Three
Hawkes
3 weeks later
I stood at a grave in a suburbian area of Palermo. The plot was mostly forgotten. By Lorenzo Rizzo’s choice, I was the only person to know where he was buried. He bought this land decades ago, telling me he’d be buried out here. His wish came true.
The green land stretched for acres in each direction. There was a selection of vegetation, trees planted long ago, now shading the landscape with their ancient branches. An olive grove grew within a walled-in garden. It was the perfect land to build a dynasty on. Maybe someday, I would.
I’d inherited it all.
After Lorenzo Fiore died, he left me his earthly belongings, of which there were many.
He took me in when I was a homeless kid. I wouldn’t have made it on those streets, not because I didn’t have the tools to make it, as Lorenzo told me, but because I was too good for my own survival. He found me taking scraps of food I’d fished from the trashcans behind a market to my sibling, a four-year-old little girl named Lola. I’d picked her name lovingly, because our mother never gave her one. When she died with a needle stuck in the crook of her arm, I was the one to shield my little sister, Lola. She was only a year old then.
We lasted in the apartment for another three years. A neighbor found out when I was seven, and we spent another year living on the streets. I was smart and resourceful, but Lola was sick when we left the apartment.
Some hazy, distant memories told me my mother used while she was pregnant. When Lola was unruly as a baby, she’d crush up pills into her food to quieten her. I didn’t know if that messed with her health, but she was always a sickly child.
That day, my heart threatened to give out as I made it to our hiding spot and saw an older man crouching by Lola’s makeshift bed.
“ Ehi !” I cried out, dropping the precious food. “ Ehi, vecchio !”
The man turned around. In his arms, he held my sister. She was only a body now, her eyes still open, her lips tinged with purple that told me everything. I sunk to my knees. Death had never felt closer, or made more sense.
“I couldn’t help her in time,” the man admitted as I screamed. “But I can help you.”
That was when I met Lorenzo Rizzi, my teacher and mentor. Now, he was buried, long gone.
Leaning down, I placed a candle on the grave next to a bouquet of red carnations. I stared at the engraving for a long time. I didn’t come often enough, but I made it my business to make a short trip to Sicily at least once a month. The private jet was comfortable enough so it never felt like a chore. Jett never came with me, and I never invited him.
Now, Rubi was the only family I had left.
After I had some money, I spent time doing DNA tests from every company imaginable. My greatest pain was that I never got a single match. Being alone was a fear that ate away at me, especially with Jett’s imminent departure, and Glasgow’s premature exit. Now that Lorenzo was dead, too, all I had was my daughter. And I’d go to the ends of the earth to find Rubi Rizzo.
I left some flowers on Lorenzo’s grave before walking away.
I could have taken Jett with me - after all, he was in Palermo, too. My promises to Lorenzo Rizzo were all broken a long time ago, but he was still the only father figure Jett, Glasgow and I had growing up. Maybe it would have helped Jett’s mourning process to bring him to the grave.
Yet, selfishly, I didn’t. I wanted Lorenzo’s memory to die with him.
I hated him so much, I hoped he would spend the rest of eternity burning in the fiery pits of hell.
Or at least I pretended to.
Back in the car, I ordered the driver to take me back to my hotel. I didn’t have a permanent place to stay in Palermo anymore, not since Lorenzo died. Jett and I sold his home, sending Glasgow his share. He never replied.
Now, I stayed in a hotel with a few guards. Since Jett wasn’t with me, I didn’t really know what to do, and my thoughts were unusually preoccupied with Paisley Deville.
Usually, when I was at my shared home with Jett, in London, I managed to distract myself enough not to think about her. But on these lonely trips, when it was just me, I couldn’t get the dark-haired beauty out of my mind, and it threatened to drive me crazy.
Weeks ago, I’d followed her around New York. I wasn’t even careful, paying for her dinner. But that was before I saw who she was with.
