34. Matti
Matti
I shove the key into the lock on Franco’s door and turn it, expecting to see him either pulling some bullshit because he’s expecting Olivia or nursing the wounds Siena inflicted on him.
A smirk tugs at my lips. Love my girl.
When I open the door, he lunges at me, screaming like a banshee, arms flailing. He’s chained to the opposite wall, so I step back and use the heavy steel door to slam into him.
The impact sends him crashing back the way he came, slamming into the wall and sliding down into a heap, leaving a smear of blood from the back of his head in his wake.
Throwing the door closed behind me with a bang that echoes in the small, barren room, I pull him up by his shirt and shove his face into the mattress.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? Were you planning to pull that shit on Olivia, you stupid fuck?”
Goddamn, Olivia was right: men target women like predators. What would have happened if it hadn’t been me walking through the door ?
It makes me want to get back to Siena as fast as I can. I know that there are predators out there waiting to hurt her as we speak. But one of them is right in front of me, and it’s getting harder and harder to justify keeping him alive.
He’s yelling into the mattress, his words muffled. I yank his head up by the hair, driving my knee into his back to keep him pinned. “Speak clearly, asshole.”
“What do you care about Olivia? You’re the one who’s fucking my sister behind her back,” he gasps, his breath hitching.
“You should be more worried about staying alive than who I fuck,” I growl.
I consider dragging him to one of the torture rooms, maybe even Siena’s room, so she can finish what she started. My plan originally was just to talk some sense into him, redirect his attention away from Siena, but now that conversation is going to come with a beating.
Shifting my weight back, I curl my fingers into a fist and pull back to hit him.
“No, wait!” His voice cracks. “If you kill me, Siena’s dead.”
While I doubt seriously this little shit has any information that would be of use to me, I can give him thirty seconds.
“Explain.”
“Aurelio,” he chokes, his voice high-pitched and shrill. “He told me to take her out. Said if I didn’t, he’d send someone else.”
I can barely understand him through his shrieking. “How the fuck does that change anything? That just means killing you takes out one more threat.”
Seeing him pinned to the mattress, bleeding from cuts on his chest, neck, and face, whining for his life, I reconsider. “ Not that you’re much of a threat.”
“But if he thinks I’m still on the job, he won’t send anyone else!” Franco’s voice is frantic, desperate.
I snort. “The last time you talked to Aurelio was weeks ago. If you haven’t reported to him that she’s dead by now, he’s already sent other people to get the job done.”
The truth of my words hits me hard. She’s been here for weeks, and no one found her other than Franco. Aurelio would have grabbed her already if he knew she was here.
My agitation increases, and along with it, my paranoia. I can’t stop thinking of her alone and naked in bed waiting for me, and who might find her in that state while I’m here dealing with this fucking bitch.
Franco’s shoulders sag, a pathetic whimper escaping him as he realizes he’s out of cards to play.
How the fuck is this guy related to my beautiful badass? I’ve never had siblings, but I can’t imagine betraying Vin or Tommy the way Franco has fucked over Siena. Maybe Aurelio’s got something on him. If so, I want to know what it is.
I yank him up and shove him onto the edge of the bed. “Let me ask you this, Franco. Answer honestly, because this is important. What did you say when Aurelio told you to kill Siena?”
Franco rubs his hands up and down his thighs, then hugs one arm around his bleeding torso, wincing and eying me warily. Blood is dribbling down his neck, and there’s dried and fresh blood around the punctures in the shirt. When he speaks, his voice is barely above a whisper. “I said I’d do it.”
Rage surges through me. I grab his hair, forcing his head back, and sneer in his face. “You fuck.”
“I had no choice! I had to!” he sputters, waving his arms like a blind man trying to fend me off.
I pull his head back farther. “Why?”
“Aurelio killed Mikey just for joking about stealing that diamond job you guys have been planning. He’s a made guy! I’m just a civilian, a cop. What do you think he’d do to me?”
Something shifts in my gut as I watch him sputter and spit. Aurelio didn’t kill Mikey, though, and Franco didn’t say that he had been asked to take out Siena. I’d bet anything that Aurelio didn’t even need to threaten him—this spineless prick offered Siena up.
My grip tightens, and Franco begins thrashing, kicking, his movements weak and erratic. I slam him into the metal bed frame, his head bouncing off with a sickening thud, then stomp my heel down hard on the side of his knee.
He screams in pain, and I slam his head against the metal leg of the bed before yanking him to his feet. He can’t stand on his own, so I hold him up, his feet dragging on the ground, as I pin him against the wall.
“Did you offer to kill Siena?” I snarl, my voice low and deadly.
