by Zoey Derrick
Both men give me a chin lift before Liam says, “Don’t open the door for anyone. Stay in the room, no matter what. If there is any remote possibility they’ve figured any of this out, they will be here to collect.”
“I got this,” I tell them. After another chin lift and a reassuring smile from Liam, they leave.
“Thank god,” Livia groans before grabbing me by the shirt collar and dragging me into the master suite of the room. She slams the doors closed before pushing me up against them. She roughly pulls my face down to hers. Her lips meet mine in a kiss that fires straight to my cock. It’s carnal and animalistic, almost brutal.
We merge into a teeth-clashing, lip-catching, all-consuming kiss with frenzied hands fighting for shirts and pants to be removed. I grab her wrists to slow her down. “Don’t, I need this. I need you,” she begs and I can’t argue with that.
Somehow we both end up naked and she climbs on the bed and onto her knees. She spreads herself open and I take the not so subtle hint and climb behind her on the bed. I plunge my cock inside her dripping cunt and she cries out. “Fuck me, please,” she pleads.
I’ve never seen this side of her. She’s exposed and raw. I grab her hips and pull my cock out before slamming back inside her. “Harder!” she cries out.
I do as she asks, repeating the same motion. “Good, now faster.” Bossy wench.
A shiver slides up my spine as I realize what she’s begging me to do. In the back of mind, I know she needs this. If I don’t give this to her…I can only imagine what will happen. I squeeze her hips a little harder, she moans. I pull back and slam in, out and in. She cries out but starts to thrust her hips in time with mine. My mind goes blank. Rage consumes me as I give her what she needs. She’s begging me for a punishment I know she doesn’t deserve and I’m the one who’s here to hand it out.
As I brutishly thrust in and out of her, her moans turn to sobs. Tears trickle down her cheeks and I try to pull away. “Don’t, don’t stop, please, just…just fuck me, Bryan. Please.” Through her tears she begs me and I give her everything I possibly can until I feel her pussy clench around my cock and she explodes. Screaming in a way that makes my blood run cold. When her orgasm subsides, she relaxes and falls to pieces in my arms.
She doesn’t say a word; she doesn’t have to. I simply wrap her in my arms and gently stroke her hair, whispering honeyed words in her ear as she cries into my chest. The tears last the better part of an hour before she finally passes out in my arms.
I gently pick her up and awkwardly pull back the covers on the bed. I lay her down and cover her up. I kiss her temple and whisper, “I love you. You’re safe with me.”
She snuggles into the warmth of the sheets and I move to the window and close the curtains. I turn out the light that was on when we came in before grabbing my toiletries bag and heading to the bathroom for a shower.
For the first time in more than twenty-five years, I cry. I bawl as I remember the stories she’s told me about Fat Tony and how he and his men would punish her by raping and beating her. That’s exactly what she asked me to do to her just now and it breaks my heart that she was so wound up she felt she needed to be punished. My mind can’t catch up to the fact that she physically and emotionally needed it. There was absolutely no way I was going to be able to talk her off that ledge. She knew what she needed and she took everything I was willing to give her.
It wasn’t about me; it was all about her. About what she needed in that moment and for her, it was an orgasm forced out of her. My tears turn to retching when the idea of what I’ve just done solidifies in my veins. I vomit all over the tile floor of the shower.
When I finally manage to clean myself up and no longer feel like I’m the dirtiest asshole on the planet, I exit the shower and head into the bedroom. Livia’s breathing is nice and even and I find comfort in that. I kiss her on the temple once more before finding my clothes and getting dressed.
I shut the door quietly behind me, giving her quiet and some time to rest. I grab my laptop bag and go to work on a few things I didn’t finish on the plane.
I’m knee deep in emails when the door beeps, then clicks. My heart stops pumping in my chest and my breathing hitches until I hear Liam and his brother talking quietly as they enter.
“Where’s Livia?” Liam asks and I can only stare at him, conveying without words that it’s not a good topic of conversation right now.
“She’s asleep,” I tell him. He nods in silent understanding. “What did you find?”
“Everything,” Liam says as he sits down at the table with me. Declan follows, grabbing a chair next to his brother.
“Define ‘everything’.”
“Livia was right. That basement isn’t big enough for the money to be stored, but it was certainly big enough for these,” Declan says as he pulls his phone from his pocket. He clicks a few buttons before sliding the phone over to me.
“What am I looking at?” On the screen are pictures of metal plates that appear to have the outlines of lettering. The picture isn’t very clear.
“Those are printing plates,” Liam explains.
“It’s what they used to print their cash,” Declan adds. “Scroll to the next picture.” I swipe to the next picture. “From what we can tell, Ricci and his crew used smaller denomination bills, cleaned them of all their ink and reprinted them. Fives he turned to tens, tens to twenties, twenties to fifties, you get the idea. The bills would pass inspection because they had all the watermarks and would pass ink tests, but if the bills got wet, the ink would wash right off them.”
“Wow, I can’t…” I stammer. “My mind doesn’t work like this. I can’t even begin to process how this would work.”
