I know that she knows what she’s asking. She’s giving me permission to be the monster she hates, the demon she fears. She’s asking me to be everything that I am, to use everything I’ve learned throughout life, to annihilate the ones who threaten our little dysfunctional family of three.
And I will.
“Go with Carmen, hon.” I lean in and give her a quick kiss on the head, inhaling her scent, her vanilla and strawberry scented soap, mixed with the sweet essence that is Kerry herself. Oozing off her is also a dank smell of sweat, of fear, of agony.
Carmen lays her arm around Kerry’s shoulders. Kerry holds my eyes one moment longer, then she leans in and listens to whatever it is Carmen says. That gaze stabs right through my chest. I follow them with my eyes until the front door falls closed behind them. Carmen will look after her. She is one of the most capable people I know, and that’s really saying something in my family. Carmen is fiercely loyal to the ones she feels need her protection, and it’s clear she just included Kerry in that.
It means I can focus.
It means I can push Kerry to the back of my mind, resting in the knowledge that she’s as good as she can be in these circumstances.
I walk toward the dining room, where I last saw Salvatore head. He sits with Ivan, Johnny, and a couple of his muscle that I know the faces of, but not the names.
Ivan turns to me. “Cops called. They got a few possible locations.”
I sit in front of him, next to one of the men I don’t know.
“Adrian, Francesco.” Salvatore gestures to the two men.
I shake their hands in turn, but don’t introduce myself. Everyone knows who I am.
“How many?”
“Five. They’re confident they haven’t left town, though.”
“Any way we can narrow that down?” asks Salvatore. “Do we know anyone in their organization?”
“Not that I know of,” I say, “but they have someone in ours.”
Everybody turns to me. I explain what Kerry told me. There’s no fucking way her little shit of an ex-husband could have known one in our family fathered Cecilia unless someone from our ranks told him. That’s what this is. He’s paying off his debts to Richter. He’s gonna die in pain. I’ll make fucking sure of it. There are ways to make a man suffer for a very long time before he dies, and once Cece is back in her mom’s arms, I’ll let him pay for the pain he’s caused Kerry and Cecilia. And me.
Salvatore’s face is a mask of fury, seemingly calm, but with death lurking in his eyes. He glances at the two men next to me: Adrian and Francesco. They both go pale.
“Boss, we swear!” says Adrian, and the other man nods eagerly holding up his hands, as if in defense.
Salvatore whips up his gun, pointing it at them. “I can only trust my closest men. Go with Ivan and Johnny. Don’t make a fuss.”
“Luci?” Ivan shapes his hand into a gun, hidden from sight from the others. He asks if they’re killing them.
Salvatore shakes his head. “Just lock’em up.”
The four men leave the room, two of them with dread etched on their faces. I regard Salvatore, waiting for him to speak. He waits until the door closes, then he turns to me.
“Ivan and Johnny?” I ask.
“I trust them as my own family. But it’s someone close. I need you to call Matteo. Have him tap into everyone’s account and look at every transaction made for as long back as needed, see where my men are getting their money, and if there are purchases that don’t match their income. Cars. Gambling. Hookers. Houses.”
“Everyone?” I raise my eyebrows. We’re talking about hundreds of people.
“No. I’ll give you a list of names. Give me a moment, call Matteo and keep him on the line. I’ll be right back.”
He disappears, his steps echoing in the vast rooms. I haul up my phone and tap the number to my second youngest brother. As I wait for him to pick up, my chest clenches, thinking about trusting little Cecilia in the clutches of men who don’t care about her well-being, to whom she’s just meat to be used for their own gain.
I’ll kill every-fucking-one of them. That’s a promise.
Kerry
“Sit, honey, I’ll give you something to drink.”
Carmen pushes me down on a couch and disappears with rapid steps, her high-heeled shoes clicking on the hardwood floors. A few moments later she’s back with a glass with a strong-smelling, clear content, putting it in my hand. I try to give it back to her.
