Reign (The Vendetta Series Book 2)

by Kris Anne Dean

  Tears lace Carra’s gentle voice, “I don’t know. The signal’s all jumbled up. It’s bouncing off of different towers, I can’t pinpoint her location. I’m so sorry.”

  Nash steps between us. “We are trying to isolate the signal but it's a complex program. It will take more time.” The way his body shields Carra makes me both happy he’s willing to defend her and pisses me off at the same time. We’ve been best friends since we were kids, he of all people should know I would never hurt a woman let alone my sister. Even at the height of my frustration, she’s a part of me. She feels my pain and I feel hers. She’s my twin for Christ’s sake.

  “She could be anywhere,” defeat laces my voice but I can’t give up now. I will never give up until both my girls are where they belong. With me. I push past Nash and lay my hand on Carra’s shoulder, reassuring her none of this is her fault.

  Her eyes find mine, a silent understanding passing between us. “Any idea how she might have planned to find him? We sent men to watch his house. If they were there, they left before we got there.”

  “She didn’t need to. He found her. That was his plan all along, he had me held hostage and out of the way. She played right into his hands,” Dammit Brie, “I was unconscious for a while when I came to, Abigail was missing. Tell me we at least have confirmation Angelo has the baby?” I just hope they were together and when I find them, I can bring them both home safely.

  “I’m sorry we don’t have solid intel on anything but we all know Angelo is behind this. He has to be,” Nash chimes in.

  I sit down at the table and let my head fall into my hands. I need to think but the pounding in my head is relentless and I can’t connect the dots. When I raise my head, Scotty is shifting his feet nervously biting at his lower lip like a frightened kid not someone who just executed two men without remorse. There’s something off with him and it’s not sitting right with me. “What is it Scotty?”

  “You keep mentioning a baby. Why are you so interested in her?” His body tenses and there's defensiveness in his tone.

  “Because she’s my baby and I think Angelo Deluca has her.”

  “She’s yours?” Confusion written all over his face. Perhaps this kid isn’t as smart as I thought he was.

  “Yes. Mine and Brie’s.” I squeeze my eyes shut, willing the pain in my head to subside or to wake from this nightmare. I open them slowly and fix a hard stare in his direction. “If you know something I need you tell me right now. You owe me that much. Do you know where Angelo took her?”

  “No. I mean. I don’t think so. I mean. I don’t think Angelo has her but I think I might know who does,” he stutters hesitant to answer my question.

  “Who?” My eyes narrow and the veins in my forehead twitch.

  “I hope I’m wrong. Come with me.” He turns towards the door and this time I’m fast on his heels with several of my men following. He stops in his tracks and squares off with everyone in the room. “Just you.”

  I nod and the others stand down. Nash tosses me my phone and the stack of envelopes. “Found these with your phone in your car, I’ll track it.”

  We head out the door and down the hallway towards the stairs. I let him lead, keeping quiet until we reach the street. “Where are we going?”

  “Angelo’s,” he says, not breaking his stride.

  “I thought you said Angelo wasn’t behind this? And you heard what my sister said. There’s no one at his house.”

  “Because they’re not at that one. Just get in, I’ll explain on the way. Trust me.”

  All I know about this kid is he saved my ass. I’m usually a good judge of character but he’s hard to read. Acting tough one minute then a frightened child the next. I’m putting my trust in him, everything I love is on the line. He better not let me down.

  “Then you better drive.” I toss him back his keys and slid into the passenger seat.

  Chapter 23- Brie

  My eyes open to a room I’ve never been in before. There’s a narrow beam of light shining on me from a slightly open door, to what I assume is a bathroom. I sit up and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. My bare feet hit the cold wooden floor. Besides my missing shoes, I’m still wearing the same clothes. At least Angelo didn’t get his rocks off by undressing me while I was asleep. I rub the tiredness from my eyes, forcing myself to focus on my surroundings. I don’t know where I am or how I got here but reality comes flooding back in a wave of emotions I can’t suppress. It wasn’t a nightmare. I sacrificed myself to Angelo in exchange for Cal’s life and my baby.