“I’m not stupid! I knew what I had to do. I knew what I had to do!” Franco’s eyes aren’t focusing, and his jaw is slack, drool sliding out the corner of his mouth.
I open-hand bitch slap him hard across the face to bring him back to the present. I want him good and awake when I fuck him up. “Why?”
“She trusts me, so I knew I could get to her easier,” he mumbles.
“And you know where she lives.” Suddenly, it’s all very clear. “So you went to her house, trailed her to that lawyer’s office, then ratted her out to Aurelio. When he gave the Erase Order— ”
“I was gonna do it myself.” He swipes the back of his hand across his face, smearing snot and blood across his cheek.
I can barely look at him, he disgusts me so much. “If he gave the Erase Order, he gave it to the Ruggerio Brothers, not you. You were off the hook. Why would you still kill her if you didn’t have to?”
“To prove my loyalty to the family. Get respect—”
My vision tunnels, and I lift him by the neck, his weight dangling uselessly in my grip. But a quick death is too good for him. I let him collapse to the floor, a crumpled, bloody mess.
“Nobody fucking respects you, you motherless fuck.” I drive my boot into his ribs. He barely reacts. “That includes Aurelio. No matter what you do, how much you debase yourself, how many innocent people you sell out, he will never invite you into the family.”
Franco gags and spits up blood and bile onto the concrete floor, clutching his sides. “Not him. My family. Prove loyalty to my family.”
I shake my head, running my hand through my hair. “You’re not making any fucking sense, Franco.”
Franco is mumbling, and I can’t make out what he’s saying. I lean closer. “Speak up, asshole.”
“Sean Lodge,” he gasps.
I pause. I know that name. It was on one of the passports I found at the crash site, along with Mikey’s and Emily’s.
“He’s dead, Franco,” I say slowly. “He can’t help you now.”
“Aurelio… bomb…” His head lolls to the side, unconscious before he can finish.
I shake him, trying to rouse him. I don’t know what information or misinformation he thinks he needs to share, but I can’t get him to wake up and complete the thought.
If he wasn’t trying to make his bones with the Demonio family, was Franco trying to prove his loyalty to the MacCuinn Clan? Is that what he was trying to say when he said he needed to prove loyalty to his family?
If the MacCuinns believe Aurelio ordered the bomb placed on Mikey and Emily’s plane, then they also believe that he took out an Irish guy, one of their own, at the same time.
Which means the Irish could be looking for payback.
Darragh MacCuinn runs the MacCuinn Clan, and he wouldn’t let a slight like that go unanswered.
But as far as I know, Mikey was on the run of his own accord and anyone who went with him chose to do so, which means that the Irish wouldn’t blame the Demonios for his death.
And how would Siena’s death serve the purpose of revenge, even if Darragh did want payback?
It doesn’t make sense. None of it does. Too many people are lying. Franco seems to believe that Aurelio killed Mikey, but Vin was adamant the day I called him from the crash site that Aurelio was on the war path because he didn’t know who killed Mikey.
Aurelio himself claimed the hit to me, Vin, and Tommy yesterday, but at the same time he said that he had already “taken care of” Siena and that wasn’t true.
I guess I can understand why he would lie to someone like Franco and say he took out Mikey, but why would he lie to us about that? To make it more credible that he had done something to Siena while I was away?
But why lie about Siena at all?
And then it hits me.
Because he knew I’d leave him and go straight to her, revealing where she has been hiding out.
FUCK.
I leave Franco bleeding on the floor and run straight back to Siena’s room as fast as I can, my pulse racing.
Bursting into the room, my breathing stops. I’m too late.
The door is open, the room a wreck. My heart pounds as I take it in: the overturned chair, her jean jacket in a heap, the bed we shared an hour ago in shambles.
I move across the room as if in a trance, picking up the jacket, inhaling her scent—basil shampoo, sex. And love. My guts twist.
“Matti!” Olivia’s voice cuts through the haze. She’s leaning in the doorway, tears streaming down her face, her lip bloody and swollen.
“Aurelio’s guys?” I demand.
She nods, trembling. “I couldn’t stop them. I’m sorry. I don’t know where they took her.”
“I do.” My voice is cold steel.
I fucking knew it. He followed me straight to her, took his time dredging up men who would be willing to cross me and take her. And because only cowards fit that description, they waited to strike until I was gone and she was alone.
I right the chair, throwing Siena’s jacket hard against the wall in frustration. Something clatters to the cement floor. I bend down to pick it up and freeze.
It’s a flash drive.
Holy shit, it’s the flash drive.
Siena fucking lied to me. I put my family on the line—my life on the line—defending her, and she had this thing the whole fucking time?
What the fuck?