Alpha Prince (Twisted Royals, #1)

by Sidney Bristol

  “You have to be Taylor’s prince now. She needs someone to save her. She’s too nice. I don’t want bad stuff to happen to her, too.”

  Ian swallowed the lump lodged in his throat. If he could go out there and deck George in his beady little eyes, he would. Instead of being a proper father, letting his little girl be a child, he’d raised a woman trapped in a tiny body. Stacey would never get the opportunity to just be a kid with George as a father.

  “I’m goin’ to do everythin’ I can for Taylor. Right now, she’s worried about you. You just went an’ disappeared on us.” He tapped her nose.

  Kade’s radio crackled, the voice on the other end spewing a random assortment of letters and numbers, a code that made his face crease.

  “We need to clear the area,” he said.

  “All right, Princess Stacey, let’s go show Taylor you’re okay. Got the pup, Kade?”

  “Right here.”

  Ian scooped Stacey up but left the bag. From the looks of it, it was all Josh’s stuff and nothing at all that would fit Taylor.

  They went up the back stair and out into the backyard.

  More police were around now, and the house staff kept farther back.

  The cops would need a warrant to do any kind of search and seizure, so he was glad Owen was playing it safe. Maybe Stacey would still get to go somewhere that would let her be a kid.

  “Ian?” Owen waved them over to where he and Taylor stood against the fence.

  Ian put Stacey down before closing in on his friend, Kade right there with them.

  “I think it would be wise if you and Taylor went somewhere. Now. Keep me in the loop, okay?” Owen stared at him as though he were willing a bit of information to pass from brain to brain without words.

  “Come on, I’ll give you guys a ride out,” Kade said. “Can I keep the puppy?”

  “No, doofus. Where are the other six?”

  “There are seven puppies?”

  “Yup.”

  “And you said this one is named...?”

  “Sneezy. They’re Doc, Dopey, Bashful, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy and Happy.” Ian ticked off each one on his fingers. “They’re miniature French Bulldogs.”

  “And they were named after the seven dwarves?” Kade snickered and laughed. “It’s all too much, dude.”

  “You’re tellin’ me.”

  Ian waited for Taylor and Stacey to say their goodbyes. He hoped this wasn’t the last time they saw each other. The two had a very special bond. He ushered Taylor around the house and into the ambulance with the rest of Kade’s team. Soon enough they were on their way.

  Where?

  He didn’t know, but at least it was away from George.

  Ciro stared at the woman across the bar.

  What the fuck was she doing here?

  “Where’s my money?” Cat held out her hand. She was still wearing pajamas and had a duffle bag slung over her shoulder.

  “I told you, I’d drop the money at the spot at noon.” Ciro fought the urge to ball his hand into a fist.

  “Yeah, well, I want to be somewhere else at noon. The money?” Cat slapped the counter. “They’re about to search the place. When they do, everyone is going to be arrested. I’m not going down with George.”

  “Not my problem.” Ciro couldn’t find an ounce of regret for bringing about George’s demise. From the looks of things, the cops were taking advantage of this golden opportunity to stick their noses in his business. Ciro was willing to bet that by the end of the week, George would be either dead or behind bars.

  “This,” Cat flung her hand toward the windows, “would never have happened, if I hadn’t helped you. You owe me.”

  Ciro’s phone rang.

  He frowned at the screen.

  It was still pretty early for his guy at the bar back home to be calling.

  “I’ve got to take this.” Ciro turned and pressed the phone to his ear. He didn’t need to take it, but Cat wasn’t important enough to pass up a call.

  “Where the hell are you?” The bartender sounded out of breath.

  “I’m out of town on a job. What’s up?”

  “Have you heard?”

  “About? You’ll have to be a little more specific.”

  “Vito married Julia yesterday.”

  “What?” Ciro stared at the wall without seeing it. Julia and Vito?

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No, I’m out of town.” Ciro whirled around and stalked toward his laptop. He’d been so focused on what they were doing he hadn’t paid attention to any of the chatter from back home.

  “She married the guy after talking about killing him. You’re close to her. What’s going on, man?”

  “Nothing. I’ll call you later.” Ciro hung up.

  “What about me?” Cat demanded.

  Ciro didn’t have time to humor the woman. The whole game had just changed.

  “Cat, your services are no longer required.” He picked up the gun behind the laptop, turned and fired. The pft of the silencer wasn’t enough to deaden the noise, but it didn’t blast his eardrums.

  Cat stared at him, then the growing stain of red on her pajamas.

  “You should have taken what I’d given you and go.” Ciro turned back to the desk.

  The woman stumbled and fell to the floor, no longer his concern.

  Ciro sat down at the laptop. A couple of keystrokes gained him entry to one of the dark web message boards he and a couple wise guys used to keep track of the movers and shakers.

  There were several posts about Julia. And Vito.

  It wasn’t just rumor, if this many people were talking about it.

  Ciro sat back.

  Why was it that chump was getting taken care of, when Ciro was the one putting his neck on the line?

  Knowing Julia, the kid wouldn’t last long. She was doing what she had to, but damn that stung.

