Chapter 12
TWELVE
TOMA
My bright little rose isn’t so bright as her father hangs up the call.
I didn’t place any camera inside her flat but my view of her living-room is unobstructed.
She tilts her head back, blinking a few times.
Then, shakes her body as though she can get rid of negative emotions, just like that.
I watch as she goes into the bathroom and closes the door behind her. Hopefully, she’ll take a relaxing bath.
I didn’t intend to listen in on the call.
Maybe I did.
I’m not going to blame myself for being curious. The time I spent with the Venturas before the summer gave me the impression that Lucie and her adoptive dad, Bruno, are close. Yet, she barely receives texts and this was the first call since the night of her goodbye party. It doesn’t feel right.
She deserves to be loved consistently, not just when it’s convenient.
Before I know what I’m doing, I open seven different windows on my three screens, accessing portals developed by the best engineers and coders in both legal and illegal worlds.
I speed through years of camera feeds, following Bruno Armani and his brother and second-in-command, Michel.
They’re not the only ones catching my interest.
A young, bubbly Lucie accompanies her father wherever he goes. She was a cute kid, yet that same fake smile graces the features of the fourteen year-old going to a charity gala with her dad. She’s been doing the people-pleasing and lying for a while, then.
Wherever they go, Michel Armani always follows, with his wife Diane at his arm. The woman is objectively beautiful. A full head above her husband, lithe, brunette. I prefer my woman, with her full body and colourful clothes.
From the registry of a Catholic Church in Nice, a document pops up. It establishes Michel and Diane as Lucie’s god-parents.
I frown. The years of CCTV show them always together, yet my girl hasn’t received a single text from the people who are supposed to be the closest to her?
A prickle of suspicion tickles the back of my neck and I look frantically for more information on the trio. From the moment Lucie came to London, and then moved to Edinburgh. Something doesn’t add up.
At the same time, I dig into Lucie’s texts. I don’t read them, but look for the thread with her godparents. The one with Michel is sparse, as expected. But the one with Diane is filled with hundreds of messages.
Until two months ago. From one day to the next, she goes silent. I cross-check with what I can find on cameras, credit cards activities and phone bills. One day, she hangs at her husband’s arm, a look of pure love in her eyes when she looks at the stocky man. The next, she’s gone.
And she’s nowhere to be found.
She’s not on any camera feed in Nice. Not at the the harbour or airport. She just vanished.
I turn to Bruno and Michel Armani’s patterns.
They go to a tennis club every Thursday.
Until two months ago. They do the rounds at their many businesses across Nice and its wider region.
Until two months ago when they start delegating to other people I don’t recognise or know.
I find their rap sheets. Soldiers who have been in the organisation for years.
Men climb the ladder in the underworld all the time.
It wouldn’t be suspicious if the change hadn’t been so sudden.
I spend hours, well into the night, looking for Diane.
Where I find her has shivers of dread waking goosebumps all over my skin.
I pick up my phone and dial Dante.
“Is Lucie safe?” he asks as way of greeting.
“Yes.”
“It’s fucking two am, cazzo di merda. Why—”
“Why is Diane Armani in my brother’s personal brothel, Dante?”
My voice vibrates with restraint and rage. I stand, looking at the screen. She’s alive, but for how long?
That must be what he meant when he told me weeks ago that they infiltrated my brother’s organisation.
They sent Diane as an informant, a lamb to the slaughter.
When Petar finds out he has a spy in his midst, slaughter is too kind a word for what will happen to her. He will make an example out of her.
Muted noises of clothes rustle in the background as Dante curses under his breath. He calls out for his two partners, then his voice comes through the speaker again.
“You’re on speaker. Listen, Toma. We didn’t tell you because—”
“Because honestly, we don’t know where your allegiance lies,” Irina says, her voice icy and haughty. If she weren’t someone I respect, I’d go back to London to kill her for the insinuation.
“My allegiance? Dante, did you not tell your lovers where I am right now?”
“What is he talking about?” the Bratva kingpin asks, threat laced with confusion.
