Chapter 21
Declan
F lynn Brady arrives at the estate. Unlike John Flanagan and Nolan Keeffe, I’ve known Flynn since middle school. His family stood shoulder to shoulder with mine during the wars, and if there’s one person I can count on besides my brothers right now, it’s him.
I told him as much as I could over the phone, and Kian filled in the rest while I made a few more calls.
“She’s at John’s office at the docks,” I snarl. Better there than at Nolan’s.
“John isn’t that stupid. He can’t really believe she’d do it, right?” Flynn asks, shaking his head.
“Stupidity runs in that goddamn family,” I grunt. The Flanagans have never cared much about the families just so long as their piece of the pie is guaranteed. John always goes with the flow.
Nolan on the other hand, has always wanted to lead the Irish Consortium, but for that, he’d have to pull his head out of his ass, and that’s damn near impossible. When the wars started, he fled the country, only coming back after the Russians were kicked out. Leader? Yeah, right.
“Nolan needs a lesson after this. Going after your wife? Over a phone?” Flynn clicks his tongue in disapproval.
I take a deep breath. “I need you to play along, make it look like you believe all of it. But most importantly, I need you to keep her safe.” I try not to sound desperate as I hand him a glass of whisky.
He stares at me for a moment before a smirk tug at the corner of his lips. “Of course. I promise I’ll keep her safe. If they try anything—”
“You’ll kill them. All of them,” I interrupt, my voice low.
He laughs, taking a sip of the whiskey. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll fucking kill them. I never liked them anyway.”
After bringing Flynn up to speed, he leaves. For now, we need to cut contact to make it believable that he truly thinks Viviana is involved in all this.
I head to Viviana’s room, pushing the door open. Her scent lingers in the air, a mix of jasmine and something uniquely hers. The room feels like a sunless summer: dark, empty, suffocating. Fuck.
“Where should we look?” Connor asks, stepping in behind me. His gaze sweeps over the room. It’s pristine, everything in its place, neat and orderly.
“Everywhere,” I grunt, my voice dropping an octave. “Toss this fucking room upside down until we find that damn notebook.”
I know Giovanni has a reason for pulling this stunt, and that reason is hidden in that notebook. I’ll find it, no matter what it takes.
The lack of concrete proof against Giovanni is what grates on me the most. All we know is the informant is Italian, but the Morellis aren’t the only Italians in the city. Without undeniable evidence, it’s our word against his, leaving Giovanni in the clear for now.
But why orchestrate all of this? My gut says Viviana found something, something real, something that can seal his fate. And he knows it.
We tear apart her room. Every drawer, every book, every box. Where the fuck is it?
I stop, scanning the chaos we’ve made. Books lie scattered across the floor, the desk is bare, the drawers emptied, and her walk-in closet is stripped down to nothing. She’s going to kill me for this, I think grimly.
“She’s too smart for her own good,” I mutter, rubbing a hand over my face. It has to be somewhere we’d never think to look.
My eyes land on her bed, my old one. A king-sized monster with oak columns and draping red fabric, like something straight out of Victorian England. I tilt my head. The draping.
“She wouldn’t… would she?”
Climbing onto the bed, I reach for the fabric hanging from the columns. My fingers close around it, and I tug. Something falls onto the bed with a soft thud, wrapped in a worn leather casing. My chest tightens as I pick it up and open it.
The notebook.
Connor and Kian step closer, peering over my shoulder as I flip through the pages. My stomach drops, and my jaw tightens.
This is… this is Elva’s murder.
“What the actual fuck?!”
My hands tighten around the notebook, each page filled with Viviana’s handwriting.
October 31st
The body appears to have been dragged from its initial location.
The left side of the body shows more pronounced drag marks than the right .
My head shakes as I flip through more pages, searching for answers. Why the hell is she investigating this? I thought she had proof her father was dealing with the Koslovs, but there’s no mention of them here.
Father arrived past two in the morning and went for a shower. Didn’t see him until the next morning.
Injury on the left side.
My eyes flare, my breath catching. My grip falters, and the notebook falls to the floor. My chest tightens as rage explodes within me.
“FUCK!!”
I punch the wall, the impact radiating through my fist. Pain shoots up my arm, but it’s nothing compared to the storm in my chest. Connor snatches the notebook from the floor, his eyes darting through its contents.
“Giovanni killed Elva?” he murmurs, his voice a mix of panic and anger.
My mind races, pieces of Viviana’s words snapping together like a cruel puzzle. “It’s bad; it’s really bad,” she had said yesterday. She wasn’t talking about the Russians. It was this. This.
“Look at this part,” Connor says, pointing to the page, but I can’t bring myself to read anymore.
“‘Giovanni killed Elva so one of us could marry him?’” Connor reads aloud, his voice trembling. “Question mark,” he adds bitterly. “Was this the plan all along? Do my sisters know about this?” He takes a steadying breath and continues. “Called Dad today and confirmed the injury on his left side. He is pissed.” Connor pauses, swallowing hard. “That’s the last entry.”
