by J. J. McAvoy
“Mr. Callahan, I am Superintendent Wendell Homer. I wanted to personally come down and tell you that we will do everything in our power—”
“Let me stop you here. We’re Callahans, we are used to people kissing our asses for personal benefit. So, save your words for the press hounds outside and find my sister-in-law.” As if they could. The Chicago PD were a running joke across the country.
His back straightened from his ass-kissing position before he placed his hat on.
“Has anyone received any ransom demands?” he asked and I had to fight my initial reaction to roll my eyes.
“No. We haven’t.”
“Okay, but expect one. These types of low lives always hunt for a fast paycheck. We’re going to need a list of anyone who may have a grudge against you…” He stopped as Liam laughed.
He laughed hysterically, leaning in his chair and running his hands through his hair. “Do you know how much we are worth?” he asked him. “32.7 billion dollars. That puts us between Wal-Mart and Michael Bloomberg on Forbes’ richest people list. You want a list of people who have grudges against us? Start with the whole fucking state and work outward!”
“Mr. Callahan, I know this is difficult, but please trust us. We will not stop until we find her. Until we find who did this. We know that your guard was murdered only a day ago. This is obviously connected. Give us time. We will do everything,” he said, almost begged, but Liam was done with them. Instead, his green eyes glazed over as he stared emptily at the wall. Neither of us had anything more to say.
“Would you like to make a statement? Plead to the kidnappers to return your wife?” he questioned, making me want to punch his tiny Teletubby self in the face.
“In all your time as an officer, has that shit ever worked? Do you really think they give a shit?” I really couldn’t comprehend why he thought that that was even an option.
“It doesn’t hurt to try. Please excuse me,” he said, waddling down the hall, as more police officers arrived on the scene.
Sighing, I took a seat next to my brother.
“We’ve got a list of twelve properties,” I said. “Five are out of the country. I’ve called Anna and told her to call in every favor she had in Interpol for flight records.”
He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Good. I can’t move, not with these fuckers crawling up my ass. Get all the men we have on the outside to start searching. I want Neal to go with them. He’s been in the public eye, traveling the country.”
“Neal? I’ll go, Liam.”
“No, Declan. I need you here. I need you going through every fucking camera in the damn state. These fuckers have red tape to go through, you don’t. I’m not wasting another bloody second just because they want a photo-op. If Aviela wanted her dead, she could have killed her months ago. She wants Mel alive. And I know my wife, as long as she’s alive she will be trying to contact us.” What if she couldn’t? What if…
“Liam?”
“Do not motherfucking ‘Liam’ me, Declan. She’s my wife. She’s a fucking fighter, a leader. I have full faith that she’s going to beat the shit out of her mother and come home with her head on a stake. She didn’t become who she is by being weak. She’s strong. I’m going to be strong. And our son will know that. So don’t you dare ‘Liam’ me, and do your fucking job.”
With that, he got up and walked away. I wasn’t even sure if he knew where he was going. I couldn’t even begin to understand his pain. The only person on the face of the earth that he could be honest with was gone.
“Declan.” Coraline wheeled up out of fucking nowhere with her hands pulling at the rubber band on her wrist—something she had taken to doing during her treatment.
“A…”
“What can I do? What should I be doing? I need to do something. Evelyn told me and I—”
“Coraline.” I dropped to my knees, taking her hand in mine. “Just watch Ethan, I don’t want you getting hurt.”
“But Jas…”
“No! I need to concrete on Liam. This family and I cannot do that if you’re in the middle of this. I’m begging you. Just watch Ethan, avoid the police, and focus on your health, okay?”
She sighed and nodded, but she didn’t meet my gaze. Kissing her forehead, I held her to me for a long second. “I love you, baby. Just keep your head above this and we will get through it.”
“We always do,” she whispered. “I’m going to see Ethan, and before you ask, don’t worry about me. I can push myself.”
“Of course you can.” I looked up to see Adriana; she was standing in the middle of the hospital wing, taking in the chaos around her. Her hair was drenched, sticking to her face. It seemed as if she was trying to hold it together, wrapping her arms around herself. She looked like a wet, dying puppy without a home.
She was Mel’s right hand. There had to be more properties that Mel hid from us. I wouldn’t put it past her to have tricks and funds up her sleeve that no one knew of.
“Be safe,” I told Coraline before leaving her and walking over to Adriana. The halls were crawling with badges but I wasn’t sure where else to take her.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered, her hands shaking. “She was with me hours ago. I don’t…No…She doesn’t get kidnapped. She’s not the type. She’s Melody.”
Great, she’s losing her shit too.
“Adriana, I know this is hard, but I need you to think. Okay? I need you to tell me all the properties Mel has, everything.”
“I can’t do that, Mel would—”
“Mel is not fucking here, Adriana, and you work for us, for this family,” I hissed through clenched teeth, trying not to draw too much attention. “Now, I need you to tell me anything that Mel has failed to inform us about.”