“I’m in fucking Edinburgh keeping an eye on Lucie, you dumb fucks. My allegiance is to her and her only. My brother deserves to fucking die, and you’re going to tell me right now what you’re planning or I swear to God, you’ll never see Lucie ever again.”
I can’t see him but I feel Dante get closer to the phone when he threatens me. “If you touch a single hair on her head—,” he starts.
“I already heard that threat, Ventura. It doesn’t work on me. I wouldn’t have to touch Lucie for her to hate you. All I have to do is tell her all the shit you keep hidden from her.”
“Are you blackmailing us?” Irina asks.
“I might. Don’t fucking push me and answer the damn question.”
“She wants out, Kova?,” Dante says but I don’t budge. “Don’t bring her into this.”
“She already is. Now, speak.”
Silence and tension thicken the air around me, my heart beating inside my chest like it’s going to explode, the monster inside begging to do exactly what I threaten so I can keep Lucie all to myself.
Away. Safe. Barricaded behind the walls of a castle I’d build for her.
I shake my head and clench my teeth, waiting for them to fucking talk to me.
“We infiltrated your brother’s organisation. Diane is gathering all she can,” Dante explains with a sigh.
“He’s going to kill her when he finds out.”
“If.”
“When,” I insist.
They took a risk they saw as necessary, but they’re damn blind. Every person who underestimated Petar died tragically. Horribly. The memory of Gemma and Milosh’s corpses makes me shudder.
Lucie’s going to hate this. I don’t need to read the texts they exchange to know they’re close. You don’t send that many messages a day to a random person. She’s already lost two parents, I can’t let her lose another.
“I want to be informed of all developments. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”
I’m a fucking hypocrite, keeping secrets from them as well. They still have no idea about Lucie’s bodyguards’ execution and who was behind it, but they don’t need to know. I’m the only one who can keep Lucie safe, the only one omniscient in this situation.
“Fine,” Dante says. “But you stay in Edinburgh. Lucie’s safety is our priority right now.”
When I hang up, I’m keyed up. I get up and pace in front of my window, looking at Lucie’s darkened flat. I glance down at the street and the man who’s been walking his dog every single night. The mutt always stops on Lucie’s doorstep. As he does most nights, the dog’s owner looks up to where I am.
But this time, it’s more insistent.
He knows I’m here.
His eyes move to Lucie’s window, dark in the dead of night, and I swear I see a vicious smile curl at the corner of his mouth.
Paranoia wins. Or maybe just knowledge. The pattern is too obvious, like he wanted me to see him.
Images of my hands around his throat flash in my mind, his blood coating my skin, little pieces of him scattered around me.
Violence and destruction are what I crave as I fly down the stairs to get to him. I fling the door of my building open.
“Hey,” I call out.
The guy sees me and runs, abandoning the leash and leaving the little dog behind. I see red and push myself to catch up to him. I’ll start by carving his eyes out for ever setting them on my woman.
My muscles burn but I catch up to him. He grunts when I tackle him to the ground, pressing my whole weight on his back and crushing his sternum onto the unforgiving pavement.
He’s no match for my strength but he struggles anyway, trying to kick my ribs, my groin.
One of his hands presses at my jaw, pushing me away.
I punch him once. Twice. His nose crunches then bleeds underneath my knuckles.
Finally. The slimy red is all I want. Let it bathe me in his life as he takes his last breath.
Fuck, the rush of killing goes straight to my head.
Adrenaline is my favourite drug after Lucie’s real smiles.
He moans in pain. As his fight leaves him, I take the opportunity to drag him to a nearby alleyway by the collar.
I lift him up and slam him against the wall. His head slaps against the bricks. I’m tempted to do it again, have his brain matter splatter across the dirty wall, but I need information first. I can’t act rash. I’m not just an executioner, like I was under my brother’s command. I’m my own man.
“Who sent you?” I whisper-yell in his face. We’re way too close to civilian homes for my liking but if I have to beat the information out of him, I will.
He doesn’t answer and I break his pinky finger before slapping my hand on his mouth to muffle the sound of his pain. “Answer me!”
He doesn’t. I break another finger. His cries are muffled behind my hand but still he shakes his head, and refuses to answer.
