Bonus #2
“Forgive me, sir. I had no choice… S-She said she would turn in my husband and that she could find a way to get me arrested too. My son would be handed over to social services if I didn’t help…
I didn’t know she was going to push Miss Vicenti.
Mrs. Norah told me she wanted to talk, and afterward, when I learned what she did, she threatened me again… I was afraid… Forgive me…”
She had begged him, pleaded for a forgiveness he damn well feared he would not receive.
A fucking drug dealer was to blame for him being neck-deep in shit. No. The bitch, the cheap whore was to blame.
“How did she get in without the cameras and security catching her?”
Thor had the urge to strangle her, but he was so miserable he would probably commit another fucking injustice.
Anna wavered, but she knew she couldn’t hold anything back anymore.
“Mrs. Martha had left early and told me to pick up an order at the market. She said I could use the car available for the employees… Miss Carter had called me in the morning. She wanted to know about the activity at the mansion, and she called again when I was already coming back from the market and asked me to pick her up at the park… a-and I couldn’t say no. ”
Thor didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
One of his cars. A damn car had hidden Norah from everyone’s sight. She knew the mansion cars weren’t checked, could come in and out without being seen. Still, Anna had only brought her in. Someone else helped her out.
One of his two men, or both?
Anna didn’t know. She had stayed in the kitchen and only come out when the paramedics were already at the mansion. Norah was gone.
Sean and Ben.
The taste of betrayal was like poison infecting his insides with latent fury.
He had done nothing to Anna, though he was dying to peel her skin off. He left her in her misery and returned. And now, he had an insane urge to kill everyone.
He brought his hands to his head and wanted to scream in rage.
He took a deep breath, found his control, and wrapped it around his fists in a steel grip. He strode toward the car.
“To the mansion,” he growled dryly. “And don’t ease off the gas.”
He could not allow himself to assess the consequences based on shock.
Once, he had let himself be carried away by his feelings and emotions.
The result had been shit. He would not make the same mistake.
The usual coldness of his craft would keep him focused on the facts and his mind sharp in every direction.
No more mistakes and misunderstandings.
A few pieces were still missing to complete the puzzle, though he already had the most important ones and could feel the truth piercing through the dense, dark fog of deception. His heart shrank in anticipation.
A stone at that moment would have been softer than his tense body while the Hummer left Calabasas behind and glided onto the highway.
He would get his hands on Norah, he thought coldly.
He didn’t believe she would give him anything.
However, Thor knew plenty of methods to make her recite an entire mass better than the Pope himself.
The element of surprise had always been the best weapon against his opponents, he thought, slowly throwing the corners of his lips into a sadistic smile.
They had put him in a dirty game, like the court jester, but now he would play actively and stealthily. He would show those sons of bitches why he was considered one of the best. The trash would be taken out before any of those involved realized what had caught them.
“See if Sean is working today. If not, send someone to his house and bring him to me,” he ordered Kane when he got out of the car.
“It’s already done. Anything else?”
“Later.” He took two steps, stopped, and looked over his shoulder at his subordinate and friend, his eyes cold and sharp. “Today we hunt.”
The message was clear and received with a flash of perverse amusement.
His hurried feet carried him into the mansion.
“Son, where have you been?” Martha, who was coming into the living room, asked as soon as she saw him pass.
“Later.”
“Heithor, wait. I need to talk to you.”
He gave a sharp nod, ignoring the urgency in the woman’s voice, and continued toward the stairs, to Ella’s room… Nothing. Lucca’s room, the same. He returned to the living room at the same speed he had gone upstairs.
“Where is Lucca?” His voice dropped a note. He did not have a good feeling, considering the fear on Martha’s face. “Antonella?”
“That was what I wanted to talk to you about…”
The tight heart inside him missed a beat, and he waited.
“…She and Lucca left last night,” Martha completed carefully. “Son, listen, I tried to ask her to stay and wait, but I couldn’t forbid her…”
But he was no longer listening. The man stood motionless. He felt nothing except glacial ice freezing him from the inside, and his mind wandered.
Gone. She had left.
He didn’t need to be a genius to understand the reason behind her decision, especially after what had happened, the things he had said to her before traveling…
He exhaled sharply.
