Vanessa
Chapter sixteen
It’s been over two hours since I heard from Braxton. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or if I’m in for horrible news. When he left, I had such high hopes, but for the last hour, it’s been dwindling faster and faster with each passing minute.
There’s a knock at the door, and I run into the foyer from the library to see Nik opening the front door.
“Did you find them?” I ask, rushing up to Braxton.
The second our gazes lock, I know it was a dead end.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. They cleared out before we got to them. But they were there at some point with your mom and sister.” He holds out a purple sweatshirt that’s faded from the wash. One I know all too well since it’s Noel’s favorite.
I take the sweatshirt from his hand and hold it up to my face.
Tears instantly spring to my eyes and a wailing sob escapes me.
My legs feel weak, too weak to hold me and the weight of my world crashing around me.
Before I collapse to the floor, Braxton’s strong arms encircle my entire body, and he crushes me to his chest.
“Shh,” he whispers into the top of my head. “I’ve got you, Vanessa, and we’re going to find them. They will be home soon, and we’ll find them that house with the yellow kitchen and huge backyard for your sister. This isn’t over.”
He continues to rub my back, holding me upright in the foyer of Nik’s house as I feel like my world is shattering all over again.
“I…I thought they’d be coming back with you.
I was so hopeful that this was it and we could finally put all of this behind us.
Russ, Sokolov, their fucking sick plans for revenge.
I really thought it was ending today.” I sob harder, admitting that I pinned all my hopes on them being in that house and the Black Roses returning with them.
“It might not be today, but I swear to you it will happen. Soon,” Braxton says. “We won’t stop until we find them.”
My tears slow, and a small amount of the strength and certainty that Braxton is trying to share with me begins to take root. It’s not much, but it’s enough to allow me to straighten my spine a touch and not feel as though I’m going to collapse on Nik’s marble floors.
I lean back slightly and look up into Braxton’s worried gaze. “I’m okay now,” I say, blowing out a long breath.
“It’s okay if you aren’t. I’m here to hold you up.”
The sincerity in his eyes nearly brings tears to mine again. But I can’t stand here all day and cry. That isn’t going to get anything done or help anyone find my family.
“What now?” I ask, and it’s Nik who answers.
“Fallon is going to keep looking into loose relations of Sokolov and his men. Try to uncover some stones where we hadn’t thought to look before. This has become her number-one priority,” he tells me before meeting the eyes of every brother.
“Liam is back in the country with his team. I’ve filled him in on everything so his guys are looking, too,” Jude says. “Your mum and sis are coming home, Vanessa. My brother never misses a target. We’ll find them.”
Jude’s genuine words give me a little comfort, but scare me at the same time. Since I’ve known him, his attitude has never been this serious, which tells me he knows exactly how dire this situation really is.
“Let’s get back to Shine,” Ozzy says. “We need to talk to Barrett and Wyatt and regroup.” He holds his hand out for Nik to shake. “Thanks for all your help.”
Nik clasps Ozzy’s hand. “We’re not done yet. I’ll be talking to you soon.”
The brothers walk back to the SUVs, and Braxton and I follow.
He helps me into the back seat and sits next to me, buckling me in.
His strong arm wraps around me, and he positions us so that I can lie against his side with my head on his shoulder.
I’ve never been much of the lovey-dovey type, but when Braxton holds me like this, it calms my racing heart.
Whether it be in the back seat of a car, in his bed, or with my arms wrapped around him on the back of his bike, touching him in any capacity slows my mind enough to allow me to think clearly and a little more calmly.
I must have closed my eyes and drifted off at some point because I’m jolted awake by Braxton’s phone ringing.
“Hey Sylvie, what’s up?”
His entire body stiffens under me, which puts me on high alert.
“Don’t touch anything. Clear the club.” He’s silent for a few moments. “Okay, we’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
He disconnects the call. “Someone left a package for Vanessa at Midnight Rose,” he tells Ozzy, who is driving the SUV.
I straighten away from his side. “Who?”
Braxton shakes his head. “She doesn’t know.
She was letting in the liquor delivery guy and there was a box sitting in front of the door.
Said she looked at the camera, but she only saw some kid ride up on his bike with it in his hands before he set it down then rode away.
Knowing what we do, these assholes aren’t above involving kids in their dirty work. ”
My mind starts racing with all the things it could be, and none of it is good.
When we pull up to the club half an hour later, Sylvie must have seen us on the cameras because she steps out the back door to greet us.
“When I said to clear the club, that meant you too. We don’t know what’s in that box,” Braxton says after getting out of the SUV.
“Relax, it’s not a bomb. The box is too light,” Sylvie says, crossing her arms.
“I don’t even want to know how you would know that,” Braxton replies.
“Probably not,” Sylvie shoots back, then looks at me. “Do you know who would be sending you packages at your place of work?”
I nod my head yes. “There’s some stuff going on with my mom and sister.”
“Could it be your ex?”
I swallow and look at the ground, then back up at Sylvie, unsure of what to say.
Everything has been a whirlwind, and it sounds like no one has filled her in on what was going on, not that they necessarily would have.