  Ciro pulled out his phone and sent Julia yet another text.

  His phone rang in the next moment.

  “Yeah?” He pressed the phone to his face and glanced over his shoulder at Cat, who looked like she was ready to chew nails.

  “Ciro, glad you touched base.” Julia sounded less stressed.

  “I’m hearing things, boss.”

  “Yes, you likely are. I had to marry Vito to buy us a little time. We have a change of plans.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did you get my template for recreating the files?”

  “I did, but I haven’t been able to work on it yet. Still trying to get my hands on Taylor. Do you really think that’s going to work? You know how they are about anything digital.”

  “It’s time we brought them into the present day and age. Slight change of plans with Taylor. We need her alive. It’s inconvenient, I know, but for now that’s how it is.”

  “You sure about that, boss?”

  “Yes, for now.”

  Ciro clicked into another set of messages.

  Damn.

  He scrubbed a hand over his face.

  “Julia, look, this act? It ain’t working. I’m staring at a Commission-signed kill order on you.”

  “W-what?”

  He’d hitched his wagon to the wrong horse, that was for sure.

  “Four of the Commission have put it to a vote.”

  “What about the fifth? Who?”

  “It’s not unanimous.”

  “Then it doesn’t count.”

  “Julia, that’s four bosses—”

  “If it’s not five, it doesn’t count. Money will do the talking. We have to present the books today. Nothing else matters, except for that, you understand?”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

  Christ. This was a disaster.

  Julia was right. It took a unanimous vote for a hit to be ordered on someone like her, but when your own boss wanted you dead, it wasn’t looking good. Still, money was a big motivating part of the job. She had a point there. But was it enough to sway things her way? He wasn’t sur
e.

  16.

  Taylor sat on the old, worn sofa and stared at the floor. Ian hadn’t shared much about where they were going, just that he knew a place they could crash for a bit to collect their thoughts. That was going to take more than an hour.

  She was numb.

  Her brain wouldn’t work.

  She couldn’t muster the urge to do anything.

  What was the point anyway?

  Julia was winning. There was nowhere for Taylor to go, no place for her to hide. She couldn’t trust anyone. Well, there was Ian, but he had no business being around her.

  Angelo was dead.

  He wasn’t a good person, much the opposite, but he didn’t deserve to die. Not like that. No one did.

  “Hey. Here.” Ian sat on the table in front of her and pressed a warm cup of something into her hand.

  Taylor sipped the liquid, pleasantly surprised it was hot chocolate.

  “They didn’t have any tea,” he said. “I figured chocolate was the next best thing.”

  She shrugged.

  It didn’t really matter what she did or where they went anymore. Julia was willing to lose people to get to her. That meant there were likely others, too. If things were this bad, then maybe the Commission was involved.

  God, she’d really fucked things up.

  “Taylor? Hey, look at me?” Ian slid his hands up and down her forearms.

  She focused on his green-blue eyes boring into her skull.

  “Hi,” he said.

  She couldn’t muster the energy to reply.

  “Okay, don’t say anythin’ then. Drink that. I’ve got you some clothes Kade was able to throw together. Maybe after a shower you’ll be chattier?”

  “What’s the point?” She shrugged.

  Ian searched her face for a moment, the pleasant look slowly leaching off.

  “Why are you givin’ up?” he asked.

  “Because there’s no point in fighting anymore. Things are going to happen, and I can’t change that.” She slumped back into the cushions, cradling the hot chocolate.

  “Okay, mind cluin’ me in? Tell me what’s really goin’ on, Taylor.”

  No one knew the story. Not the whole version. She hadn’t even told Vito. Christ, was he still alive? She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

  It was dead.

  Great.

  Her luck was awesome.

  “What do you want to know?” She sighed and curled her legs up under her.

  “How’d you end up in Seattle?”

  “That’s not where it begins, you have to go back farther than that.” She stirred the dark brown liquid, watching the little marshmallows swirl around and around.

  “Then where’d it all start? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

  “You can’t help me at all. No one can, that’s just it, Ian. Telling you—does it put you in danger? Eventually, they’re going to find me and kill me. That’s how this story ends.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s happened dozens of times, to other people. No one gets away from the family.”

  “Bullshit.” He frowned. “I read a dozen or more stories about people who turned on the mafia decades ago and have gone on to live their lives.”

  “Yeah, but they’re always looking over their shoulders. Things are different now, Ian. It’s not like it used to be, but it’s still bad.”

  “Tell me about it. Maybe I can help you. Where’d it all start, Taylor?”

  It was selfish, but Taylor wanted someone to know, even if nothing came of it. When she died in some alley, caught unaware, at least one person out there should know the whole of it.

  Where did it start? Not with taking the files or butting heads with Julia. Before that. Back when she’d thought she’d gotten out.

  “After I graduated college, I intentionally went to teach outside the territory of the families. Used to be all of New York was the families, but these days, they have a lot of pushback from other groups, different organizations. I figured I could do some good in an area like that, you know? I’ve been where those kids are, I speak their language.”