“She called him,” I say, my voice cold and flat. It isn’t a question. This is why Giovanni took desperate measures. He knew.
Fucking hell, Viviana.
“Declan, she was going to tell you,” Connor says, stepping closer. He flips the notebook to the final page and points. “‘Tell Declan tomorrow after dinner.’” His voice falters.
“That’s today. She was going to tell you today. If those bastards hadn’t taken her…”
Every part of me aches raw and hollow. Elva died because of me. Giovanni killed her, and now my wife, the daughter of my fiancée’s murderer, is going to die because of him.
I scoff bitterly, pushing off the wall I’d been leaning on. “I’m going to kill him. Him and his daughters,” I snarl. My body feels like it’s trembling with rage, barely contained. “I’ll kill the entire family.”
“Even Viviana?” Kian asks, his voice low.
The words hit me like a punch to the gut, and the floor feels like it’s been ripped out from under me. My breath stumbles, and I catch myself against the wall.
“No,” I say, the word coming out hoarse. It’s the only answer I can give. No. I won’t kill her. But the truth looms over me like a storm cloud. I don’t know if I can take her back, either.
My stomach twists as I leave the room and head to my office. Grabbing a bottle, I drink straight from it, the burn doing nothing to numb the ache.
After Elva was found, Giovanni sent his deepest condolences. He came to her funeral. He shook my fucking hand.
I slam into my chair, the bottle clinking against the desk as I take another swig.
Then he came to me with his deal. Desperation in his eyes, pleading that he wanted his daughters safe, insisting that he didn’t want them to end up like Elva. He even implied Aleksandr was involved. And like a fool, I accepted.
I replay every moment, every word. The way he always talked about Silvana and Bruna but never Viviana. If I hadn’t known his family from way back, I wouldn’t have even realized he had another daughter.
At first, I thought it was a shame that he was embarrassed by Viviana, that she might ruin the family name. But now I understand.
Viviana wasn’t in on any of it. Not Elva’s murder. Not the deal to marry me. None of it.
The memory of his fury when I chose Viviana floods back. That wasn’t just anger. It was something darker—rage, fear that his plan was slipping away. Pure, unfiltered fear.
He knew he had no control over Viviana the way he did over Silvana and Bruna. He needed eyes inside The Irish Consortium. And maybe that wasn’t all he wanted; maybe the plan was to kill us all.
I drag a hand down my face, the realization cutting deep. I’m a fucking eejit.
I rub my temples, trying to steady my breath to calm the storm that’s raging inside me.
One thing at a time.
Elva is dead. I can’t change that. My chest tightens, and the urge to smash something overwhelms me. I swallow hard against the tears threatening to spill, but Viviana—she’s still alive. She’s my priority now.
Giovanni will have to wait. But I’ll come for him. I’ll make him suffer like I have.
Taking a deep breath, I crack my neck from side to side, trying to release some of the tension coiling in my shoulders.
“Connor!” I shout toward the hallway. He’s there within seconds, his expression heavy with sorrow.
“We’ll make sure Viviana is safe first,” I say firmly. Kian leans against the door frame, arms crossed, and I catch the faintest glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.
“If the phone isn’t hers, it won’t have her prints, right?” I press.
Connor nods quickly. “And from what I can see when I hacked after Flynn sent me the SIM card number, the phone was never pinned to antennas anywhere near the estate. That device was never inside the house. Viviana hasn’t left the grounds since the wedding, except for that lunch with her sister.”
“Call Flynn on the burner,” I ordered, my jaw clenched. “Tell him to have John verify all of it. Maybe that’ll be enough to get her released to me.”
Connor doesn’t hesitate, rushing to his office to make the call. Kian stays where he is, leaning casually against the frame, watching me with that irritating calm.
“What?” I snap.
“You know Viviana had nothing to do with Elva, right?” Kian says evenly.
“I know,” I admit, though the words taste bitter on my tongue. “But she hid this from me. Not only that, she went back into that room after what happened last time.”
The memory of that night is a raw wound. I remember snapping at her, ordering Kian to lock her up, and how she ran to the lake afterwards. I thought she was dead. I shake my head, frustration bubbling beneath the surface. She’s a fucking menace.
“Come on now, Declan,” Kian says, his tone lighter. “She did what any of us would’ve done. She had a suspicion and dug into it until she knew the truth.” He pauses, his gaze shifting. “She probably thought that if she told you Giovanni killed Elva…”
“You think she thought I’d kill her too?” I ask, my voice rough.
Kian nods. And he’s right; weeks ago, if she’d told me this, I would’ve killed them all. Giovanni, his daughters. Everyone.
But now?
Now, after everything? After I’ve tasted her? After making her scream my name, her body trembling beneath me, her lips desperate for more? After watching her fall apart in my arms, her hands shaking as she cleaned the blood from my clothes?
I take a hand through my hair, closing my eyes against the memories.
No. I can’t kill her.
But I don’t know if I can stay with her either. Not with the daughter of the man who murdered Elva.