by Nicole Fox
“You didn’t persuade me,” I say, almost laughing at the absurdity. “I only accepted the deal because of what the Volkovs did to Samuel. I accepted the deal because I was crazy enough to love you and want to protect you.”
The smile that spreads across my father’s face chills me to the bone. “That was my persuasion.”
I blink, confused. “What?”
“I planted the bomb,” he says with a shrug. “You are soft, and I knew your aversion to violence would push you to make peace. Plus, it was really killing two birds with one stone. I was sick of Samuel contradicting me. I need an advisor who is on my side, and he clearly wasn’t.”
I remember Samuel telling me at the funeral that he was trying to persuade my father against the deal with Luka. He was trying to help me, and my father killed him for it.
I’m speechless. The world is crashing down around me, and I can’t move. Can’t breathe. Can’t speak. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. My father told me the Volkovs were cold-hearted and ruthless, but Luka believes in loyalty. It is why even the thought that I could have deceived him sent him into a spiral. He trusted me, and my father made him believe I fooled him.
“Why did you attack the wedding?” I ask finally. “I was doing what you wanted. Why did you interrupt things?”
“Because I wanted Luka dead.” The words echo back to me off the concrete floors, and they hurt just as much the second time. He looks over his shoulder at the men around him, eyes narrowed. The men seem to shrink under his gaze, ashamed. “The attack was meant to be more… effective… than it was. Unfortunately, it failed, and we had to regroup. But finally, things are back on track. Luka will come here to save you, I’ll take my guns back, kill him, and things can go back to normal.”
Normal. He says it like that word has meaning. Like there is any such thing. My ‘normal’ was a lie. If Luka is killed, I don’t know what normal would even look like.
He sighs and then pulls out his phone and hands it to me. “I already told Luka I had you, but I’d like to really sell it.”
“What do you want me to do?” I ask, looking from him to the phone.
“Ask him for help,” he says, waving a hand like I should know how to do this. “Cry and scream. Really sell it.”
I shake my head. I’m not going to beg Luka to come and save me because he actually might. Besides, some part of me clings to the hope that my father wouldn’t really hurt me. That he wouldn’t actually put me in harm’s way.
Before the thought can fully formulate in my mind, there is a loud crack and my head snaps sideways. My cheek is on fire, and my father shakes his hand, wincing slightly. Then, he chuckles. “You have a bony cheek.”
The men around him chuckle and shift on their feet. They are like hungry dogs who smell blood. Given the opportunity, they’d rip me to shreds.
Tears burn in my eyes, and my father nods encouragingly. “That’s it. Tell him to come save you.”
I shake my head again, and immediately there is another crack across my other cheek. This time, I yelp. And to cement his intentions, my father slaps me a third time.
A sob breaks free from my chest, but I try to hold it in. My father bends down in front of me and lifts my chin. “Don’t make me hit you again, Eve.”
“I didn’t make you do anything,” I say, my voice shaking.
He shakes his head, disappointed, and then runs a hand down my stomach. “And don’t make me hurt my grandchild.”
I stare into his eyes—the same caramel shade as my own—and shake my head. “You wouldn’t.”
He steps back and gestures to the man behind him. The man who had the gun. He steps forward, eyes bright with violence, and brandishes a long pole. He holds it out to the side like it is a baseball bat and he is approaching the plate.
My arms are tied behind my back. I can’t protect myself. I try to bring my knees into my chest, but it isn’t enough. He is getting closer and panic claws at my chest. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m screaming.
“My baby. No. Not my baby. Please, no.” The man keeps coming towards me, and I look to my father for help, but he is just watching me like I’m in a nature documentary. Like it is too bad about the antelope, but a lion has to eat. “Luka. Luka, please. Help me!”
26
Luka
I’m so exhausted from being up all night planning that I first think the voicemail might be a nightmare. I’ve been planning and plotting how to get to Eve and save her without losing my own life. Not that I care much about my own safety, but if I die, Eve doesn’t stand a chance of escaping. I have to survive to save her, it is that simple. It is just after dawn, and I’m no closer to knowing where Eve is being held than I was when I got the first message. And then, the second arrives.
Eve’s screams are so loud the speaker on my phone goes staticky and the phone vibrates in my hand. It sounds too horrible to be real.
Not my baby. No, not my baby.
I listen to it once, twice, three times. Letting the words and the reality of it wash over me. Letting it sharpen and hone my anger into a blade. Eve is pregnant with my child, and she is in danger. From her own father, no less. I should have killed Benedetto the night I spoke to him in the bar. The night he discussed his own daughter like she was nothing more than an object to be traded. I knew something was wrong with the way he viewed her, and now she is in his possession, screaming for my help.
I want to kill every person who stands between us. I want to cut down anyone who dares get in my way, but for the first time in my life, I have to temper my rage. Rather than giving myself over to the bloodlust, I have to use it to focus my energies on what is important. Not revenge, but Eve. Eve and our child take priority over everything.
There is no time to waste. I can’t spend another minute guessing where she might be being held. I have to go to the only person I know who might be able to help.
