by Nina Park
"He's going to kill you," Nick shouted, and Vincent winced. So that was where they were. "He's going to kill you, and then he's going to kill me. Do you know who she is to him?"
Vincent dodged another sloppy punch – Nick was furious, it turned out, not really fighting – and then shook his head. "I used to be someone to him, too, man. When my parents were gone, he kept an eye on me. And Alina and I… Man, it started as something harsh and grieving, but it's more than that now. I think. She says. And we're – I think this might be a real thing."
Nick had drawn his hand back for another hit, but he went soft at that. He shook his head. "For your sake, man, you better hope it is. If she says something different..."
For the first time, Vincent found himself considering the other side of things. If Alina said that he'd forced her in any way – Jesus, Frank would rip his balls off and stuff them in his ears. And if Frank really were gone, Nick would take care of it for him, considering it part of Frank's last requests whether the man had said it or not.
Vincent didn't think Alina would do something like that. Sure, the sex had been rough between them, but there had been plenty of chances for her to leave. And she hadn't. She had to want to be here. That had to be how it was. He had to believe that.
Nick saw the emotions rolling over his face, and the man shook his head. "I don't think she's the sort to lie about it. She's a good girl, for all that she liked to party as hard as she could. But you gotta think about the kind of thing that could happen, you know?"
There was part of Vincent that wanted to scream about being treated like a high school kid when he was in his twenties, but most of him was just wound up in adrenaline and fury. He didn't even want to think about what would happen if Alina said he'd hurt her. Or worse, clearly, if he actually had hurt her. He could remember that first time in the dressing room so clearly. She'd been begging for him – but had she? His brain went for a spin, trying to remember every detail about what had happened, just in case there was a place where he had overstepped, gone too far, or pushed too hard.
He couldn't think this way. At least not until she was in front of him, and he could ask her and make sure. And there were bigger worries to consider. Much bigger.
"Tell me what you know about where she could be," Nick said, and Vincent nodded.
It was time to go get his girl.
Chapter Eighteen
Alina had no idea what time it was when she woke up. Her back ached like crazy, her neck felt like if she tried to move it, it might just twist right off, and her hands were wet with drool. Sexy. Her palms were on something rough, a blanket? But nothing like the ones she kept around. This was harsh under her fingers, scratchy.
And then there was a heavy pressure on the top of her head, and it all came back in a rush… Her late-night drive away from Vincent and to the hospital where she believed her father was recovering from a gunshot wound and then a chain of serious infections… Talking her way into the hospital after visiting hours… Finding him… The surge of relief that came when he was in front of her, even if he did look small and weak under the thin hospital blankets… The exhaustion that came with the relief, the relaxation of knowing that her beloved Daddy was safe, that all these months of worry weren't going to end in tragedy.
She raised her head slowly, pushing through the creaks and the aches to turn towards the head of the bed. He was awake, his hand resting on her head and tears shining in his eyes.
"Linnie," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "My baby girl. Are you an angel?"
Alina blinked fast, trying to reorient herself. "What? Daddy, what are you talking about?"
A single tear spilled down his cheek. "You were dead. Baby girl, she told me you were dead."
"What?" She sat up, even though it hurt. "I'm fine. Daddy, you had Nick send Vincent for me. Or Nick sent him himself, I don't know anymore. But still. Didn't they tell you I was okay?"
Her father shook his head. "Nick – Vincent – what do you mean? The entire family was wiped out. This is why I wasn't brought to the usual treatment facility. Why we used one of my aliases and came here, to this other place. So that I could be treated safely, and our enemies would not wipe out all of the Costas. It hurts me to lose what my father – my grandfather – built, but I can believe it is our time." He put his hand in Alina's and squeezed. "But tell me, how did you survive? I was told they came for you at school? My clever girl. Did you run?"
Alina shook her head hard. "Daddy, no. None of that—"
Except what did she really know? She hadn't spoken to Nick herself. She hadn't spoken to anyone from the family. She'd taken Vincent at his word that he'd been sent for her. He'd told her that he was looking for Frank this whole time, but what proof had she ever really had that he was doing it? It could all have been an elaborate scheme to – what? Hold her hostage so that her father would sign over the Costa wealth, or transfer the family power to one of the other families in the area? The Russians, maybe, or the Japanese? It wasn't likely, but it was certainly possible.
She'd followed along like a little girl, congratulating herself on how well she was behaving right up until she started falling all over Vincent's dick like it was made of chocolate. And after that – well, she'd never really looked back, had she? She'd told herself she was in love, and she'd – Oh god. She pressed one hand over her stomach, over the slight swelling that was there. She'd let this happen. She'd encouraged this.
She didn't regret the baby, she knew that as soon as the thought surfaced in her mind. But she had absolutely no idea what was going on, or how to find out the truth. But she was with her father. That much, at least, was true. And that was something. That was more than something.