“It’s okay,” Liam says. “It took me a long time to come to grips with the reality that men like Ricci exist to be begin with. Once you accept that, anything is possible.”
I nod. “So you said you found everything, but if all you have are the plates…”
“Scroll to the next picture,” Declan directs me.
It’s a picture of a letter addressed to Livia.
My Dearest Livia,
If you’re reading this, you’ve found the next piece of the puzzle. There is one more step you must take. Finding this final piece of the puzzle will be difficult, but you’re a smart girl, I have faith that you can do this.
Love always,
Dad
Below the signature is a series of numbers that make no sense to me whatsoever. “What do these numbers mean?”
“We were hoping Livia could help us with that,” Declan says.
“About that…” I look up from the picture of the letter Livia’s father left her and at the two men. “Do not get in her way again. Do you understand me, Declan?”
“Aye, she’s a feisty one.”
“She’s pissed off. As she should be,” I tell him with raised brows.
“Your men dropped the ball with her and you know it. She should have been, at the very least, given access to some type of crisis counseling, among other things, and your people failed to do that. How many of those girls that you rescued on your takedown are still alive?” I ask him.
“I can’t answer that,” Declan says.
“Sure, you can.”
“No, really, I can’t because I don’t know.”
“That’s the wrong answer, Declan,” I scold.
“We rescued more than three hundred girls over two days. More than a dozen of them died in the hospital from their injuries. Most of them were here illegally and those who wanted to stay were processed as such. Those who wanted to go home were sent home. It’s impossible for us to track that many women.”
“How about the daughter of an NYPD Detective? Or better yet, the niece of Vito Ricci? Didn’t you think it was appropriate to protect her?” Livia sneers from the doorway.
“What are you talking about?” Declan’s attitude rears its head. I personally want to punch the moron, and I haven’t thrown out the idea yet.
>
“Let it go, Livia,” Liam chides.
“No, I won’t let it go. I get it, believe me. You guys had your hands full after biting off more than you could chew, but what you failed to realize, or investigate, was that you had someone in your midst who wasn’t just a two-bit illegal or a slutty prostitute. You had me. I was a daughter ripped off the streets. I was a girl who was forcibly raped, beaten and tortured for information I didn’t have. I was a fifteen-year-old girl who was forced to watch her father die protecting the secret you two went to collect today.”
“We didn’t know all that…”
“You didn’t bother to find out,” she snaps back at Declan. “You were too goddamn busy trying to build a case against Ricci that you failed to see the innocent victims for what they were, victims. Not privy to or a party to the dealings happening within the Ricci circle, but real live girls who didn’t have a choice in the matter. Not to mention the fact that they, like me, probably didn’t know their rights as a victim. Hell, I was an eighteen-year old American who’d been held captive for more than two years and I didn’t know.”
“Let’s all take a deep breath,” Liam cuts into Livia’s rant.
“Don’t-” she starts to say but Liam stops her.
“The whole thing was fucked up from the word go. There were too many hands in the pot and the pot tipped over. Understand that a lot of things fell through the cracks back then,” Liam says.
“I’ll say,” Livia huffs.
Declan stands up. He’s posturing and it’s pissing me the fuck off. “Sit down,” I snap at him.
“What do you want me to say?” Declan snaps back.
“Say you’ll figure out a way to fix it,” Livia says.
Declan shrugs his shoulders. “I don’t know how,” Declan confesses.
“Let’s leave this conversation for another day,” I say calmer than I was a minute ago. Livia crosses her arms over her chest. “Relax, Livia. I get where you’re coming from and you’re right, but you’re asking Declan to fix something that’s out of his scope of authority. Am I right?” I look to Declan who nods solemnly. “Then this kind of passion may be put to better use with someone who can do something about it, right, Livi?”
“I’m sorry. I’m just angry. I didn’t expect to ever feel like this again.”
“It’s understandable, lass.” Liam smiles reassuringly at her. “If this is something you truly feel passionate about, maybe it’s time to crawl out of your shell and do something about it.”
Liam plants a seed in Livia’s mind that visibly blossoms in her features. Instead of expressing defeat, she lowers her arms and a determined posture takes over her body. “I’m sorry I never thought of that before,” I mutter.
Both Liam and Livia smile at me. “Alright. Now Livia, do you want to know what they found in the basement? Or are you going to continue yelling at Declan?” I ask her.
“I’m sorry,” she says again.
“It’s alright, darlin’.” Declan gives her a small smile to show there’s no hard feelings. “I’d like to help you get to where you need to be in order to get some answers. If you’ll let me.”
“I’d like that,” Livia says softly.
“Good, now who wants to share what you found?” I ask.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Undiscovered Secrets.
LIVIA
“Do you have any idea what that means?” Declan asks me. He’s just spent the last ten minutes explaining to me what they found and showing me the letter my father wrote to me.