  Angelo’s hands are warm against my skin, but a chill runs through my body as he brushes his fingertips across my face and slides his hands through my hair tugging the tie loose. My hair tumbles out of its twisted form and hangs down my back. A glimmer dances off the emerald green of his eyes at the sight. He always liked my hair down. Not that I care what he likes. I’m not here for him. He tips the glass in my hand forcing me to swallow down the bourbon. It burns my throat and leaves a strange taste in my mouth. My head spins, so I lay back against the chaise lounge to find some control. My weary eyes grow heavy and I fight to keep them open. I watch Angelo from under my fluttering lashes as he digs through my purse. It’s getting harder and harder to keep my eyes open but I can’t let my guard down. He does something with my phone but I don’t know what and then slides it back in my purse and removes my gun. The shit-eating grin on his face fades when he realizes I may have used it on him, given the chance. I squeeze my eyes tight, pretending to sleep, when I feel his stare. It seems like an eternity before the cushion on the chaise lifts and I know he’s stood up even though I can barely keep my eyes open to watch him. They flutter open and closed, my view fades in and out but I can still hear him. He picks up the phone and orders whoever is on the other end to bring Abigail. My Abigail. I knew he had something to do with this. He turns towards me and raw fury burns in his eyes. I can’t imagine what they said that sent him over the edge, but I’ve been on the receiving end of that rage enough to know it must be bad. I say a silent prayer that nothing has happened to my baby. I want to change my mind. I want to get up and run away but I can’t move. A numbness has crept over my body and I’m frozen. I can’t fight it any longer, my heavy eyelids stay shut and succumb to sleep I so desperately need but don’t want to give in to.

  I rise from the bed and walk out onto the balcony. A breeze howls in the night air and stars speckle the dark sky. I stare out at the beach that stretches for miles, hugging the crisp blue sea that laps at its edges. The moon dances off the gentle waves and I’m transported far away from here. Away from Angelo, away from the nightmare of missing my baby so much it pains me. Lost in my mind, I imagine Cal and I together with Abigail. Safe. Secure. Happy.

  I will myself not to cry but the tears fall anyway, no longer able to deny what I know deep down. I’ll never be free of Angelo. Abigail and Cal will never be safe, unless I stay. The heartache is unimaginable and every moment without my child is unbearable. The only way to keep them safe is to sacrifice everything and surrender to Angelo but I have to see her with my own eyes. I have to hold her one last time. I wipe the tears from my cheek and steel my face. Angelo has to believe I want him, for my plan to work. Not one more tear will fall for Angelo’s twisted pleasure. They were for me, for Cal, for our daughter and for my soul that he finally broke. But it’s not my cries that break me from my trance. It’s the unmistakable cries of an infant… Abigail. My breast ache and the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end. She’s here.

  I scan the horizon, left to right and back again. Leaning forward teetering against the railing I grip the wrought iron bars so I don’t tumble over head first as I strain to see below. Through an open door below me and off to my right, white curtains blow in the breeze. Abigail’s soft cry drifts on the breeze up to my ears and I catch movement. Angelo is pacing back and forth in front of the door, his voice is more muffled than Abigail’s cries but he’s angry. When he turns to make another path across the floor
, there’s a glint of metal in his hands. Why the hell is he waving a gun in the same room as my daughter? Panic takes control of my body and I rush inside, instinctively grabbing my phone from the dresser as I pass by. I don’t bother with my purse or my shoes, I just need to get to her. I run down the stairs, following her cries and his rising voice through the halls and out of the house until I’m standing outside the pool house. Another, softer, more feminine voice causes me to pause outside the door. I press my back against the wall and listen while I catch my breath.

  “Angelo, you don’t know what you're saying. She’s our baby. Tell him Franco. Tell him you saw me when I was pregnant. Tell him how Carmine didn’t want him to know I was carrying his child. Tell him Franco, he’ll believe you.” It was Ava’s voice pleading for help against Angelo’s irrational temper.