I need to bring him to my flat and torture the truth out of it. I could use the outlet.
Suddenly, his weight becomes heavier, his legs slowly stopping to support him.
When I let go, he slumps down on the pavement.
I grab his jacket and shake him. Under the street lights, I notice white foam forming at his mouth.
“You motherfucker,” I yell into his face this time.
I throw two fingers down his throat, forcing him to retch.
But it’s too late. The man convulses, but not before he can say his last words.
“Your brother sends his love.”
His eyes are vacant, mouth agape.
Great. Another corpse to carry across the border. Just what I needed.
I grimace and wipe my hands on his clothes. I did not plan on burying anyone tonight.
Petar is escalating things. I’ll need to keep reporting to him with this man’s phone.
I don’t see another way. Before I can carry him to be buried outside of city limits, I rummage through his pockets and take his phone.
I carry the man on my shoulder, marching to my bike and arranging him as if he was my passenger.
It’s gross, his corpse plastered to my back and barely holding on but I don’t have a choice.
I’d do anything to protect Lucie, even cuddle with a dead body.
It’s a good thing I followed the cleaning crew Dante sent a few weeks ago after I killed the boy who hurt Lucie.
I drive to the pig farm south of the border and drop the body by the side of the barn.
In the front compartment of my bike, I always keep a stack of green in case of emergencies.
I leave the fifty thousand pounds in the pockets of the spy and don’t linger before I drive back to the city.
The wind whips my face as I ride fast. I’m antsy. Without any camera inside Lucie’s flat, I can’t be sure she’s okay. I spent weeks adding cameras to her building, and detection systems.
It’s not enough. I’m starting to be afraid it won’t ever be where Petar is concerned. I might have to do something drastic. Like kidnap her and keep her hidden on a remote island. Unfortunately, I like that idea but she might resent me for it and I can’t have that.
The man I killed tonight proved that nothing will ever be enough when it comes to her. I need a new tracker, preferably implanted under her skin, cameras all around her flat, at uni. I need to hack into the city’s surveillance. Fuck, maybe the whole world just in case.
I’m spiralling.
I’m the only one who can protect her and I’ve left her alone for too long. My watch indicates that I’ve wasted three hours with this stupid fuck.
I park on our street and immediately check my phone for any missed text. There’s none. I check Lucie’s phone. No activity to notice. The blinds are still open on her windows. Like after our texts, she knew to leave them open for me to watch over her.
I inhale the dewy morning air deeply and sigh it out, tiredness suddenly catching up to me. I can’t afford to sleep yet. I have to look into the spy’s phone and see what he reported to my brother. And take a shower, scrubbing myself raw to rid me of the stench of death.
I’m about to enter my building when I hear a weak, little bark.
I frown and look for the source. Sure enough, the abandoned dog trembles like a leaf, two feet away from where the asshole left it.
Who’s fucked up enough to use a dog as a prop?
It makes me want to kill the man with my bare hands all over again, instead of whatever poison he ingested.
The chihuahua barks again, but when it sees me approach, his tiny tail wiggles side to side.
It moves his entire body and I fear the poor thing is going to throw itself off the railing and fall into the terrace of the basement flat underneath.
His beady eyes and lolling tongue make him look so weird. And too fucking cute.
The temperature has fallen to two degree celsius and I don’t now if the dog is trembling because it’s cold or because it’s afraid.
“Fuck.”
I crouch in front of it and the mutt sniffs me, wagging his tail even harder.
“Okay, okay. I won’t leave you here by yourself.”
Picking him up, I plaster him against my body. Well, it’s not a him apparently. The shaking decreases but isn’t fully gone. “I swear to you, if you pee inside, I’m making gloves of your hide.”
The little thing just closes her eyes and starts to snore, making me snort as I enter my flat. I look up what to do with the breed and form a nest of blankets to deposit her into so she keeps her body heat.
After too quick a shower for my liking, I fall asleep next to the dog, weary and bone-tired. I’ll look into the spy’s phone tomorrow. I can’t protect Lucie if I’m half-asleep and have poor reflexes.