“He seemed pretty confident that I would be the one to find all this,” I whisper. The vision of my father’s face when I shouted for him in that god-awful room fills my mind. He was completely petrified. But this only makes it hurt that much more. He knew they had me and yet he still didn’t give up what he knew. He was willing to die not knowing what Vito would do to me once he was dead. Then again, I knew nothing about any of this until today. Maybe my father took comfort in my ignorance.
“Livia?” Bryan’s voice pulls me from my thoughts.
“I’m sorry, what?” I ask.
“You alright?”
I nod, unsure of my own voice.
“Do you know what those numbers mean?” Declan asks me.
I look again at the sequence of numbers at the bottom of the letter. They look like any series of numbers. Just random numbers.
11222171101116161
“Is it a combination to something? A safe, maybe?” Bryan suggests.
I shake my head. “If he had a safe, I have no clue where it would be. Liam cleaned out the house. He would have found it.” I look to Liam and he shakes his head.
I keep staring at the numbers and something flitters on the edge of my memory but I can’t quite place it. “It’s a game,” I breathe. Unsure of what I said before I said it. “It’s something he and I used to do all the time. But I can’t recall…” I trail off as a memory comes to me.
“Daddy, daddy, look, I made you a new one.” I run into the living room from my bedroom.
“You did?” he says with a smile on his face.
“I did, and I bet you can’t figure this one out.”
“You think so, pumpkin?”
“I know so,” I say with confidence.
“Alright, let me work on it and I’ll let you know.” He smiles wide and I hand over a piece of paper that has a series of numbers spaced out. Sometimes it’s just one or two, other times it’s a whole series of numbers.
Y O U R E T H E B E S T E S T D A D D Y E V E R.
“I need a piece of paper,” I say frantically.
The memory of our many games comes flooding back to me. “It’s a numerical anagram,” I tell them as Bryan hands me a legal pad from his messenger bag. I flip to a clean page and take a seat at the table, turning the table sideways. I start by writing out the alphabet.
A D G J M P S V Y
B E H K N Q T W Z
C F I L O R U X
Once I’m done with the alphabet, I go back and add numbers below the letters.
A D G J M P S V Y
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
B E H K N Q T W Z
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
C F I L O R U X
19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26
“That doesn’t look like any key I’ve ever seen,” Declan says.
I look up from my pad of paper. “I know. That was the point. At five it was numerical and alphabetical order. When I was eight, we changed it up. I used to have it all memorized and we passed notes to each other using it.” I look back at the pad of paper. “I need the numbers again,” I tell him.
He reads the numbers to me and I write them down.
“A, A, D, doesn’t make sense. E, D either,” I mumble as I process through the numbers. Slowly it starts to take shape as I move down the list.
11 22 21 7 1 10 11 16 16 1
E L I S A B E T T A
“My mother,” I breathe. “Elisabetta, it spells her name. But what does that mean?” I look at Declan, then Liam and then finally my gaze lands on Bryan who has this awestruck expression on his face. To be honest, I’m surprised he’s looking at me at all after what I did to him earlier, but that’s a whole different discussion.
“Her grave?” Liam wonders aloud.
I shrug. “I don’t even know where she’s buried,” I tell him.
“I do,” Liam says sadly.
“That’s one place you will not be able to go without me,” I tell them. The conviction in my voice tells all three of them that they’re not to argue with me on this.
“We can’t go there without the Bureau,” Declan declares. “We need equipment and technology that we don’t have.”
“Elbow grease and shovels?” I say cynically, raising an eyebrow in question.
“And if the money is buried with her? What then?” Declan asks. “Are you planning on taking it for yourself?”
“Considering my mother died long before this fiasco happened, I can’t imagine
my father digging holes near her grave burying all that money. Let alone digging up her coffin and putting it in there. He loved my mother more than life itself. He’d never do that. As much as I hate to say it, there’s another clue at her grave. Whether on her headstone or buried.”
“She has a point,” Liam says. “Not only that, but Mercutio is buried right next to her. They would have found something when we buried him.”
“What kind of equipment are you thinking about?” Bryan asks Declan.
“GPR, ground penetrating radar. It would give us the chance to see underground without breaking the surface. It will also allow us a look inside the coffin on the off chance he did bury the money with her.”
“Not likely,” Liam and I say in unison. “Since we all seem to be in agreement that we’re looking for another clue, why not just get a metal detector and search?” I add.
“What if he didn’t bury it in metal?” Declan counters.
Liam snorts, “Then odds are whatever he buried there hasn’t survived the elements of the last eight years. It’s metal. Merc was no idiot.”
“If the metal detector doesn’t work, then I get to bring in my guys,” Declan throws out as a counter offer.
“Deal,” I agree. “Now, where do we get a metal detector?”
“I have one at home.”
“Go get it, let’s go,” I say while standing up. Bryan stops me with a hand on my wrist.
“I’m going to put my foot down on this. Not tonight.” He stares at me, begging me without words. “Whatever is there can wait one more day.”
“I agree. It’s getting late,” Declan says. “We can meet again tomorrow and go over there.”
“How do I know you won’t go first?” I say, glaring at him.
He puts his hands up in defense. “I don’t know where she’s buried.”