Seeing Patrick O’Neill’s house during the day is strange. It looks serene. There are flowers blooming in the front garden and nearly trimmed hedges lining the walkway. It is like a house from a story book, the roof steeply pitched with a screened in sun porch off to the side. A baby pool and wagon sit in the grass, reminding me that I am going to have my own child soon. So long as I can get to Eve in time.
For the first time, I knock on Patrick’s front door rather than sneak in the back. If he is smart, he has changed the locks by now, anyway. I wait several seconds until I hear a bolt click and a young, red-haired woman answers the door.
“Hello?” she smiles up at me, oblivious to the fact that I’ve been in her home before. That I’m the man who nearly killed her husband.
“I’m here to speak with Patrick O’Neill,” I say in my best door-to-door salesman voice.
She frowns. “I’m sorry, he isn’t here.”
After the state I left him in, I can’t imagine he is well enough to be taking day trips. “Do you have any idea when he will return?”
“He is actually in the hospital recovering from knee surgery. Maybe try again next week?” Behind her, a baby starts to cry, and she glances over her shoulder before turning back to me and beginning to close the door. “Sorry, I have to go. Try next week, okay?”
I can still hear the baby crying when she closes the door. The sound mixes with the memory of Eve screaming into the phone, begging for me to help her. Begging for her baby to be saved. I get in my car and head for the nearest hospital.
Patient privacy is a big deal to hospital staff, but a smile and a wad of cash goes a long way towards loosening lips. It takes ten minutes from the time I walk through the automatic sliding doors of the hospital to gain access to O’Neill’s recovery room. When I walk in, he is sitting up in bed eating from a gelatin cup, laughing at a joke from a morning talk show host. He glances disinterestedly towards me, probably assuming I’m just another nurse coming around to check his blood pressure, and looks away before doing a rapid double take. The heart monitor next to his bed begins to beep rapidl
y.
“I’m not here to shoot you again, so calm down,” I say, keeping my distance from the bed.
“Do you have a knife?” he asks, his eyes darting to each of my hands and then my waist, searching for weapon.
“I’m also not here to stab you.” I hold up my hands to him, palms out. “I came to talk.”
He grabs the remote and mutes the television hanging from the ceiling in the corner. “The last few times you came to talk, I almost died, so you’ll have to excuse me for being nervous.”
“You are the one who made an enemy out of me,” I remind him. “I didn’t even know your name before you decided to team up with Benedetto Furino.”
He sighs, his shoulders sagging like he is weary to his core. “I don’t have enemies. I don’t give a shit about the Furinos or the Volkovs or the Irish. I just don’t want to be shot.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Then you picked a bad line of work.”
“Tell me about it.” He gestures to his right knee, which is wrapped in a thick bandage. Then, he turns to me, hands folded in his lap. “What do you want now? I told you everything I know.”
I step forward, not wanting to waste another second. “Where would the Irish hold someone hostage?”
“The shipyard, probably. The same place they stored the guns.”
I shake my head. “I’ve already been there. She isn’t there.”
“She?” he asks, eyebrows pulled together. “Eve?”
I nod, jaw clenching at the thought. “They took her.”
“But she’s Benedetto’s daughter.”
“Someone should tell Benedetto,” I say coldly.
He curses under his breath. “That is fucked up.”
“She’s pregnant, too,” I admit, saying the words out loud for the first time. “Benedetto knows, and he is threatening the baby if I don’t hand over the guns I stole.”
Patrick runs a hand down his face. “I’d tell you just to give back the guns, but I think we both know it’s a trap. He’ll kill you.”
“Which is why I need to surprise them,” I say. “They are expecting me to reach out and set up a meeting location, so I need to ambush them. I need to surprise them and get Eve out of there before he can hurt her.”
Patrick’s forehead wrinkles in thought, his lips twisting to the side, and then his eyes widen. “There’s a warehouse. I’m not exactly sure where it is because I’ve never been there, but I can draw you a map. The place is abandoned, so if I can get you to the right area, I’m sure you can find it.”
I rush to the small desk in the corner and grab a pad of hospital stationery and a pencil. Patrick takes it from me, uncaps the pen, and then stops, the tip hovering over the paper. He looks up at me from the corner of his eye.
“What?”
He drops the pen into his lap and folds his hands. “I’m going to need you to do something for me in return.”
I groan. I do not have time for this, but I also don’t have time to do this without him. “What?” I growl.
“You have money,” he says, stating the obvious. I circle my hand for him to continue. “Get me and my family out of this city. Away from this life.”
I frown. “But you work with the Irish. Why would you trust me to help you?”
“For the same reason you trusted me not to tell the rest of my family you were coming for their guns and for the same reason you are trusting me to tell you the location of the warehouse where they are holding your girl,” he says, lowering his chin so he is looking up at me from beneath lowered brows. “Because I don’t have another choice. I let you attack the Irish without giving them any warning, and now I’m in the hospital with a gunshot to my knee. How long do you think it will take them to figure out that I’m the one who gave you the information?”
He’s right. It won’t take long before he has Irish hitmen lurking in his garden.