But Sylvie is a great boss and manager, and I feel like shit for having lied to her when I came in all those weeks ago with a beat-to-hell face.
“Let’s talk about this later,” Braxton interrupts. “Where’s the box?”
“In my office.”
The seven of us follow Sylvie inside the club. She opens her office door, and though it’s a tight fit, we manage to stand around the desk. A small rectangular cardboard box sits in the center. The only thing on the box is my name in black Sharpie.
Ozzy pulls a knife from his pocket and flips it open, grabbing the box and cutting through the tape. He opens the flaps, and there’s a note lying on top, over some newspaper. Ozzy hands me the note, and I take a look at it.
“It’s Russ’s handwriting,” I say and read the note aloud.
“You get one shot to say goodbye to your sister and mom. I’ll give you a chance to take their place since it was you who betrayed me.
I’ll be in contact with a meeting place.
If I see anyone from the Black Roses, you’ll die next to your family. ’”
I look up as Ozzy removes the newspaper. Lying in the box is a dead rat with its head twisted at an odd angle, its body sliced open from neck to tail.
I turn my head and try to take a breath to stave off the rush of nausea that consumes me.
“Fucking gross,” Jude says.
“Ozzy, could you please get that fucking rat out of my office?” Sylvie tells him, and Ozzy picks up the box and walks out the door.
Sylvie looks at me. “I know exactly what organization leaves messages like that, and I don’t want—nor do I need—an explanation. The less I know, the better.”
Moments later, Ozzy returns without the box. “They were in my town.” He looks at each brother. “We’re going on lockdown. They were here and could have taken any of our women or kids while we were chasing after them in New York.”
All the men nod, and Ozzy looks at Sylvie. “You’re welcome to stay at the clubhouse too, Sylvie. Obviously, they were here at your club.”
“Just give me a couple more security guys. The fucking Bratva isn’t running me out of this club.”
My head jerks back with that statement, but Ozzy doesn’t seem particularly surprised that she knows anything about Bratva business.
“You aren’t meeting him. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let that happen,” Braxton says.
“I don’t have a choice. It’s my mom and sister,” I say, turning toward him.
“It’s a trap, Vanessa,” Braxton says, imploring me with his eyes to see the danger I’m in. But here’s the thing—I do know. I know all too well. And my sister and mom are caught in the middle of Russ’s deadly vendetta.
“I know that, Braxton. Russ is backed into a corner, and this is personal now. I made him look bad to Sokolov. In his eyes, I betrayed him.”
“He betrayed you when he made you dance in his clubs when you were a kid. You have no loyalty to him. And he’s crazy to think you would.”
“No, I don’t, and we can all agree he’s batshit. But he knows I’m loyal to my family and would protect them with my life.”
“Listen, I’m familiar with the Russian Bratva, but I don’t want to be privy to anything else,” Sylvie interrupts. “I don’t know what you’re planning or who Russ is. Can you please take this lover’s quarrel somewhere else?”
“Sorry, Sylvie,” Ozzy says, then turns to the rest of us. “Let’s get to the clubhouse and finish this conversation. Jude, Linc, and Knox, I’ll drop you at your places so you can get everything together. I want everyone inside the gates within the hour.”
“Mia is going to be pissed she has to miss work,” Knox says.
“Trust me, she’d be more pissed if she got caught up in this shit,” Cash says, then turns to Ozzy. “Can you drop me at my house, too? I have a feeling I won’t want to be in the same car with these two fighting.”
“We aren’t fighting,” Braxton says.
“What you aren’t doing is getting out,” Sylvie says.
The men nod in her direction and one by one begin filing out her office door. I’m the last out except for Ozzy. When I turn, he’s saying something quietly to Sylvie, and she shakes her head then gives him a hard look.
“It’s fine,” she says firmly then sits in her chair.
“What’s that about?” I ask Braxton, following him out of the club.
“I don’t know. Sylvie is closed off about her past, but I know she’s from New York. Only Trick knows her story. Maybe Ozzy. But it’s hers to tell, and no one has ever asked.”
We get back in the SUV with Braxton behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat this time.
“Braxton, if something happens to my sister and mom, I’ll never forgive myself. If Russ is sending boxes of dead rats, I’m terrified to think what he’s going to send next.”
He’s silent for a few moments, his jaw working back and forth.
“I know. But I can’t let you meet him unprotected.
We just need to figure out how to go about this.
I’m as unwilling to lose you as you are to lose your mom and sister.
If you go in there alone, who the hell knows what Russ will decide to do. ”
Blowing out a breath, I look out the window at the town I’ve come to consider home. It scares the shit out of me that I may not be able to say that after I see Russ again. That I might never see this town or the man sitting next to me again.
“I have no idea what he has planned, but I can’t leave my mom and sister to his twisted schemes. I won’t do that.”
Braxton reaches over and grabs my hand before bringing it to his mouth, kissing the back of it then setting our intertwined fingers on his lap. “We’ll figure it out, sweetheart. I promised you I’d get them home, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
I smile softly and turn my head back to the window. I know he believes that, and I believe him. I just can’t help but wonder at what cost.