Chapter Fifty-One
S ome people smashed glass ceilings.
I smashed a thirty-five-hundred-year-old, eighty-million-dollar vase I’d bought at an auction.
“Kidnapped her!” I grabbed the edge of my office desk and flipped it over. That shit was at least two hundred pounds of solid wood. “He fucking managed to kidnap her. I’m impressed with your incompetence. I’ve met broken condoms with better security.”
Achilles, Luca, and Enzo stood in my office, solemnly taking the verbal berating. As soon as the three of them walked in together, I knew things were dire. It had been forty minutes since they gave me the rundown of where we stood, and I still wasn’t over their bullshit service.
“It was a miscalculation on our part.” Luca’s jaw ticked. “But as I said, we have a plan and collateral.”
“He gave me his word .” I screamed so hard my throat gave out.
“Dude, his word is worth jack shit.” Enzo flicked his knife open, squeezing it in his palm until blood oozed out. “He’s got no honor. No code of conduct. He’s a loose cannon.”
“Well, no fucking shit.” I tore my jacket apart, feeling too hot to breathe all of a sudden. I stalked out of my office.
The brothers followed me stoically through my apartment. I was going to execute their so-called plan and inflict maximum pain on everyone involved.
“Filippo proved to be fucking useless,” I spat out, ripping my coat from the hanger in the mudroom and putting it on.
“Tiernan killed him.” Achilles’s throat worked, and I thought I saw a flash of something that wasn’t undiluted crazy going through his face. “Shot him in the back of the head.”
I yanked the entrance door open and stormed to the elevator bank.
Panic ran through my veins. Callaghan was obviously insane and capable of anything.
Gia was a small, unarmed woman, but that didn’t mean he’d spare her.
And she had a very smart mouth, something I usually worshipped but that, in this situation, gave me a lot of anxiety.
She’d sass back even with a gun to her head.
Especially with a gun to her head.
“I’m going to kill him,” Luca muttered.
“Get in line, motherfucker,” Enzo protested. “You dragged my ass from Crimson Key to take care of this hiccup. The least I can do is—”
“He killed Filippo,” Achilles cut both of them off savagely. “I’ll be the one killing him, and I’ll be doing it very slowly, over the course of a fucking week. Death will be an unattainable fantasy when I get my hands on him.”
“No one is touching a hair on his head until I have my wife back, safe and sound,” I informed them. “This is no longer a pissing contest. I—”
My phone buzzed in my hand. I glowered at it. It was Callaghan. I knew, because I had the foresight to save his number in my contacts last time he called, when Nash Moore was in my trunk.
Oh, how the tables had turned. I slid a finger across the screen and put him on speaker as we all stepped into the elevator.
“Blackthorn,” Tiernan greeted merrily. “What’s the craic?”
I wanted to lash out at him. To threaten and yell and beg and bargain. But doing so would put Gia in even more danger. Pretending to have my shit together was crucial if I wanted to get her back.
By the looks Luca, Achilles, and Enzo gave me, they too were worried I’d go down on my knees and start bawling like a little bitch.
“Been better, been worse,” I said calmly. “Yourself?”
“Grand. I have a visitor. Would you like to say hello?”
I closed my eyes, swallowing down the scream wedged in my throat. I had never felt so out of control. I started tapping my numbers, not giving a fuck about Dr. Patel or the Ferrantes.
Two, six, two.
Two six, two.
TWO. SIX. FUCKING TWO.
“If you insist,” I croaked finally, sick to my stomach about my own manufactured tranquility.
“Here she is,” Tiernan said gleefully.
I heard a soft groan, followed by my wife clearing her throat. “Sorry, love. Rain check on that steak I was going to make for you tonight.”
Gia.
She sounded even-keeled. Blasé. Put together.
I loved her, even more than usual, for that. She was playing the game. Fucking with Tiernan’s mind, having him second-guess the card he held in his hand. Tears pricked my eyes. I couldn’t recall crying since Andrin killed my rabbit, but I came close now.
“That’s okay. I had a big lunch.” I fought to keep my tone conversational. “Are you hurt?”
“A mild head injury, I think.” She paused.
I heard her take a slow, deliberate sip from a bottle.
“Otherwise, I’m just terribly inconvenienced.
He only has Aquafina here,” she added regretfully.
“Would you mind negotiating for Essentia Alkaline? There’s really no need for these inhumane conditions. ”
Exhaling through my nose, I bit down on a smirk. What a badass. I couldn’t wait to have children with this woman. “Consider it done. I’m sorry for this, sweetheart.”
“Uh-huh. Very touching. Anyway.” Tiernan cut the conversation off. “How about what I asked for? The territories I want from the Ferrantes. Put a dent in that yet?”