Three days. So few days, but Thor knew it was much, much more than he himself would have endured without taking action like she had, or worse.
Through the knot choking his throat, Thor swallowed with a sound and took a deep breath, the act making his chest visibly move.
Thor seized the phone from his pants pocket and typed.
Martha approached and touched his arm. “Son, please, don’t do anything to the bambina. I know you’re angry and don’t believe her, but remember she is Lucca’s mother. Antonella won’t hurt that baby.”
The first deep cut in his heart was made.
No, she wouldn’t do anything to their son because she had never lied. Now he knew. The deception was like hard punches to the pit of his stomach.
He had been so unfair.
“I know,” he managed to push out before sending the message.
Martha blinked, stunned, then focused on him with a shadow of relief in her eyes, but sensing the tension of the moment, she asked in a low tone:
“What’s happening, Heithor?”
“Where did she go?”
Ella couldn’t have gone far. It was too little time to put distance between them with an infant, or to leave the country without his authorization.
Maybe to the apartment she said she was buying?
Martha shrugged.
“She didn’t say, son.”
For a moment, Thor felt knocked off the axis of his life.
And this time, he knew, he was the only one to blame.
No more deception. He was dying to go find her wherever she was just to ask forgiveness and tell her he believed her, that he had been a fucking fool, even if Ella, in her right, refused to look at him.
But then he needed, had to settle accounts with the guilty ones, though deep down he knew the greatest culprit was himself.
The doorbell rang, and Martha moved to answer it.
Kane approached him.
“Sean isn’t working today, and there’s no one at his house, but I ordered two men to keep watch while I have others looking for him.”
“Make sure they bring him to me. Take him to the warehouse. Some men seem to need reminding why they shouldn’t betray the person who puts bread in their mouths, especially when that person is me.”
Kane nodded while using his phone, said a few words, and hung up.
“It’s done. Anything else?”
“Bring Ben and Norah. She’s priority. Put men at her house and check the places she usually goes. I want to finish this today.”
“It won’t help.”
Thor and Kane turned their heads to see Ben enter the living room.
He stopped a few feet away. The man looked like a wreck, beard grown out, deep circles marking his eyes, his expression tired, very heavy, as if he hadn’t slept in a long time and had just gone through hell.
Ben gave Kane a short nod, his eyes on his former boss.
“Castellammare, I need to talk to you.”
“I’m here, Benjamin,” he said with maddening calm.
“I want to talk about Antonella.”
The mention of her name in that bastard’s mouth made his body boil, and Thor was forced to cross his arms over his chest to hide his clenched fists.
“The kiss you gave her? Or the repressed love you have for her?”
“I don’t deny that I kissed her, or that I love her either,” Ben said with confidence. “But that’s none of your business.”
Thor took a step forward and tilted his head to the side.
“No?”
“No. You weren’t together anymore. There was no betrayal. She isn’t your property, Castellammare, for you to use and discard whenever you want.”
A wave of aggression flooded his body, making his muscles crack, his feet projecting forward, one more step. He wanted to beat the man to death, and even then it wouldn’t be enough. But he stopped.
The tension between them grew so dense it could have been cut with a knife. Kane felt it. Ben felt it, and his Adam’s apple moved. Not so immune to the silent aggression coming in waves from his former boss.
Looking at him in silence, Thor watched over his shoulders as Eric and Adam entered the living room.
They stopped, and then their faces took on severe scowls as they spread around the room in strategic points.
Eyes and bodies alert, reading the situation, in a few seconds becoming aware of the tension in the air.
Ben saw it too, and the skin of his throat moved again.
There was a recognition there that this had perhaps not been his best move, but there was also a hint of regret that Thor rejected.
He didn’t need help, but the guys needed to know the kind of snake they had kept close for so long, believing him loyal.
Filling his lungs with air, he said slowly:
“I have to admit. It takes a lot of courage to come here and, on top of that, confront me, despite knowing the risks. I admire that in you.”
“I’m not looking for your admiration, Castellammare,” Ben defended himself, his fists closed at his sides. He did not seem comfortable with the calm.
Thor gave him a slow, vicious smile. “No, you really aren’t. You’re looking for, or rather, were looking for, my woman.”