“I can’t drink alcohol,” I say numbly, clutching my chest. It feels as if I’ll crack open from the pain. I want to stay alert; I can’t dull my senses.
“It’s Tequila,” she says, as if that makes any difference. “You need it. Do as I say!” Her voice is firm, as if she’s correcting a disobedient child.
I look at the glass, then I drink it in three swallows, coughing as my throat burns and heat rushes to my cheeks. “That was strong,” I gasp, for one moment welcoming the feeling of something else than fear.
“Of course.” Carmen wraps a throw blanket around me and sits next to me. “Tell me what happened.”
“How did you know?” My voice is hoarse, broken. I barely recognize it.
“Luciano called me and told me to take care of you.”
I stare at her, stunned. I never thought he’d care about me.
“He needed your man.”
Christian? “He’s not my man,” I say quickly.
She cocks her head and regards me. “It sure looks like that, the way you two look at each other.”
“He’s Cecilia’s dad.” I can’t control my chin as it begins to tremble again, and new tears fall. “I’m so afraid, Carmen!”
The little woman scoops me into her arms and hugs me tight. “Kerry,” she says. “Luciano and Christian, and their men, they’ll get your daughter back. They’ll stop at nothing. This is the wrong family to ever set your foot in, but right now you couldn’t be in better hands.”
“None of this would have happened if it hadn’t been for them,” I say bitterly.
“You wouldn’t have had Cecilia either,” she says quickly. “Or Christian.” Her voice is a little coy and I glance up at her. Carmen reaches out and wipes off my cheeks with her thumbs, then she throws me a quick smile. “You’ll have her back.”
“You can’t know this,” I cry and hug my chest, rocking back and forth.
Carmen hushes me and then just holds me. For a long time she lets me cry in her arms. There is nothing else to say, nothing for us to do. I want to run out on the streets, look in every house, scream at them to show themselves, but they could be anywhere. It’s impossible.
“What can they do?” I whisper.
“Luciano?”
I nod.
Carmen is quiet, emotion flickers through her gaze. “There’s nothing he can’t do,” she finally says. “He knows everyone. If you’re on his bad side, you’re not safe anywhere.”
A shudder runs through me. Old wounds. Oh, I know this.
“Do you know how I met Christian?” I ask.
The beautiful little woman next to me shakes her head. “I stay out of that nest as much as I can.”
“That’s clever.”
“I have my reasons.”
“But… you’re David’s mom… right?”
Carmen nods. “Yes.”
“So…” I chew on my lip, “you and Salvatore—”
“It’s a story for another time. How did you meet your man?”
“He’s not my man!”
Carmen gives a half-shrug, as if I can say anything, she has her mind made up anyway.
“I was his hit.”
Tilting her head, Carmen frowns as she studies me, then she shakes her head. “I swear, these men… What happened? If you don’t mind?”
For the first time ever I have someone I can talk to absolutely freely about this. I can tell her everything. She knows them. She’s also trying to make time pass, to take my mind off the current absolute disaster, an
d I’m eternally grateful as I start from the beginning. When I stutter and blush as I try to describe Christian’s dark passion, how he scared and enticed me, she grabs my forearm.
“Kerry, love. I was a prostitute. I worked on the streets for two years, then for some months in one of Salvatore’s brothels. There is nothing I haven’t heard, seen, or experienced. There’s nothing to be shy about.”
I’m stunned. I had no idea.
Carmen smiles. “It’s okay. No need to beat around the bush. I have a feeling you and I are going to see a lot more of each other, and we might as well come clean with all the dirty details.” She flips a few strands of long, curly black hair over her shoulder. “And these men don’t play nice. Not out of bed, and most certainly not in bed. Did Christian hurt you, Kerry? Is that why you have this wall up between you and him?”
I clutch my midsection as renewed pain shoots through it. The memories of our first night together brings me right back to the present, to Cecilia, to the raw, horrifying emptiness inside. “Do you have more of that Tequila?” I whimper.