"I'm not sure what's going on," she said, keeping her voice more measured. "I know that Vincent is still alive. He came to get me at school – about four or five months ago now. The same night you were shot, I think. He told me that Nick had sent him to keep me safe. I believed him, and we've been hiding ever since."
Her father shook his head. He had some strength as well; he pushed himself up into a better-seated posture, then adjusted the bed to support him. His color wasn't as bad as it had been while he was asleep. The longer he was awake, the more he looked like her father. Though he badly needed a haircut.
His voice was steadier now. "I see," he said in the analytical, careful tone that she associated from the meetings with the capos she'd overheard as a child, first coloring on the floor and then later reading in the corner of Daddy's office. "Obviously one of us has been misinformed. You were taken from school?"
She nodded. "I was—" Drunk and dirty dancing in the middle of a frat party with a guy who probably would have date-raped me if Vincent hadn't shown up. "—out with friends, and Vincent interrupted us. He pulled me out and tossed me in an SUV. Politely!" she exclaimed when her father's face darkened. "Promise, Daddy. Whatever else was going on, he was very nice about – you know, acting like an insistent bodyguard. We left the campus and drove most of the night. We stayed in a couple of different hotels, called in a few favors. He had clean cards, and he said that he'd gotten them from Nick, but I never spoke to him or saw him. Vincent just came back with them. We were in one hotel for a couple of months, and then Vincent saw a team of hitters in the lobby. We went out the back, and we found another place to stay."
"And how did you find me, baby girl?"
"I'd been looking for your name everywhere. I thought if you were dead – or even if you'd been shot and the papers had gotten wind of it – I'd be able to find something. But when nothing came up, and it had been months, it occurred to me that maybe, for whatever reason, you'd had to operate under an alias. So, I started calling all the hospitals in the city, asking for your different aliases. It took a little while, Mr. Degas," she said, putting a teasing emphasis on the name and nudging his leg with her hand. "But I found you."
He nodded, that calculating look still on his face. "Well done. But you should have thought of this
sooner. Remember this for next time." He held up a hand and laughed. "Hopefully there is not a next time for me, but remember that you must examine all possibilities as soon as possible. The families do not allow for hesitation. They especially will not tolerate it from you."
Alina couldn't help turning her head to the side in confusion. "Daddy... I'm never going to lead a family. You know that. Even if I wanted to – which I don't – and even if the Costas still had power – which you say they don't – no one would follow a woman. There wasn't a single woman who held Costa power unless she was holding it in trust for her son, and even then, it was always really her brother or her uncle who was running the show, and we all knew it."
Her father brushed away her words with a wave of his hand. "It's the twenty-first century, Alina," he said, as confident as any social justice warrior on Tumblr. "Get with the new millennium. Someone has to show them how things will be done. You and I, we can rebuild what has been destroyed, and when that has been done, I will hand the power to you, and you will do with it what you want."
Alina took a long, deep breath. "Daddy, I don't want that kind of blood on my hands. I'm not blaming you for a single thing you've ever done, but I don't want that to be my life. Not for myself." Another, even deeper breath. "And not for my baby."
It took a moment for the words to sink in. There was a moment of softness – if she had to guess, that was the one where he realized he would be a grandfather – and then a darkening that pushed towards rage as he realized that meant she had, at some point, had sex.
"Alina," he said, his voice the commanding one that had defined much of her childhood, the soft pet names gone.
"No, Daddy," she said before he could get started. And then, after a moment, she corrected herself. "Dad. It's not going to go like that."
"Who, Alina? That Johnny from your school? He isn't good enough for you, he never will be."
For a moment, she remembered Vincent's offer. His suggestion, even – that she call Johnny, tell him one of the condoms must have broken, that she lie. Claim that the baby was his. He really was the sort who would marry her to prevent any kind of scandal against his family name. It would be a marriage in name only, she suspected, with either or both of them exploring dalliances on the side as often as they wanted, so long as discretion was maintained. He would be the CEO of something, and she would chair this or that, and they would both live the lives they'd been raised to. Well, her skill set would be put to a less bloody purpose, but the same basic idea would be maintained. And if she told her father that the baby was Johnny's – well, even if Johnny or Johnny's parents had ideas about questioning that, Frank Costa would sort them out.
And it would protect Vincent. Somehow, even with the doubts in her head about what might have happened between them, she wanted to protect him. Even if she had been vulnerable, even if she maybe should have waited and been surer about what she wanted when she wasn't terrified and grief-stricken – she certainly hadn't turned him down. She had wanted every single thing he offered her.
And even if it had been under false pretenses – God he'd been incredible in bed. And if he'd been lying this whole time, he would be punished enough. There wasn't any point in adding this on top of everything else.
But it would be lying to her father, and she'd worked really hard throughout her life to do that as little as possible.
