Chapter Thirty-one #2
I almost laugh. “Don’t make me laugh. If any of this is true, you were protecting yourself, not her. You ran so they’d take Serena first.”
“They want Serena,” she whispers, like saying it softer makes it less disgusting.
I need a smoke. Badly. But I cage the urge. Wrong place, wrong timing. “So why haven’t they tried to take her already?” I ask.
“Because she’s with you,” Lauren says. “That’s what’s keeping them away.”
I smile at her, all teeth, the kind you show before you bite. “Then I don’t see the problem,” I say. “If they wanted her, they’ve had months to make a move. You’re just scared you’re next on the list.”
Her throat bobs. Fear rolls off her like cheap perfume.
“Why don’t you go whore yourself out to their cause and buy your freedom?” I add, voice pleasant, poison-laced.
“They’d never accept me,” she whispers. “I’m too old to give them heirs. Even if I wanted to sacrifice myself—”
“Which you didn’t,” I cut in. “Let’s not rewrite motives.”
She presses her lips together. “They want a young woman. One who can give the Archibald a future. The Beaumont line matters too. And Serena is the only living heir. The contract was for a Beaumont bride to marry into the Archibald family. That doesn’t vanish just because Thomas is dead.”
“So they’ll hunt her forever,” I translate flatly.
“Yes,” she says. “They’re buying time. Figuring out how to deal with you.”
My skin crawls. That’s the part I don’t like. Not because I fear them, I don’t, but because it fits. Andres and I have been tracking ghosts for months. No movement, no attempts, no bodies sent our way. Too quiet. Suspiciously quiet. Maybe they weren’t licking their wounds. Maybe they were planning.
“What do you want?” I finally ask.
“What do you mean?” she tries, blinking like she’s confused.
I sigh, slow and tired. “You don’t get to pretend you’re here for the joy of reunion. You told Serena for a reason. Do you want protection? Money? A place to hide?”
She breaks. Tears streak. Pathetic.
“I just want to be part of her life,” she chokes out.
“No.”
No hesitation. No room for argument.
“I promise I’m not here to cause trouble,” she pleads.
“Serena went into labor after you dropped information she wasn’t ready for. She had an emergency C-section. And you’re standing here telling me you’re not trouble?”
Her face crumples, shoulders shaking. “I told her so she wouldn’t push you away anymore.”
That stops me cold for half a beat.
“How do you know she pushed me away?” I ask.
She wrings her hands, voice small. “Serena would have never stayed with you if she thought you murdered her father innocent. I told her the truth so she’d know he deserved what he got. So she’d forgive you.” Her eyes lift. “So you could protect her.”
“I protect her regardless,” I say. “Whether she’s mine or not.”
She breaks harder, sobs echoing off sterile walls until heads turn.
For fuck’s sake. A public spectacle was the last thing I needed.
“Then let me help,” she pleads. “Please.”
“How?” I ask, eyebrow raised. “Exactly how do you think you help me?”
“Rhodes,” she whispers.
“Who the fuck is that?”
She wipes her crocodile tears with the back of her hand. “The Rhodes brothers. I don’t know much, but one of them is the head of the Organization. The others work behind the scenes.”
I pull out my phone, type the name, and shoot it to Andres. Even halfway across the world, he’s still useful.
“Keep talking,” I tell her.
“That’s all I know,” she insists. “I heard Thomas on the phone once. He addressed the man as Mr. Rhodes.”
My phone buzzes.
Andres: Farmers.
I stare at the screen, jaw slamming shut.
“Rhodes are fucking farmers,” I mutter.
“I’m not lying,” she insists. “Thomas always reported to someone. He always said Mr. Rhodes.”
“How the hell did you jump from a farmer to the head of the Organization?” I ask. “He could’ve been talking to a supplier. A fucking accountant.”
She meets my eyes, and something shifts.
“Because Thomas was second in command.”
That freezes me.
“What?”
“Rhodes, Astor, Beaumont, and Archibald,” she continues, voice low, “are the founding families of the Organization. Rhodes lead. Beaumont and Archibald enforce. And the Astor invest.”
I sit there, absorbing each syllable like a fist to the ribs.
“So Thomas wasn’t just a member,” I say slowly. “He was second in command?”
“Yes.” She whispers it like an apology.
“What else haven’t you told her?” I demand. There’s more. I can feel it.
She hesitates, breath stutters, and then:
“Women serve the founding families,” she says. “In whatever capacity they are commanded.”
My skin crawls. “What the fuck does that mean?”
But I already know. I’ve seen enough jobs, enough bodies, enough missing women to recognize the shape of a monster.
“You know,” she says. “Serena isn’t meant to be just Archibald’s wife. Their wives are shared. They rotate among the male line of the founding families.”
My stomach turns to acid.
“How the fuck do you know that?”
She doesn’t blink.
“Because I am a Beaumont wife,” she says. “And I served the founding families.”
For one split second, I want to feel sorry for her. But then I remember every time Serena cried alone. Every night she needed a mother who vanished to save her own skin and abused her.
I hold the sympathy in the back of my throat and crush it.
I text Andres everything.
Andres: I’m on it.
Lauren reaches into her purse and pulls out a USB stick.
“Everything I copied from Thomas’s laptop before they took it,” she whispers. “It’s all here.”
For fuck’s sake.
Just when the universe finally started aligning. Luciano dangling by a thread. Serena half-forgiving me, letting me breathe in her orbit again. Our babies screaming their way into the world like tiny promises that I might actually deserve something good.
And now this.
The Organization crawling out of the pit like a bad joke. Another war to win. Another threat to crush.
Fine. Let them come.
I’ll deal with them the same way I deal with everything else that tries to take what’s mine, fast, brutal, permanent. The quicker I end this, the faster I get back to where I belong. With her.
Because that’s the plan. A husband she can lean on. A father who doesn’t miss a single moment. Her man, completely, without shadows at my back.
And neither the Cosa Nostra nor the fucking Organization will stop me from that.