“Sure.” She shoots up and disappears out of the room, returning a moment later with the whole bottle, pouring a little more at the bottom of my glass. “I’m not letting you get drunk. You need your senses. You’re grieving, and you need to live through that.”
I down the glass in one swallow. “I don’t want to,” I whimper. “I don’t want to feel this pain.”
Carmen lays an arm around my shoulders. “I know,” she says. “I know. I’ll take care of you until you have your beautiful little daughter in your arms again. Now tell me about you and Christian.”
So I do. Resting in the arms of Carmen Moreno-Payne, despite the pain wracking my soul, I tell the whole messed up story about Christian Russo and Kerry Jackson.
Chapter 22
Christian
Luci is pacing back and forth before his large floor to ceiling windows in the ballroom next to the dining room where I’m sitting, waiting for a phone call. I follow him with my eyes every time he passes the doorway. His whole body exudes held-back fury. He clutches his phone. So do I. We’re both holding our breaths, frustrated in this impotent rage. We can’t assemble our men until after Matteo gets back to us, because we need to know who not to include. When he does, we have to locate the snake in our ranks and make him talk.
An hour has passed since Kerry called, wailing, her cries loud enough to be heard across the room to where I sat on the couch with a cup of coffee, reading the paper, trying to sort my feelings from the night, and the disaster that was the morning.
Luci nearly jumps when his phone rings and with a curse, he puts it to his ear. My phone rings a moment later and I tap to connect the call as I move into the kitchen to get some privacy.
“Yes?”
“Bro,” says Matteo. “I’ve got three men with enough interesting financial activity on their accounts. One Laurence. Got huge gambling debts. Fred, apparently a love for expensive cars, also bank loans up over his ears, and Rusty, large sums being put on his account, but he doesn’t buy shit. I think—”
“Rusty’s our man,” I say. The other two are just plain stupid, but Rusty, whoever the fuck that is, is laying low, biding his time, trying to be clever about it.
“I agree,” says Matteo.
“Thanks, bro.” I disconnect and stride through the rooms, finding Salvatore by the bar, a tumbler with whisky in his hand.
Relaying the info to him, his gaze darkens. “Rusty,” he growls. “I fucking raised him.” He hauls up his phone. “Ivan, release the guys, and the four of you locate Rusty Alfonsi and bring him to the meat locker at The Milane. We’re going to have a word with him. You don’t have to be nice about it.” He disconnects. “Come,” he growls. “It’s time. Are you up for it?”
I don’t answer, just walk up next to him as we stride through the mansion. I might not be in the best shape, but I know my uncle won’t question my participation in this op. It’s eerily quiet. This house is always full of people, there’s always something going on. Now it’s dead. It feels ominous, worrying. Nothing is normal anymore. My soul is split, reaching in two different directions, one toward Kerry, the other toward our daughter.
Luci drives, his jaw clenched. Neither of us says a word. When his phone rings, he puts it on loudspeaker.
“Talk,” he growls.
“Got him. What do you want us to do with him?” Ivan sounds determined, dangerous. He’s a man of few expressions. Hearing emotion in his voice is almost a shock. This whole household is in uproar.
“Don’t do anything, just keep him in place until we get there.”
Yes, Boss.”
Ten minutes later we pull up outside the closed restaurant. Francesco stands right inside the heavy glass door and opens it for us. I nod a greeting to him as he closes and locks the door behind us.
In the cold meat locker stand four men. Ivan, Johnny, Adrian, all with semi-automatics pointed at a very pale Rusty Alfonsi, a baby-faced, short guy, who’s about to regret the day he crossed Salvatore.
Luci walks with measured steps toward the group, then he veers to the side, picks up a crowbar that leans against the wall, walks calmly up to Rusty and then swings it with full force against his knee. The screams are deafening as the man’s leg bends in the wrong direction and he falls to the floor. Luci taps the crowbar against the tiled floor, the clunking sound barely audible over the hollers from Rusty.
“Rusty Alfonsi. What do I do with you?”
