be working for the Abandonato family first, learning how things were done from the notes your predecessor left…”
I nodded. “I’m capable. I can do it.”
“I’m not questioning you.” He drew out the word you then glanced behind me to Chase. The air crackled with heat, anger.
I heard something loud get slammed against a wall, and then Chase was storming past us and up the stairs.
I finally exhaled as if I hadn’t taken a breath since entering the house. “He always like that?”
Something flickered across Sergio’s face before he whispered, “No.” And then, “This is… new.”
“His shining personality is new?” Yay me.
Sergio locked his green eyes on mine. “Sometimes, life doesn’t play fair. I’ve seen my share of death and destruction. I am not a good man.” Why was he telling me this? Dread washed over me. Just who were these people? “But that doesn’t change the fact that nothing, nothing in this damn world could ever prepare me to go through what he’s lived through.”
“He looks too young to have gone through a war.” I tried to lighten the mood.
Sergio’s head snapped toward mine. “All wars are different. Some are lost with words unsaid.”
Heaviness settled across my chest at his pained expression. He grabbed a flash drive from his pocket and handed it over to me. “It’s encrypted.” He handed me a set of codes. “They change every hour. Be sure to put in the right code or the system starts attacking itself in order to burn all the information.”
“Burn,” I repeated. “As in a fire?”
“As in, you get burned and lose your identity, your social security number, your life, and your eye color. Burned. You no longer exist. This file gets burned, and we no longer exist, so try not to kill us.”
“Okay.” I was scared shitless. I grabbed toward the codes with shaking hands.
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He didn’t hand them over right away but gripped them tightly. “Nikolai says you’re capable.”
I gave him my most confident glare. “Trust him. And trust me.”
He released his grip and stepped back, just as something else crashed upstairs.
I flinched.
“Do yourself a favor…” He pointed me down the hall. “Lock the door to the office you’re in.”
My eyes widened. “Lock the door?”
“Keep the monster out.” He bit down on his lip as if he was trying to decide if it was smart to leave me and then he held out his hand. “Cell phone?”
I expected him to plug in his number, not grab it, drop it to the ground, and stomp all over it until it was shattered.
He handed me a new iPhone X. “Every number needed is plugged in. Don’t dial the number that says God unless you’re dying, and don’t call Chase on it. He doesn’t like anyone right now, especially humans who smile.”
I smiled.
He shook his head. “Ill-advised.”
My smile fell. “Alright, so do I just call you when I’m done?”
Sergio’s mouth twitched. “You’re working for the Abandonatos. Chase is your man. Make it work and pick a room.”
My stomach fell to my knees. “Pick. A. Room?”
“There are thirty-seven.” He shrugged. “Might I suggest grabbing the one farthest away from wherever he’s miserably existing?”
“How long?” I croaked. “How long do I have to stay here?”
“Finish the job. Move on to the next family.”
Finish the job. Move on to the next family. That was going to be my new mantra.
“And transportation?”
Sergio put on a pair of sunglasses and smirked. “Just don’t take his favorite car, and you’ll be fine.” He turned to leave.
“Wait!” I called. “Which one’s his favorite?”
He chuckled. “No clue. Good luck.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Chase wouldn’t try to take back the Family. Not now. He may be crazy, but I don’t see him making that move so aggressively. And if he does — he will rip apart the Abandonato dynasty faster than any of us could. On second thought, why not plant the seed?”
— Notes from interview with Agent P, FBI
Chase
She just had to be pretty, didn’t she?
My gut churned until I ran into the bathroom and puked all the whiskey and then some into the toilet. I grabbed a towel and wiped my face then grabbed some mouthwash and swished it around. I didn’t recognize the man in the mirror. The one with haunted eyes and dark circles beneath them.
Anger was like a second skin wrapped tight around my muscles, my bones. It was as much a part of me as my own damn lungs.
I slammed my fist into the mirror, shattering it on contact; pieces of glass stuck in my knuckles.
My expression in the mirror shifted.
More anger.
And sadness.
My blue eyes landed on a few pieces of dark inky hair that fell across my forehead.
I gripped one of the shards of glass from my right hand and inspected the blood as it trickled down my wrists. I don’t know how long I watched the blood leave my body and remembered the way it left hers.
Blood had trickled down her chin.
She’d reached for me…
Her hand outstretched as if to both beckon and stop me.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Chase!” Her voice screamed my name over and over again in my head, always begging me to forgive her, begging me to understand.
I wouldn’t forgive.
I wouldn’t understand.
I wasn’t that man anymore.
I would never be him.
I held the towel to my bloody hands then tossed it back on the counter and slowly walked into the bare room. I refused to keep anything that reminded me of her — of us — in the house. In a fit of rage, I’d grabbed every piece of clothing, every picture, every single thing she’d touched, tossed it in the back yard, and lit a match.