“She has fifteen million, and a loft in Cagliari, and a private house in Varna, Bulgaria. And… she has private homes no one even knows about all around Italy. I don’t know them all; it’s her safety net. The only record of that shit is in her head. Those are the only two—”
“It’s fine. We will keep looking, okay, Adriana? But right now, I need you to keep calm and breathe. You need to get out of here. You look like you just shanked an old woman. Go home.” First Antonio, now Mel. I was surprised she wasn’t rocking back and forth in the corner.
“I’m supposed to watch her back, especially when she can’t. That’s my job. That’s my only real job. Everything I do and everything I’ve done is because I wanted to help her. I would do anything to help her.”
I knew that. I doubted anyone would say differently. “Go home, Adriana,” I repeated as I pulled out my phone. I hoped to God Liam was right and that Mel was trying to contact us.
THIRTY-FOUR
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
—Naguib Mahfouz
LIAM
As I watched them I could feel my blood boil, but what else could I do? Olivia held Ethan, and fed him some shit in a bottle, that only disgusted me more. But he had to eat, and his mother wasn’t here. Pinching my nose, I tried to balance myself. I couldn't even close my eyes, that only made me think of her. How tired she must have been. How well could she fight if she was hungry and tired?
Aviela does not want to kill her.
I tried to convince myself of that fact.
“Mr. Callahan.” I turned to find The Little Engine That Could, standing in the midst of the chaos that was now the NICU, watching me and my family through the glass.
“Officer Scooter.”
“Mr. Callahan, I gotta ask you a few questions. In cases like this…”
“They send a rookie cop to find my wife?” And they wondered why I didn’t trust them.
He sighed, taking a step forward. “You know, I was handpicked to join the FBI right outta the academy! I may not look like much, but I’m damn good at my job. In forty-eight hours, your bodyguard was shot. The same type of shot, with the same type of
the round used to assassinate the president. Now your wife was kidnapped out of one of the most highly protected hospitals in the country. There is a connection here, I can feel it. So help me, sir. Help me find your wife. Now everything you say is important.”
There was no getting rid of the man. He reminded me of an annoying superintendent I used to know.
“Why didn’t you join the FBI?”
“Because this is my city. I’m not abandoning it or the people.” Exactly like a superintendent I used to know.
He was going to be a problem. “Before all of this happened, my wife told me she had a strange encounter with you at the station, Officer. So take your morality and get me a real officer. Not one trying to blame my family.”
“Mr. Callahan…”
“No. Don’t bother. Tell the superintendent I only want the real FBI looking for my wife, nothing less. So respectfully, get the hell out of my face.” Grabbing the door handle, I left the blond-headed idiot alone.
Stepping into the NICU, I didn’t even bother to speak to my father or mother. Taking Ethan out Olivia’s arms, she stood up, hand still on the bottle, waiting for me to sit down in the white rocking chair.
“Liam.” My father sighed and I knew that he had seen the officer and me speaking, but I couldn’t deal with him right now. I just needed to hold my son. He gave me the hope I needed at the moment.
“I don’t understand. How did she know when to get her?” Evelyn whispered, kneeling right in front of me.
The same way she knew everything else…her mole. The only way I would find her was to find that rat. But the only person who could have given her so much inside information had to be close. The only people who were that close were family. So as they huddled around me, my father, my mother, Olivia…I pulled back. Who the fuck was betraying me? The only person I could fully trust was the little person in my hands.
Once I knew who it was, I wouldn’t hold back.
MELODY
I hated being drugged. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. My father used to drug me in an attempt to make me stronger, immune. Now I felt as though he knew my mother was a sicko bitch and had been trying to prepare me for her. But I doubted anything could have prepared me for being pulled from my hospital bed, while recovering from major surgery, to now being chained to the seat of a private fucking jet. She sat in her seat, her auburn hair tucked behind her small ears with a wrinkled copy of Wicked in her hands and dark framed glasses on her face.
“Would you like wine, Ma’am?”
I should have fucking known.
I glanced up at the pale, familiar hand of Nelson something or the other… my fucking flight attendant. He poured my favorite red wine into a glass for the woman before me. She said nothing as she held up her wine glass for him.
“You’re the rat on my ship.”
“Really, Mel Bear? You think I couldn’t get closer than your flight attendant?” The woman who gave birth to me sighed before flipping the page.
“Do not call me ‘Mel Bear,’ you insane bitch. As for you, rat, I will skin you while you beg for my forgiveness, but not before I make you watch me kill your meth-head sister in the most painful way possible.” I pulled against the chain, but all it did was cause me pain. I could feel the stitches pull at my skin, and even though it was painful, it made me think of Ethan.
“Nelson, get her something to eat.”
“Give me anything and I will embed it in your skull,” I hissed. My skin was hot, my emotions were raw, and all I wanted was to be free.
“Suit yourself then, you were always temperamental as a child.” She said snidely, again flipping the damn page.
“Maybe it was because I knew my mother was a weak, conniving whore that would one day shoot me like a dog after poisoning my father. In the end, he didn’t suffer and I was there. He was happy so you fucking…” the heat that radiated off the back of her hand when it connected with the side of my face only made me smile.
Her glasses were off, her hair falling out of place and her back was bone straight as she glared into me, nostrils flaring and eyes wide.
“Did you slap me because I called you a whore? Or because you didn’t get to kill Orlando?”