“Boss!” screams the man. “Boss, why?”
Luci raises the crowbar as if to beat him again, but then lowers it and nods to Ivan. “Tie him and hang him. I want him upside down.”
Johnny takes a step to the writhing man and shoves a rag in his mouth, muffling the whimpers somewhat, as Ivan grabs a pile of ropes off the floor. When they begin to tie them around Rusty’s ankles, uncaring that the broken leg twists and bends, the noises intensify.
Luci taps his elbow to mine. “Come.”
I glance at the scene one last time, then I trail behind, wondering what he’s up to. “How long have you had Rusty?”
Luci walks up to the espresso machine, huge, polished metal, imported from Italy. He starts it up and expertly begins to prepare two cups. “He’s been with me five years. He’s twenty-two, impressionable, hungry. He’s proven himself loyal over and over. Worked with us through the near-war with the Irish the other year.”
I nod. I was there too, even though I didn’t meet this guy. “Not that loyal.”
Salvatore hands me a cup and opens the fridge, picking out a bottle of soda water. “No,” he says through clenched teeth and slams down the bottle on the counter. “Not that loyal.”
“Boss?” Johnny’s voice from behind makes us both turn. “He’s ready for you.”
As we walk back through the kitchen I don’t even bother to ask to get the answers out of this guy. Both Luci and I have good reasons for wanting Rusty to speak, but my uncle is so obviously determined that I’ll just let it play out. Watching him in action, doing his business, is almost like enjoying an art form.
Rusty hangs upside down. His arms tied behind his back, the rope around his ankles secured on a meat hook. Salvatore rips the rag out of his mouth and a stream of pleading pours out of the man. Tears and snot have dampened his hair as it streams along his forehead.
“Rusty, my boy.” Salvatore sounds unreasonably calm. “My little relative has gone missing, and it has come to my attention that a Charlie Richter is behind this.”
Rusty’s eyes widen for a second, then he shakes his head. “I don’t know— what you’re talking about,” he grunts out.
Salvatore sighs, unscrews the soda bottle he brought with him, takes a swig, then he grabs the back of Rusty’s head, gripping his hair and pours soda in his nose. Rusty gargles and his body contorts as he gulps, coughs, cries.
“I suggest you don’t inhale it,” says Salvatore, his voice stone cold.
I find a toothpick i
n a back pocket, stick it between my teeth and lean against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Boss!” screams Rusty between gasps. “Please!”
“Where are they keeping my little niece, Rusty?”
“I don’t know anything!”
Salvatore pours more soda up the young man’s nostrils. It may seem like mild torture, but the cold fizzing liquid tickles the surface of the brain through the thinnest layer of bone, and this is incredibly painful and panic-inducing.
Rusty resists a few more minutes then he begins to babble. “I can give you names!” he squeals.
“Where is my niece!” roars Salvatore, so viciously even I jump.
“Address,” he wails, “I have. Let me down! Please!” His voice breaks on the last word.
“Give. Me. Everything. Rusty, and I’ll consider your future while I take care of some things.”
“Yes!”
Johnny starts tapping down the info on his phone as Salvatore looks over his shoulder, making sure it matches what Rusty says. The young man talks and talks. I glance at the clock. We’ve been here thirty minutes. Cecilia has been gone two and a half hours. I’m filled with dread, my heart dark, and I clench my fists. I want to do something, hurt someone. Now!
“All right,” says Salvatore. “You, you, and you, with us. Francesco, you stay behind.”
“What about this ass?” asks Francesco.
Salvatore looks the man over, not hiding his disgust. “Let him hang. Help yourself to whatever the house offers, espresso, Grappa, there are nice meals in the fridge, leftovers from last night.”
As we leave the little room, Rusty starts screaming again, pleading, crying. Francesco picks up the rag and shoves it back into Rusty’s mouth before he follows us out into the restaurant, letting the heavy metal door to the cold storage slam closed.
We move fast through the city, split up in two large black SUVs.
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