Chapter 36
Kian
“What the fuck are we doing at a cemetery? You said we were looking for someone,” Cash barks.
Fighting a grin, I motion to the headstone. “And we found him. Now we need to unbury him.”
Xander’s head snaps around toward Cassian and me. “Are you motherfuckers crazy? Fuck this, I’m out.”
Beckett pulls out a blunt and lights it. “Fuck it, I don’t care. Let me smoke this first, though.”
I chuckle at my youngest brother because, honestly, I think he’s the biggest psychopath out of all of us.
“Ace’s accident might have been a hit for her life. The only way to find out for sure is to open this guy’s casket to see if some Albanian assassin left a marker in there to identify who ordered the hit,” I explain.
When I told my brothers we were coming to the Seattle area to look for someone, I told them nothing else. They didn’t ask because Xander was too busy tracking his wife’s GPS, and I’m pretty sure Cash was sexting with Jordyn, while Beckett sat on the plane and rolled a blunt.
“Who the fuck are we? Sherlock Holmes? You want to pull a fucking corpse out of the ground to see if there’s something in there that probably isn’t?
” Cash demands while shaking his head. “You’re fucking whipped, dude.
I don’t ever want to hear you talk shit about me with my wife again.
At least I never asked you to dig up a fucking dead body.
Jesus, Christ. Give me a hit of that, Beckett. ”
Rolling my eyes, I watch my brothers pass the blunt back and forth while Xander paces nearby and Cassian reappears with five shovels.
When I take two and hold them out to Cash and Beckett, they both stare at them for several seconds.
“Fuck,” Cash says as he takes one from me. “Never again about me being sprung on my wife.”
“Fine.” I laugh, though I don’t mean it at all, because I will never stop giving Cash shit about how his wife could lead him around with his dick and he’d let her.
Beckett takes the other shovel from me and groans. “Fuck. This might be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”
“Me too,” I reply. “But I need to know.”
Because if someone did try to have Ace killed, I’m going to find the person who did it and I’m going to end their miserable fucking life in the most painful way I can. By crushing as many of their bones as possible before I end them with a bullet to the head.
I check my phone for any texts from Ace, disappointed when there’s nothing. Fuck, I miss her. I want to be home, having dinner and soaking with her in the hot tub. Maybe even with my cock buried deep inside her hot little pussy while she rides me.
“Give me a fucking shovel,” Xander grumbles tightly.
Smirking at him, I pass him one, and the five of us start digging in the dark of the cemetery.
We stay silent the entire time, only the sounds of the metal spades clinking against each other every so often.
Three hours later, I hit the casket, and two hours after that, we’ve rigged up a rope system and pulled it up out of the ground.
As we stare at the silver box, a sliver of doubt creeps over me.
This is wrong. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that the guy in the casket was an evil person.
Dozens of charges of domestic abuse against women on the guy’s record, with arrests as recent as three months before the accident.
“Where’s the prybar?” I ask, looking around for it with the minimal light we have from one flashlight.
Xander holds out the heavy, black bar to me, while Cash grabs the flashlight and shines it on the casket.
It takes several tries before I break the locking mechanism and disengage the bolt that secures the lid. Everyone is so silent that it’s eerie. As I reach out to open it, a shiver runs through me like a lightning bolt.
Cassian helps at the other end, and the two of us lift it open, then take a step back while Beckett takes one look before he gags and coughs, then takes off toward the car.
“Fucking pussy,” I mutter, though it’s light, because honestly, I want to vomit right now, too.
Cash runs the light over the decaying corpse, starting at the feet. Something glimmers inside the casket toward the guy’s head.
Taking a step forward, I look in, and right next to the guy’s skull is a silver coin with something carved into it.
My blood runs cold as I stare at it, my arms frozen at my side.
No fucking way.
I thought for sure Cassian was out of his mind.
“Jesus,” Cassian exhales when he stands beside me and looks at the coin.
Cash and Xander come over. Finally, I reach in and pick it up, then put it under the light, so I can see whatever is carved into it.
LR.
“What’s LR? Who is that?” I ask Cassian. “Another mafia family?”