“Leave us,” she hissed and every one of the men on her plane went towards the back. It wasn’t that far; I couldn’t even see why she bothered.
“Are you gonna tell me a secret, Mommy? Are you going—”
“Enough,” she said. “You don’t understand the shit I’ve done for you. How hard it was to leave you with that fucking monster, to protect you from Satan himself. You know nothing.”
“You poisoned my father for years. You shot me down. You killed my guard and now you’ve separated me from my husband and child. So fuck you and your life story, bitch. I know enough to say at the end of this, you will die, and I will feel nothing.” I wanted to kill her now. I just kept eyeing the wine on the table wishing for two more inches of chain so I could smash it against her skull.
She took a deep breath, and placed her hand on her book. “Have you read this?”
“No, but don’t worry, I’ll read the spark notes.” God, my breasts hurt. Everything hurt, but knowing that my son didn’t have me made my heart burn.
“God, you’re so much like me it hurts. I’ve always been so proud of you. I’ve watched you grow, and become the fighter I knew you were when I first held you in my arms. I swore I would always do what was best for you.”
“This,” I pulled on the chains, “is not good for me. But, if you’re not full of shit, unchain me, hand me a gun, and I’ll believe you.”
She frowned, taking the wine to her lips. “You don’t want to hear this. This layer of anger and sarcasm, it’s just you trying to block me out.”
“No, it’s me, still hormonal and in a shitload of pain because of you. But please go on and tell me how I’m so fucking wrong, Aviela. Tell me your entire sad, pathetic life story. I will try to hold back my disgust. But while you speak, know that I’m going to be thinking of ways to kill you.” While I try to deny how badly I wanted to know the truth.
“You’ve always liked to test me. Whatever Orlando told you were lies, Mel bear.”
“Were you poisoning him for years?”
She said nothing, staring out at the dark seas thousands of feet below us.
“Point one for Dad.”
“Orlando…all the damn Giovannis are monsters. He killed my uncle, my brother, my fucking mother.”
Point two for Dad.
“Women like us, Mel bear, serve the men above us to survive because we are warriors, and until we get our own army, we do as we are told.” She spoke in a hushed tone, her eyes glazed over. “If Orlando told to you to kill Liam slowly and painfully, you would have done it. I regret nothing. The Giovannis, they are the reason why my father was the way he was. I couldn’t wait to kill him for the suffering he made me go through; kill Orlando, then get out. But you came and I didn’t want you to come into this life. But Orlando just didn’t know when to die and forced you into this trap.”
“So what you’re saying is that you’ve always wanted me dead.” I wished Orlando had taken her out the moment I was born.
“NO!” she snapped, slamming her hand on the table, spilling her wine across it.
Good ole Nelson was there in a flash, cleaning. She didn’t even look fazed.
“I’ve always tried to save you, Mel bear. I knew he would take you and form you into a monster just like him. Just like my father had done to me. But then I had you, and I never wanted to leave you. For years, I stayed in hell for you. To watch you, until one day, I couldn’t take anymore. I took my chance. I got you and I planned on leaving, disappearing to where Orlando and Ivan couldn’t find us. We were going to be happy and free. But Orlando came looking for you, and my father for me. I knew Orlando would turn you into a monster but Ivan—his granddaughter, a Giovanni?—he would have thrown you with snakes then sent your body to Orlando. I chose the lesser of two evils.�
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“So you’re telling me that Ivan didn’t know I was alive all this time? I doubt that. From what I can tell, he knows everything about all the families. So why now, mother dearest?”
“He let you be because I took my punishment and he figured you wouldn’t be able to make it once Orlando died.” She smiled, reaching over the table to take my hand. “But you did. You overcame it all and you fucking showed him how stupid he was to underestimate my daughter.”
“You’re not my mother. I’m not your daughter. Let go of me and finish your fairytale. What was your punishment?” I pulled my hand back.
Her hands clenched together as she readjusted herself. Unbuttoning her shirt slowly, she opened it, and everywhere were scars and dozens of small brown circular wounds that looked to be cigar burns. They littered her pale shoulders, stomach and I knew it reached her back. The distance between knife scars and burns was short. Luckily for her, none of them looked new. If I wasn’t chained to this seat, I may have felt bad…maybe.
“When he was done and satisfied, he let you go, not caring what you did. Orlando was destroying his himself and his “empire” was beyond repair. But I watched you. Your first kill was Atticus Flanagan, an Irish mutt who stalked you down at the seaport. You surprised him and he ended up face down in the lake. You were, fourteen?”
“Thirteen.”
“You sold your first kilo at—”
“I was there. I know, Aviela. Why are you fucking with my life now?”
“Because you stupidly laid down with the mutt and his dirty little family. Ivan wanted you dead instantly, but I convinced him that he couldn’t take out the head of the Italian mafia. Imagine all the chaos. All the wars as people tried to replace you. He thought I cared about you, that’s why I shot you. I needed him to believe that I could kill you if I wanted to. Ivan is all about balance, about keeping the underground under ground. But you are my daughter. You had to reach higher, you had to control the president of the United States. You reached a little too close to home for him.”