"Not Johnny, Dad," she said. "Johnny – you were right about him. He wasn't good for me. But Vincent – I don't know what's true and what isn't right now, but I know that he took good care of me. If he was keeping me hostage or something, he never once mistreated me. And Daddy—" The emotional plea would work better with that word, and she knew it, and she hated herself for knowing it. "—I think I love him."
She could see him working to decide which emotion was more appropriate. Rage at Vincent for touching his baby girl, or softness at his baby girl's declaration of love for a man, whatever his relationship to the family.
"We will need to talk about this more," he said, finally. "When things are settled. I should be able to leave here soon, I think. I've been getting stronger. I can walk on my own now. The families will see that I am as strong as I ever was. That is what matters the most."
It would have been easy to agree. It would have made sense. But there was a stone Alina found she couldn't leave unturned.
"There's another thing." She took a deep breath. "Who's Dez?"
For the first time in her entire life, Alina saw her father shift uncomfortably. No one had ever unsettled him in her presence, not in all of her life. Not another family head, not the police who invariably came around to ask questions that never came to anything, and not even the man who had tried to kidnap her, and had ultimately been executed by her own father. She'd never seen him so much as flinch.
But now, Frank Costa's cheeks colored bright red, and he blustered instead of answering.
Which meant it was a perfect time for the door to the room to open, and for a woman to walk through.
From the way her father's face lit up, Alina knew without asking that this was the woman she'd been hearing about from Vincent, and she knew without a doubt that her father was in love with her. Alina's stomach twisted up, just a little bit.
Dez was beautiful. Alina guessed that she was in her forties, but she'd worked hard to keep herself looking young – but not too young. Whatever work she'd had done was light-handed, just making sure that age behaved itself gracefully instead of pretending that it wasn't happening at all. Her hair was a dark brown color that Alina would have bet her left arm came out of a bottle, but there was just enough silver-gray threaded through to make her think the color could be natural. And she was dressed impeccably. Of course, if she'd had access to the Costa accounts, staying dressed in the latest styles was easy enough; Alina's own closets were proof enough of that.
She swept into the room like she expected to be the only thing in it that mattered, and when she saw Alina there, sitting by her father's bedside, there was a flash of – irritation? Frustration? It passed so quickly that Alina struggled to get a real read on what it was, but it was clear that the woman was not happy to see someone else at Frank's bedside.
But the negative emotion transitioned into something that approached delight so fast that Alina could barely catch her breath. Dez rushed forward and swept Alina into a hug. It was only a lifetime of women who wore too much expensive perfume – and men with too much cologne, let's be honest – that kept her from coughing at the scent Dez wore.
"You must be Alina," she cried out. "My goodness, we've been so worried. We thought something awful might have happened."
The emphasis on 'we' was subtle, but it was there over and over again, and it made Alina very cautious of the woman. She held the embrace only as long as was strictly necessary, and then shifted free. The way her father seemed to glow at this stranger only made it odder that he'd never said anything to his daughter about Dez. None of it made any sense – but Alina wasn't going to get to the bottom of it while the woman was in the room.
"It seems like everyone was worried about everyone," Alina said, trying to keep her tone light. "Daddy had no idea where I was, and I was sure he was dead. Someone's definitely been playing things in all sorts of directions."
Dez's face didn't flicker, not for a moment. "That's just terrifying," she said. "I can't believe someone would do something so… malicious. Frank, you've got to find out what's going on and fix it." Dez's hands fluttered like someone genuinely helpless – and Alina noticed that her right hand dipped into her pocket, clearly palming something. She stepped in close to Frank, sliding in on his other side, and taking his hand.
Alina saw the right hand moving towards her father, and she reacted before she thought. She slapped at Dez's hands, practically throwing herself across the bed to do it. The item in her hand slipped, but not before Alina felt a sharp prick in her hand. A hypodermic needle, she realized, as it dropped to the ground. Fear coursed through her. Was it poison? W
as she trying to kill Frank? Nothing could possibly be right with this.
All the culture and softness vanished from Dez's polished face. She screamed, grabbed Alina by the hair, and hauled her across the bed. Frank shouted and tried to move, but he was clearly still weak, and Alina couldn't do anything but try to avoid kicking him in the face while still getting her feet under herself before she was dragged down onto the floor. She got one foot there, but the other got hung up in the bed rail; Dez's hands in her hair yanked hard, and she felt strands tear free.
She managed to get her hands around Dez's knees and pull hard, breaking her balance and pulling the other woman down to the floor. The pressure on her hair eased, and she rolled over, pinning Dez to the ground before she could get away. The woman fought hard underneath her, but Alina managed to keep her balance for a long moment – but then Dez bucked hard, and with Alina's center of balance shifting from the start of her baby bump, she couldn't keep control. She didn't fall over, but Dez got enough purchase to shift Alina off her hips, and then she was able to roll to the side and dive for the needle.