  “You’re a great teacher. I’ve seen what you do with Stacey.”

  “Thanks. I put in a good six years at that school. Four years in, I thought, man, I did it. I got out. I’m free. Couple more years go by. Then Dad died all of a sudden. I figured, this is it, no one’s going to care about me after this. Julia will run everything. Then things went bad.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Why do you think I did anything?”

  “Because you’re you.” Ian searched her face. “You’re the kind of person who does somethin’.”

  Taylor rolled her eyes. “Yeah. I did something stupid.”

  Ian reached over and took her free hand, giving it a squeeze. Damn him. He was worming into her heart where he had no business being.

  “It started while Dad was still alive. From what I understand, he and Julia were having problems. She was doing stuff, working with people he didn’t want to. I was so far removed from all of that I didn’t know until later. When it was too late.”

  “Okay.”

  “All the little mom and pop businesses up and down the street I walked from my apartment to the school started getting broken into, going out of business. Stuff was looking bad. There was this authentic Thai place—not crappy American stuff, but real Thai food—just a few doors down from my building. They jacked up their prices one week. A bunch of us were complaining by the mailboxes when the daughter of a guy who used to own a convenience store that’d just closed told us.”

  She could still see their faces, the heartbreak of having everything their family had worked for simply stolen out from under them.

  “What did they tell you?” Ian kept his voice quiet.

  “Someone was running an extortion ring. They didn’t know it, but listening to them, I knew it. It’s simple, really. Some tough guys come in, scare people. After that, you send in someone compassionate, and they offer to protect the people on the street for a price. Any time someone starts complaining about the protection money, you send in the toughs to rough some people up.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, but that wasn’t all they were doing.” Taylor grimaced. “I watched, talked to people, tried to figure out what was really going on. What they were doing was cleaning out anyone who would speak up, the people who knew their rights would get hit. Since they were already paying protection money, a lot of times, the guys already knew where the money was kept, so they could hit the shops harder, faster, more efficiently. Do that a couple times, and the stores can’t continue to do business, pay bills, and still make their protection payments. I was so pissed. This was my home. I moved there to get away from people like that.” She shifted, that familiar angry flame flaring in her chest.

  “What’d you do about it?”

  “Well, first, Dad died. I thought it would matter more to me, but it just didn’t. I was too wrapped up in what I was doing. I’d gone to the cops, told them who I was, what was happening. A lot of the guys were MS-13. Real bad gang. I started working with an undercover cop and some detectives. Around that time, the first shop re-opened under new ownership, a couple weeks after Dad’s death.” Taylor swallowed, but her mouth had gone dry. “Almost at once, they all reopened. Same time the cops were gearing up to do a sweep. It was bad.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, the dry cleaner, the pasta bar, the new convenience store, they all had the same people working them.”

  “How’d they manage that?” Ian frowned.

  “No, not like—the same individuals. The same people. Family people. Before, I’d walk down the street, and people knew me as Ms. Cartwright, the fourth grade teacher. Now...people are offering condolences about my father in Italian. By that point, it was too late. The cops swooped in, did their thing, and a lot of people went to jail. Family and MS-13. It was...crazy. Someone must have talked, because next
thing I know, I’ve got an invitation to a sit down with my step-mom.”

  “Julia Lucchese?”

  “That’s the one.” Taylor sighed. “I tried to be honest, to tell her I didn’t realize it was them, but she’s always hated me. I realized things were going bad when she was being nice. I panicked. She left the room to go to the bathroom, but I knew she was really going to get one of her guys. I walked into my dad’s old office and had this crazy idea. If I just took something she wanted, I could hold it until...something. She still had his desk, it was old, passed down through the family and kind of janky. If you kicked the side of it, the bottom drawer would pop open, even if it was locked. I took everything in that drawer and went out the window.”

  “That’s why she’s been after you?”

  “Yeah, but that’s not the whole story.” She glanced at him. He wanted it all? Well, he was getting it. “I audited the files and realized that I had all of the Lucchese financials for the whole year. She must have been preparing to turn them in or something. It was more than enough evidence to prove their criminal activities and do some serious housecleaning. So, I contact the FBI, tell them I’m coming in. The detectives I worked on the case with were supposed to escort me to the meet with the FBI, only some different cops showed up. We started going, I don’t know, somewhere that didn’t look good. They stopped at a red light, I jumped out, and ran. Called my cousin Vito to pick me up.”

  God, that night.

  She picked at lint clinging to her sleeve.

  “Julia must have known I’d call him, because she told him flat out to kill me and bring back my heart or she’d have him killed. Vito helped me get out of town, and I’ve been running since.”

  “What happened to Vito?”

  “Nothing, thankfully. We went to a butcher shop and bought a pig’s heart to give Julia. He said she bought it. Damn thing’s sitting in her walk-in freezer. Can you believe that?”

  “You didn’t call the FBI back?”

  “I did, and they had no record of me calling in the first place. That’s the sort of thing that should have been recorded. Someone should have known, but no one knew a thing about me or that I was coming in.” She shrugged. “Given what happened with my mom...”