One of the Bendetti brats…
Valentino Benedetti was infamous in the mafia world. A teddy bear on the outside, he was actually a ruthless killer. His men sometimes crossed themselves after saying his name. Fucking ridiculous.
Still, if I’d ever wondered who took my spot on the top after my imprisonment, Jett had filled me in since I’d been released. The name on everyone’s lips was Benedetti.
I couldn’t stand for it.
I couldn’t allow another man to be more respected, more feared than me. I wasn’t the only one after Benedetti, but my word was still law for my men. I could have him killed, tortured. But now that Paisley had made friends with one of his kids, I was reconsidering my options…
Could I blow a bullet into Benedetti’s brain, knowing it would leak out to Paisley and that girl who she was walking around with? Did Paisley have any idea of Benedetti’s salacious dealings? I doubted it.
She was too naive for her own good.
And now, even though I’d escaped New York to get her off my mind, Paisley was sitting front and center, smirking at me from the pedestal I’d put her on myself.
Groaning, I slammed my hotel door shut before one of the guards could enter.
I paced my suite alone. I didn’t want to be disturbed. It was becoming apparent no matter how far I ran - be it London or Palermo - I couldn’t escape Paisley Deville.
And it wasn’t just the connection she had to my daughter that drove me crazy. There was something else… Something that drove me so innately feral I couldn’t think of a solution to the wild instincts that made me chase her.
I’d followed her around in New York.
Even in Sicily, she preoccupied my thoughts and dominated them.
I called Jett, my fists tightening as I waited for him to pick up on the other side of the world.
“Hello?” he finally asked, sounding groggy. “Did you fuck up the timezones again?”
“Do you have eyes on her?” I asked in the way of greeting.
“Hawkes, it’s the middle of the fucking night,” Jett hissed. “I’m asleep. And there’s a really hot blonde in my bed, so if you wouldn’t fucking mind-”
“Do you or not?” I barked impatiently. I could hear him cursing, a female voice calling out to him. I smirked when I heard Jett get up and walk away. “Good boy.”
“Don’t fuck with me right now,” he growled. “Look, she’s at home. Like she always is in the middle of the night. Why do you keep calling? Wasn’t this whole damn trip about getting this girl out of your head?”
I remained silent. It was the reason I’d given Jett, and he didn’t need to remind me I’d failed miserably.
“I just…” I started.
“You what?” Jett asked tiredly. “You miss her? Want to know what she’s doing? Do I need to remind you who this bitch is, Hawkes? Do you really need me to tell you?”
“I know,” I hissed.
“I don’t think you’ll admit it to yourself,” Jett replied resolutely. “She’s the reason Rubi is missing. The only, and I mean fucking only, reason you’re stuck on her, is because she’s the last link to your daughter.”
“Why are you fucking preaching right now?” I demanded.
“I’m not done,” Jett said coolly. “Look. Accept Rubi is gone, and fuck Paisley off. Go to a bar tonight, one of the places we all used to go to. Find a woman. Better yet, find a few.”
I couldn’t tell him the truth. “Yeah, maybe.”
“Make sure they don’t look like her,” he added.
Fuck. Had he noticed I only looked at women who vaguely resembled my daughter’s best friend lately? I needed to be less obvious… Otherwise every-fucking-body would start noticing she was a weak spot of mine.
“Are you actually going to listen to me?” Jett asked tiredly. “Or are you just pretending like-”
I ended the call. I really wasn’t in the mood to listen to another speech about focus.
That’s what he kept telling me to do - focus. But I was. Focused on Rubi.
Definitely not Paisley. She was just collateral. That was all she’d ever be.
And I certainly wouldn’t dream of her anymore, either.
I cancelled my private jet that would have taken me back to New York the next day, knowing I needed to stay longer. I changed the destination to London instead. Going back to Jett would ground me, and he always had women around, beautiful women.
If one of them couldn’t distract me, nothing would.