  “Everything she’s saying is true, Angelo. I guess he thought if you knew Ava was pregnant you would lose focus on securing your union with Brie.”

  “See Angelo. I have sonogram pictures and you can confirm my visits with my doctor. It’s true. Everything I’m saying is true.” That lying little bitch. I don’t need to see the baby to know its Abigail. A mother knows. I can feel it in my bones just as sure as I’m standing here breathing. That’s my baby. It has to be.

  “Angelo, lower the gun before you do something you’ll regret. That kind of mess I can’t cleanup for you. What has gotten into you anyway?” Franco asks.

  “I’d like to know that too. I don’t understand where this is coming from.” Ava lowers her voice, coming across meek and wounded.

  “Stop trying to play me,” Angelo’s voice grows even more irate, “I hired someone to bring me my baby but low and behold she was already missing. Just about the time you show up with a baby of your own. You expect me to believe that’s a coincidence? And let’s not get me started on Detective Conroy’s badge missing from my lockbox. The two of you are the only ones still alive that knew where that was.” I listen as Ava and Franco swear their allegiance and deny the allegations made against them. “Brie said something earlier this evening that got me wondering. Ava darling, how is it we fucked like rabbits this afternoon, if you're not supposed to have sex for six weeks after giving birth. That baby can’t be more than three weeks old.”

  I slap my hand over my mouth to keep from gasping. My stomach feels like a ton of bricks. Quickly, I dial my phone. I don’t have time to talk or even listen to see if Nash picks up. At the very least, I will record the evidence. I slide the phone inside the front of my shirt and under my bra strap to secure it in place.

  “You were with Brie? It always comes back to that bitch, doesn’t it?” Ava cries, her voice shaking through her tears. “What does she have that I don’t? I’m just as pretty as she is. I wear the same fashionable clothes. I might not have been born rich but I’ve proven I can hold my own in your world and I’ve kept every one of your secrets, Angelo. What has she done? She doesn’t love you. She doesn’t even want you. The first chance she got, she ran from you. I’ve never left you.”

  I position myself inside the doorway and lock eyes on Ava. “And yet here I am.” I know the truth the instant I look into her eyes. It was her, all of it. What I didn’t know was how she pulled off the kidnapping, unless Franco helped her. Still, kidnapping a baby seems like a far stretch for him. I know he’s not an innocent man. How can you be in this life but Franco has another side to him. A side I’ve seen glimpses of many times when he dated Bethany and even while Angelo held me against my will. He’s not ruthless like Angelo. He may even be redeemable. “How could you do this to me, Ava? I thought we became friends. Just stop lying and talk to me. You know that’s my baby.”

  The moment she sees me, her face turns an unhealthy shade of red and she takes Abigail out of her cradle wrapped in a knit blanket of soft greens and yellows. The same one Vinny gave me. She paces in circles bouncing her in her arms and rocking back and forth. Her motions are too fast to soothe the baby and her cry grows even louder. Angelo looks like a deer caught in the headlights except he’s caught between his obsession and the obsessed. Franco is just standing there taking it all in, unsure what to make of my sudden appearance.

  “Friends? Friends don’t do what you did to me.”

  I have to keep her talking but don’t want to rattle her until I can get Abigail away from her. “Please, just let me have her and we can work this out. What did I do that was so terrible?”

  She opens her mouth to say something, then changes her mind, but it’s too late to take it back. She’s holding a grudge and we all know it now. I just don’t know why. She jerks away, shifting the baby in her arms. The tension causes the baby to cry even louder, and it’s wearing on Ava’s nerves. “Ava I’m sorry for whatever I did. Please, just give me my daughter.”

  Her eyes turn deadly and all emotion drains from her voice, “How can you be sorry and claim you don’t know what you did? You can’t have it both ways.”

  “Because Ava, I would never intentionally hurt you. You helped me get free from Angelo not once but twice.” Shit. In my desperation to reason with her I forgot he was within earshot. I don’t have to look at him to know he’s furious. He didn’t know of her betrayal or she wouldn’t be standing here now.

