73. Kingston
CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE
KINGSTON
THEN
TEN YEARS AGO
Chloe’s been asleep for almost fifteen hours, and I’ve checked she’s still breathing every twenty minutes since she drifted off.
It’s irrational, but I can’t help it. I can’t shake the unfamiliar anxiety that riots through my veins, and the only thing that I’ve found to help is watching her breathe like a creep.
Dragging myself out of the bedroom, I close the door behind me and cross the hall to my office.
As much as I would love to have someone else handle the business while she’s here with me, it’s not practical. Not when I’m only just starting to trust some of the men who work for me, but nowhere near enough to give anyone the keys to the kingdom.
Taking my phone from my pocket, I swipe through my notifications, each one making my shoulders tighten.
None of this matters.
Nothing matters but the woman sleeping in my bed and the baby growing inside her.
I drop into my chair and fire up the laptop.
Work has boomed recently, with more and more people getting wind of both sides of the business. The legitimate security and private investigation side and the services we offer by invitation only.
Taking out the scumbags of this world is the whole reason I built Hawk Security in the first place. After working for Salvatore Lombardi my entire adult life, I needed a change. I need a way to repent for my sins, and I haven’t looked back since that first case.
The mother of a teenager who was kidnapped on her way home from school contacted me after being turned down by every other private investigator in the area. She was desperate for someone to help her after police were convinced the girl ran away.
But she didn’t. She was taken and brutally tortured by an upstanding member of the community until she took her own life just to escape the pain.
I was too late to save her, but I could exact revenge, and I made Lenny Price pay for every single time he hurt that poor girl.
Our other services mean we can help these families for free, and if the perpetrator is someone with money behind them, we distribute most to the victims’ loved ones, keeping a percentage for ourselves to grow our reach.
We invest some to increase our portfolio, while the rest is used to hire more guys.
I glance at the door, fighting the urge to check on Chloe again, but instead I read through a few reports from cases.
Eventually I won’t be able to personally be around every case we have, but for now I like to make sure we’re crossing our t’s and dotting our i’s, especially when we dabble outside of the law.
A name catches my attention, making me pause.
Sebastian Vega.
The heir to the Vega crime family and all-around piece of shit if the tabloids are to be believed. He constantly draws negative attention to the family, forcing his father to clean up his messes at every turn.
But this is the first time his name has crossed my desk.
It’s been years since I’ve had anything to do with the Vegas, right back when I was trying to talk Salvatore out of marrying off his son to Sebastian’s sister.
Naturally, he didn’t listen to a word I said, didn’t bother to consider the reasons we shouldn’t get in bed with family so closely linked to human trafficking.
He was convinced that the benefits outweighed the risks, but even now it doesn’t sit right with me, and Damon will never be happy with Mikayla.
I may not have seen my godsons in years, and they may hate me for the part I played in their mother’s accident, but I made a promise the day I stood in front of a church and swore to protect them, and I fully intend to always keep that promise.
It’s always a risk contacting someone that knew me before I disappeared, but sometimes it’s worth it, and this is one of those times.
The phone rings a handful of times before a deep voice rumbles on the other end. “How did you get this number?” he snaps.
“Terrance, it’s been a long time.”
“Who is this?”
“It doesn’t matter who I am or how I got your number. I have a proposition for you.”
“I don’t make deals with people I don’t know.”
“You will if you want your son to keep breathing.”
He’s quiet for a beat, assessing whether I’m a real threat to his family or not.
“Have you heard from him recently?” I ask.
“No, but that’s not unusual for him. The boy is a free spirit.”
“The boy is a rapist who should have a bullet in his skull and will be lucky if that’s all he gets if you decide you don’t want to do a deal with someone you don’t know.”
To drive my point home, I text him the photo my guys took a few hours ago of his son covered in blood and bruises.
He sucks in a breath a moment later. “What do you want?”
“I want your daughter to break off her engagement to Damon Lombardi, and I want you to keep a tighter leash on your shit stain of a son to make sure he never hurts another woman. Because if I find out he has, I won’t pass off his torture to someone else.
I’ll gladly do it myself and send you his body piece by piece along with proof of life until there are no pieces left to send. ”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?”
“I’m the person that can tear your empire down with just a few calls to the feds. Don’t fuck with me, Terrance.”
I end the call and drop the phone onto the desk.
I’m glad I had the good sense to back up my files before I lost access to the Lombardi servers. It pays to have dirt on your enemies, even the ones you don’t think you’ll need any on.
Glancing at the photo of Caroline, the boys, and me, I allow some of the tension to bleed from my body.
Damon will pay for the pain he caused Chloe, but that revenge will be on my terms, not his shitty father’s, who wants to use his children as commodities.