Half of her things were singed before Phoenix could douse the fire. The only reason I hadn’t burned part of my body was because he’d shown up. I’d been ready to take a step into the inferno, needing to prove to her ghost that I would walk through hell in order to punish her.
And when Phoenix left, in a moment of temptation, when the flames called again, I took another step. Dante knocked me on my ass and punched the shit out of me. I rubbed my jaw at the memory.
Six months.
It had been six months since I sat in that church.
Since I refused to look in the casket.
Since my soul died.
And I didn’t feel better.
Weren’t people supposed to feel better? Time healed. That was what Sergio said.
He’d never been so wrong.
Time? Time was the fuel to my rage, because every day I woke up still smelling her; every night I reached across the bed only to find a cold, empty memory of the lie I’d lived — I felt a little less human.
And a hell of a lot more crazy.
I jerked on a black t-shirt and tried to regain control of my thoughts. I couldn’t be weak, not with what I had to do.
Ten more families with cousins, sisters, wives, associates.
And I was going to end them all.
Shut down the De Lange bloodline — the bloodline that should have never existed in the first place. All they’d brought was pain, bad luck, anger, betrayal.
I’d been keeping vigorous notes on locations, aliases.
Sergio thought it would help me heal.
It took me two days to get all the intel I’d ever need.
The social security numbers.
Identities.
Locations.
I’d memorized each one.
And never said a word to my own blood about it.
It was my fucking right.
So why did I feel like death every time I fired the gun, every time I took another life? My death toll was suddenly substantially higher than the rest of my family. I was darkness.
Loneliness.
Pain.
It was all I had.
What I lived for.
I walked down the hall, fully intent on grabbing the keys and heading out to get drunk off my ass, when I saw an ass.
Not mine.
Just pushed up into the air behind a black pencil skirt.
The annoying girl was on all fours, organizing folders that looked older than Frank.
“You’re still here,” I said with disdain. “And I thought I scared you away.” I leaned against the door to the office.
“Shit,” she muttered under her breath.
“Such language.” Her ass was still pointed toward me. I walked over to her and bent down, intimidating her on purpose because she represented everything that was so wrong with this world. A pretty girl, in pretty clothes, thinking that she was owed something, some semblance of power or respect just because she looked the part. “You should have locked the door, princess.”
She stiffened and then looked over her shoulder. “I thought you were upstairs punching things. Had I known you knew how to carry on an actual conversation that didn’t include insults or yelling, I would have sought you out and introduced myself as your new roommate.”
She held out her hand.
I stared at it.
Then at her.
Then back at her hand. “The hell you are!”
“Look…” She stood on bare feet and put her hands on her hips. “…do you think I want to stay here? I signed a contract. A contract that would take an act of God to get out of, so yes, I’m staying here until I finish going over all the court cases attached to your name, until I look at all the overseas accounts and business holdings, until I know every inch of Abandonato Dynasty. And then when I’m finished, I’m starting in on a new family. You can either help or be a hindrance. Your choice.”
“Hindra
nce,” I snapped. “And you aren’t staying here. Find a hotel!”
“Sergio said—”
“Oh, Sergio, huh? On a first name basis with him? What, did you offer to spread your legs for him, too? Is that why you wear such tight skirts?”
She frowned and looked down. “My skirt isn’t—”
I held up my hand. “Do yourself a favor. Don’t speak.”
“But you just—”
I took an aggressive step toward her. “I need you to listen very carefully.” I squeezed her chin between my thumb and forefinger, ignoring how soft her skin felt and wondering why my heart suddenly started thudding louder than it had in six months. As if it wanted me to remember its presence loud and clear. “I don’t want you here. At all. I don’t want you breathing the same air, I don’t want you showering with the same water. As far as I’m concerned, you don’t exist. If you seek me out, you’ll regret it. In the meantime, I’m talking to Sergio about your living situation. Don’t fall asleep until I get back.” I released her skin and rubbed my hand against my jeans.
Her lips trembled. “Is that a request?”
“It’s an order.”
“I may work for you, but—”
“What did I say about speaking?” I tilted my head. God, the nerve of the girl. Didn’t she know who I was?
Her body shook.
Shit. Me.
He wouldn’t.
Nikolai wouldn’t do that.
He wouldn’t send…
I narrowed my eyes, briefly opened my mouth, shut it, then opened it again. “Do you know what I do for a living?”
She didn’t open her mouth.
“Answer the question.”
She bit down on her bottom lip and then shrugged. “Business?”
I burst out laughing; it wasn’t a joyful one, more of a mocking, holy shit you’re in for a treat so try to survive laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“Alright, princess.” I pulled the gun from behind my pants and pointed it at her. “I do business, capiche?”
She let out a scream so loud my ears rang and then ducked to the ground as if I’d somehow miss if she was pancaked against the wood floor.
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