Chapter Forty-Four
S TEFANIE
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I HADN’T PLANNED TO fall asleep. Not really. I’d just been lying there, staring at the ceiling, the weight of everything pressing down on my chest like a brick. One drink turned into two, maybe three. The whiskey was supposed to calm my nerves, not knock me out.
I don’t even remember slipping under, just remember the cold when I woke up needing to pee. Dragging myself out of bed, I stumbled to the bathroom, not bothering to turn on the lights. Afterward, I rinsed my hands and returned to the bedroom.
When I got back in bed, I grabbed my phone to check the time and saw the screen lit up with missed notifications. I blinked hard, my heart already starting to beat faster. Motion detected: front yard and back yard. The time stamp showed that the motion occurred a couple of hours ago.
I was suddenly wide awake, tipsiness completely gone. My thumb tapped through the alerts faster than I could think. The playback loaded slowly, but when it did, my stomach dropped.
A man in a hoodie had been on my porch, just standing there before walking around the side of the house, and back to his car. There was no clear view of his face. My first thought was Hudson. My second was Julian.
One I feared. The other I welcomed. I’d changed the security code after his birthday, but if anyone could still figure his way in, it’d be him. However, this couldn’t be Julian. He’d know better than to be creepy like this. He wouldn’t want to scare me.
I watched the clip again, paused it, zoomed in, and rewound it. The image was too grainy to tell who it was. But whoever he was, he was gone now. The live feed showed that I was alone. Still, my skin crawled, and I couldn’t shake the unease.
I pushed the covers back and got up again, moving through the house in silence, barefoot on cold hardwood, heart thumping. I deactivated the alarm and checked the front door. There was no damage. No signs of anyone trying to get in. I locked it and moved to the back door.
Same thing. No scratches. No forced entry. But taped to the glass was a folded piece of paper. I froze. Every muscle in my body locked up. I glanced left, then right. No one was around. My neighborhood was quiet.
I yanked the paper off the door, rushed back inside, and locked everything behind me like I was being chased. My hands shook as I reactivated the alarm. The panel beeped, the system now armed, but I didn’t feel safer.
I sat on the edge of the couch and unfolded the paper. A small Polaroid picture slipped out and landed face down on the floor. I picked it up and turned it over. My breath caught in my throat at the image that greeted me.
It was India, my baby, tied to a chair, and blindfolded with tape over her mouth and her hands tied behind her back. My entire body went cold as tears sprang to my eyes. What the hell was this?
It couldn’t be real. Please don’t be real. I opened the paper and read through the note with trembling hands. The handwriting was jagged, messy, unhinged. But familiar. Hudson!
It read: Stefanie, I’m tired of playing games with you. You knew this was coming. You had to know. This is all your fault. You made me wait too long. I told you bad things would happen if you pushed me too far.
My heart was pounding so loudly I could barely hear myself think. I kept reading.
I’ve always been there for you, even when you didn’t notice. Even on that night when your husband drove away with her? You didn’t know that, did you? You didn’t know that Lanissa called me from the car and told me that you were chasing them. I know you caused the wreck. I know what you did.
My lips parted, but no sound came out. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.
And unless you want the police to know everything, you’ll call me, not the cops or your boy toy, Julian Cattaneo. Call me, Stefanie, and I’ll come get you, and I’ll let India go. If you don’t call, or if you get anyone else involved, I’ll disappear and take India as a consolation prize.
Consolation prize? What the fuck did that even mean? I clutched the paper so tightly that it nearly ripped in half. I couldn’t think. Couldn’t cry. All I could do was exactly what he said. I grabbed my phone and called the number he’d listed on the paper.
My thoughts were chaotic as I waited for him to answer. I didn’t give a damn about the past and what he knew. All I wanted was my baby in my arms, safe and sound. Fuck! No answer. I called again, pacing the living room, my heart racing.
Still no answer. Shit. Shit. Shit. I called India. It went straight to voicemail. I was about to lose my damn mind. I called Hudson again. Nothing. I nearly threw my damn phone into the wall. What the hell was I supposed to do?