  His voice booms in my ear and my body stiffens. “You did what?” He stalks around the room, coming up behind me. I feel his breath on my neck and a chill runs down my spine. I can see him waving the gun in the air in the reflection of a window on the other side of the room. My child and I stuck in between the emotionally unstable and the criminally insane. I look to Franco, who hasn’t moved or said a word. My eyes plead with him for help. I’m running out of options and not sure how much time I have before one of them snaps in the twisted love, hate feud raging between them. I turn on my heels and face Angelo, hardening my stare and trying hard as hell to remain calm so I don’t add more fuel to the fire.

  Luckily Franco steps forward and moves toward Angelo. His back is to me and his voice is low so I can’t hear what he’s saying but it must have worked because Angelo lowers his gun. He’s nowhere near subdued though and moves further into the room coming between Ava and I. For every step forward he takes she takes one back stumbling into furniture. Tears well up in her eyes. “Angelo, it’s not what you think. I just want her out of your life. Out of our lives so we could be together. Don’t you get it? Despite it all, I love you and you can’t deny you have feelings for me. Our baby was proof of that.”

  My heart stammers in my chest. “Was?”

  Again her mouth opens and closes and her eyes dart between Angelo and I, like she’s trying to plan her words carefully but what comes out is anything but planned. “Yes Dammit. Was. She was proof. You want the truth? You want to know why I threatening to reveal your secret about shooting that cop. What you did to make me take her from you? I was pregnant, with Angelo’s child. Everything I always wanted was within my reach but then I lost her. Still born at 36 weeks.” She pauses, wiping her tears with the back of her arm. “The worst time of my life, I passed you on the street and you didn’t even know who I was. You looked right through me like I wasn’t even there. The almighty Brie, high on her throne… Pregnant. You had it all and I lost everything.”

  “So what, you want me to feel what it’s like to lose your child? Because I get it Ava, it’s unbearable and I’m sorry you had to go through that but I’m not the reason you lost your baby. I didn’t take your baby from you like you took Abigail from Cal and I.”

  “Stop saying that. She’s not yours. She’s mine. And with you out of the picture, her father and I can raise her together.”

  She finally lets Angelo close enough to touch her. He reaches out and runs his hands down her back. “That’s a wonderful plan. If you put her down, we can end this.”

  She lays the baby in the cradle and I breathe a sigh of relief but if they think I will let that happen they have something to learn about me. “The only problem with your plan is she’s not Angelo’s, she’
s Cal’s.” They're both surprised by my outburst. I know Angelo believes he’s the father, but he’s not and never will be. Nothing they say or do will change that.

  “You can stop lying. We know the truth. I took a strand of Angelo’s hair to run a DNA test. It says he’s a match. I have a test to prove it.” Ava reaches into a bag hanging on the back of a chair and pulls out a piece of paper. She crosses to me and waves it in front of my face.

  “How can that be possible?” My heart sinks in my chest and suddenly I can’t breathe. “I took a DNA test at the hospital. It says Cal’s the father.”

  Chapter 24- Cal

  “Doesn’t this thing go any faster?” I’m growing impatient with how long it’s taking us to get from the city to the Hamptons. I don’t have two hours. Brie’s been missing for hours and Abigail even longer than that.

  “I’m going as fast as I can. You don’t want to get pulled over, do you?” Scotty’s grip on the steering wheel is so tight his knuckles are turning a ghostly shade of white. Reluctantly he increases his speed, squeezing even harder.

  I shoot him a sideways glare. “I don’t get you, kid. You can kill men twice your size while they sleep but you're afraid of a speeding ticket?”

  His face turns stone cold. “Those assholes put my sister and I through hell for years. They deserved to die.”

  “Well, if we don’t get there faster than this, your sister will still be in hell if anything happens to my family,” I growl.

  Scotty slams on the brakes and we come to a grinding halt in the middle of the street. “You promised me you wouldn’t hurt her.”