“I just want to be somewhere safe where I can raise my family,” he says. “Nothing fancy or lavish. Just a new start in a new place. That’s it.”
The request is so modest that I can’t possibly refuse him. Especially when doing so would mean not finding Eve. I nod. “Deal. As soon as I have Eve, you’ll get your fresh start.”
We shake on it, and he draws me a map.
I can see the hesitation in his eyes as he hands me the slip of paper. He truly has nothing to bargain with. He has to count on me being a man of my word, and lucky for him, I am. As I drive towards the warehouse, I make a few calls to begin arranging the “disappearance” of the O’Neill family.
27
Eve
The room is windowless and cold, and I huddle in the corner, knees drawn to my chest to keep warm. I don’t know what time it is or how long I’ve been held prisoner, but it feels like weeks. I’m thirsty and tired. My bones ache from the concrete floor, and my eyes burn from the dust in the air.
So far, the torment has been mental. Taunts mixed with the threats of physical violence that never come. Though, as time wears on, I suspect the threats will turn to action. My father can only hold back his dogs so long, and even now, he is hardly trying.
I feel like such a fool thinking he loved me. Thinking my father cared about me at all. If he did, he wouldn’t have pushed me into the arms of Luka when it was the last thing I wanted. Though, to make matters even more confusing, Luka is now the only man I know I can trust. I can’t decide whether to hate my father or thank him for tricking me into the marriage.
I can decide on one thing, though: I hate him for making me send that message to Luka. Because Luka will answer it. No matter how he feels about me, he’ll come for me. I know it. Loyalty is important to him, and I am carrying his child. He’ll come for me.
And he’ll be killed.
I try not to think about it, but the thought refuses to go away. No matter how hard I try to keep it at bay, it always comes back around. Luka will be killed, and I will be responsible. Then, I’ll be left alone. Will they hurt my baby? Will they kill me too? All of the possibilities are too horrible to consider, and yet, I can’t seem to stop.
When the door to my room opens, I sit up straighter, trying to disappear into the shadows of the corner.
“Wakey, wakey,” my father says, walking in with a glass of water in his hand. “How did you sleep?”
The question sounds genuine, but I know he is making fun of me. I insulted him and disobeyed him, and he is enjoying my punishment. To him, this is justice.
I don’t answer and instead, reach out for the cup. He sits it on the floor and scoots it closer to me with the toe of his shoe like he is offering it to a wild animal instead of his daughter. I’m too thirsty to care. I grab the glass and drink it greedily, tipping it back for every last drop.
“Well.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks around the room like he is searching for something he lost. “It has been twelve hours since your husband received our message, and yet, he has made no efforts to get in contact with us.”
My heart sinks slightly, but I do not lose hope. Luka will come for me. Or, rather, for us. I know it.
“He has not reached out to ask about your wellbeing or find out where you are being kept.” He shrugs. “Perhaps, you are not incentive for him to give up the weapons he stole. Perhaps, you are not worth the money he could make.”
Luka doesn’t care about money. His father is more of the businessman. Luka cares about justice and loyalty, which is why I know he doesn’t care about selling a bunch of guns. His father might, but Luka would throw them in the ocean just to watch them sink. He didn’t steal those guns so he could sell them, but so that the Irish couldn’t. It was payback for attack at our wedding, nothing more.
“You are quiet today,” he says, kneeling down in front of me.
I glare up at him, eyebrows lowered. I hate him. I hate him now more than I ever loved him.
“Something got you down, little girl?” He reaches out to touch my chin, and I swat his hand away.
“Don’t touch me.”
He pulls his hand back, smiling—though there is a hard edge to it—and stands up. “That command will work on me, but it won’t work on the other guys. I put you in this room to keep you separate from them, but soon enough, even this door won’t keep you safe.”
A chill runs through me, and I try to fight it off, but he sees it. And smiles.
“You are right to be afraid. Those men out there hate Luka for stealing from them, and they are happy to get back at him by hurting you. Though,” he says, bobbing his head back and forth. “Maybe it won’t be such good revenge, after all. It seems, baby or no baby, your husband really was just in this marriage for the business connections. I thought maybe he loved you, but I’ve been wrong before.”
He cares. Luka cares about me. At least enough that he doesn’t want me to be tortured and killed. And even if he does hate me, he’ll save his child. He’ll come to protect his baby.
I repeat the words to myself over and over again, trying to convince myself of their truth. Because the moment I listen to my father and allow myself to doubt, I will lose all hope. And without hope, I’ll die.
“What?” he asks, kneeling down again. “Nothing to say?”
“Not to you.” I look over his shoulder, staring at the far wall.
He moves to get in my line of sight. “You should be nicer to me, Eve. I’m the only one standing between the Irish and you and your baby. You should think about that before you disrespect me.”
His face is so smug and so close to mine that I can’t help myself. I pull back and let spit fly. It hits him in his cheek, and he cries out in disgust, turning away to drag his sleeve across his face. When he faces me again, his neck is red, and his jaw is clenched. “I can’t believe I raised such a little bitch. Maybe I should drag you out to the boys and give you a little taste of exactly what I’m saving you from.”