Cassian shrugs. “I’m not sure. I need to look into it.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, then,” I growl as I push the coffin closed. “He can sleep above ground for one more night until the employees get here in the morning.”
“There’re no mob families with those initials,” Cassian says as he stares at his laptop. “So I searched individual names within the crime families I have a record of. Two names popped up with those initials.”
I sit up straight, my hair still wet from the hot shower I took as soon as we got to one of Cassian’s safehouses in Seattle.
“Which names?” I move over to sit closer to Cassian. As I stare at the screen, I can’t even begin to understand what I’m seeing.
Lorenzo Ricci – Italian Syndicate, deceased
Luciano Ricci – Italian Syndicate
“What are you showing me?” I ask because I can’t make any sense of it.
Cassian shrugs. “I don’t have every name in the syndicates in my database. It’s been information my brothers and I have gathered for years during our time working with different families. Most of what we have are higher-ranking men. It’s possible I don’t have whoever LR is in my list.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Cash says, his eyebrows pinched. “But it’s also possible that Luciano Ricci tried to kill her. LR. Luciano Ricci. He’s alive. He’s a killer, just like the rest of us. Would he try to kill Ace?”
His question is directed at me, but I’m too fucking stunned to speak.
I don’t like Luciano. He’s a problem, and I don’t like problems. And if he tries to get between me and Ace at any point, I’m going to break my promise to her and kill him.
Because she’s mine, and I’m not going to let anyone or anything get in the middle of that.
If he ordered a hit on her, though… Fuck. It would break her heart. As much as I hate it, she loves him. A lot.
And I love her.
As wild and silly as she is, she lightens something in me and makes me want to live.
“Could be some fucked-up mob shit,” Xander says. “Kian, you look pale as fuck, man. What are you thinking?”
I’m thinking I’ve lost my mind and fallen in love with a woman who takes my breath away and makes me want to be a better man.
Who makes me want to quit my job and follow her around, wherever she goes, just so I can be graced with her presence.
I’m thinking I want to change her last name to Savage and see her stomach grow round just like Quinn’s.
“I’m thinking I’m going to kill Luciano Ricci,” I answer honestly.
No one, I don’t give a fuck who they are, hurts my girl and lives on. I don’t give a shit if she loves him. I’m going to get immense pleasure in watching the life drain from his eyes.
“Where can I find him?” I ask Cassian.
He looks up from his screen and shrugs. “Beats the fuck out of me. I can do some digging and try to locate him, but it might take me a couple of days to track him down.”
I sigh and pull out my phone to make sure all is good at home.
Until now, I never wanted interior cameras in my house because, in Las Vegas, there’s almost nowhere you can go without being on camera.
But right now, I wish I could peek in and watch my girl sleep instead of just checking the exterior ones.
A change I’ll have to make as soon as I get home.
“You said Luciano called her. Any chance you can get into her phone and text him? He’ll come to her if she were to ask. Lure him in,” Beckett says.
Glancing at my youngest brother, a slow smile spreads. “You know, you’re not as dumb as you look, bro. Might have a chance with a girl one day, after all.”
Beckett flips me off and goes back to scrolling on his phone.
It’s not a bad idea. Honestly, luring him in through Ace. Catch him off guard.
“Let’s go home to our girls, then,” I say. “I’ll work on getting Luciano to Las Vegas to answer for himself before I slit his throat.”
Cassian nods. “The jet will be ready for you at the same private airfield we landed at. Does your instinct tell you that Luciano is responsible for trying to kill her?”
Shaking my head, I close my eyes, a headache forming at my temples. “I don’t like the guy. He’s an arrogant, controlling, cocky motherfucker.”
Cash smirks. “So he’s just like you. Got it.”
I hate my brothers sometimes. Especially Cash. He’s a damn smart-ass.
“When I met Luciano, I got the feeling he really loves Ace. It’s the only reason that motherfucker is still breathing right now,” I answer. “But you know as well as I do that psychopaths can hide their true feelings well.”
And I’m pretty sure Luciano could be described as a psychopath. He’s the second-in-command in the Italian mafia, and he’s known for being ruthless and unforgiving.
Too bad for him, when it comes to someone I care about, someone I love, I’m even worse.