I shot a glare at the three brothers. Their faces were blank.
We had discussed it after my visit to Callaghan, and Luca and Achilles said they’d take care of it.
Unfortunately, both sides secured their collateral at the same time.
If Tiernan had just waited a few hours, none of this shit would have happened.
“You’re not getting an inch of their land, but we can negotiate not having your sister’s throat slit by a high-profile billionaire mogul with a taste for violence,” I answered.
“You can’t get to Tierney.” Tiernan laughed. “I made sure she was far away from harm before I came for your wife.”
“Is that right?” I mused.
“Yes,” Tiernan said with conviction. “She’s in an underground bunker in an undisclosed location.”
“She was in a rural Colorado basement in your buddy’s vacation house.” Achilles barked out a laugh. “Forget organized crime, Tiernan. I see a bright future for you in fiction.”
The elevator dinged and slid open, and the four of us barreled toward my Escalade.
Achilles snapped his fingers. “Oh. By the way, we have her now.” His rusty laugh grated my nerves like nails on a blackboard. “Your precious Tierney.”
The silence on the other line told me what I already knew. We had hit a nerve.
“No,” Tiernan said finally. “ No .”
“Yes,” I countered, unlocking my vehicle and sliding into the driver’s seat.
“And unlike Gia, she actually has a lot of interesting information about your less than kosher antics. I wonder what’d make her sing…
” I revved the engine, clucking my tongue.
“Or purr. Let me assure you, I can be very persuasive when I want to be.”
“Where is she?” Tiernan spat out.
I yawned in his ear by way of an answer.
“I’m going to slit your wife’s thro—”
“Relax there, buddy. No one’s going to harm anyone. You know damn well the minute you give Gia as much as a paper cut, I drain your sister, then make a nice high-end sex doll from her deflated corpse. We both have too much to lose. So how about we cut to the chase?”
“How do I know you’re not lying?” he demanded.
I sighed, flipping through my phone gallery while shaking my head. I hadn’t started driving to Tierney’s place of hiding yet. “Because unlike you, my word actually means something. Here.” I hit Send with my thumb.
A second later, I could hear the video Achilles had taken of Tierney playing in Callaghan’s background.
“Today is March fifteenth, and I can confirm that I, Tierney Callaghan, am in the hands of the Ferrante family. I’m safe, in good health, and well.
” She was made to follow a generic script.
“Stop this shit now, brother.” Her voice did not waver, did not break.
“Enough is enough. There are other ways to conquer the world. If they touch me, if something bad happens to me…” She obviously veered off script, which was just as well, because it entertained the shit out of Achilles when he took the video.
“I’m going to murder them and then you . Fix this shit now, Tiernan.”
The video came to an end.
I sighed, “Is she always so poetic?”
“What do you want?” Tiernan asked after a pause, resigned.
“You know what I want. I want my wife,” I said simply. “Unscathed. And a promise this thing between us is put to bed. This time, your word won’t be enough, though. I’d want a third party to ensure both sides keep their end of the bargain.”
“The Ferrant—” Tiernan began as I kicked the vehicle into drive.
Luca was quick to interject. “Are fucking pissed. You killed Filippo. He was our family. You don’t really think we’ll ever work with you again, do you?”
“Of course you will. Greed is a potent stimulus. Besides, it was nothing personal.” Tiernan yawned offhandedly.
“Merely business. I do believe you were the ones who pointed Blackthorn to the whereabouts of my soldiers, and I don’t remember holding it against you.
Nolan was Fintan’s godfather, I’ll have you know. ”
“You’re not powerful enough to hold grudges,” Achilles said. “We decide who lives and who dies in this city.”
“And what’s the verdict?” Tiernan sounded more amused than concerned.
“Undecided,” Luca lied. There was no other way to lure him in. “How about we exchange hostages and sleep on it?”
“Sure.”
For the first time since Gia was kidnapped, I took a deep breath. Oxygen hit my lungs, and I became almost lightheaded.
“How about we go somewhere picturesque?” Tiernan suggested. “Set the mood.”
“Not gonna fuck you either way, but knock yourself out,” Achilles muttered as we drove out of my building’s garage and toward the place where they were holding Tierney. It was guarded to the teeth, so we weren’t worried about being followed. “What do you have in mind?”
“The Palisades.”
I shared a quick look with Luca, who jerked his chin in a nod. “We’ll spread our men evenly around the place. I know it well.”
“Sounds good,” I said into the phone.
“Excellent.” Tiernan clapped his hands together. “Tell my sister I’m fixing everything. And forget about water. Give her champagne.”
“Don’t push it, asshole. Oh, and, Callaghan?”
“Yes, Blackthorn?”
“If I find out you as much as sneezed in Gia’s direction, you will be grateful I can only kill you once.”