He’d left this note hours ago. Had he hurt my baby since I hadn’t called in time? Those tears that wouldn’t come a second ago, due to shock, finally broke free. I stood in the middle of the living room, arms wrapped around myself, heart racing so fast I thought it might give out.
I couldn’t go to the police. I couldn’t tell anyone, not without risking India. Or could I? There was one man who would burn the whole city to the ground to protect us, even if I didn’t deserve him, even if I’d broken his heart.
Though Hudson said not to call him, I knew he was the only one who could help me. I knew he’d still come. And I knew he could handle this. I trusted him with my life and my baby’s life.
I didn’t deserve his help, but he was the only one who could save us. My fingers trembled as I dialed his number. The second his voice filled the line, I broke, a sob wracking my body.
“Julian... I need you,” I cried.
“Tell me what you need, baby.”
***
J ULIAN
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I SAT IN THE DARK, elbows on my knees, hands clasped together as I stared at the cold cement floor. My mind should’ve been on work and the upcoming jobs my crew needed to handle. But it wasn’t. It was on her. Stefanie.
The woman I was in love with. The woman who wanted me just as much as I wanted her. The woman who enjoyed being fucked into oblivion but who wouldn’t give me her fucking heart. She kept pushing me away when things got too deep.
And just when I thought I’d convinced her that we could work, bullshit had entered our lives. Now, we were right back to square one. I was so tired of this shit. We’d been faced with obstacle after obstacle. But I’d overcome them all.
Yet, she still hit me with excuse after excuse. I was serious as hell about Stefanie. But no matter what I did, she wouldn’t let go of her fear of being judged by others for loving a younger man.
I exhaled slowly, rubbing my thumb against my knuckles as I went through every possible way to make her see reason, every way to break through those walls she kept stacking between us.
The only walls we needed in our lives were her pussy walls, which should be clutching my cock or tongue right now. As I tried to think of ways to repair our latest rift, the muffled cries of the man I had chained up in the basement of my family’s casino sliced through my thoughts.
I closed my eyes and ground my teeth together. I wish this motherfucker would shut up so I could think. The panicked gasps, the pitiful fucking whimpers were getting on my nerves. I sighed and leaned back in my chair.
“I’ll get to you in just a second,” I muttered. The man groaned behind his gag again, louder this time. I tilted my head, my patience snapping. “Shut the fuck up,” I yelled.
Whimpers filled the darkness. And to think, this bitch had thought he was man enough for Stefanie. Look where those thoughts had gotten him, beaten and locked away in my family’s basement.
No one would ever know what happened to him. The clean-up crew had taken care of his car. He’d gone off the grid, so he’d already been missing for a while. Now, he’d never see the light of day again, never see Stefanie again.
She’d never be his. She could only belong to one man, and that man was me. I was just about to get up and finish torturing the fucker when I heard the door to the basement room creak open. A few seconds later, light flooded the room. I blinked against it, barely turning my head before I heard the familiar voice of my cousin.
“Julian?” Don Orazio’s deep voice called out. “Is that you?”
“Yeah. It’s me, Raz.”
“What the hell are you doing down here? And who the fuck is that you’ve got chained to a chair?”
I stood as Raz strode toward me, his gaze sweeping over the dimly lit room before landing on the man chained to the chair.
“What the hell is going on?” Raz asked, his voice calm but edged with curiosity.
I rolled my shoulders. “I needed to borrow the basement for a bit. I won’t be here much longer.”
Raz didn’t respond right away. His attention shifted to my prey, the pathetic excuse of a man tied up, his shirt soaked with sweat and blood, his chest rising and falling in panicked bursts. The bastard’s wide, desperate eyes locked onto Raz, silently begging for help.
Raz’s lip curled in amusement. “Take as long as you need, cousin.”
The man let out a choked sob, his whole body trembling. The gag in his mouth barely muffled the terrified cries that followed.
I stared at the other guest in our basement. “Are you here for him?”
Chained to a chair was our former consigliere, Trevor, who looked half-dead already. His swollen face was barely recognizable. He was missing a leg and an eye. His body was slumped like he was just waiting for the inevitable: death.
I tilted my head. “You here to finish him off?”
Raz shook his head. “Nah. Just here to let him know how well my woman is doing.” His gaze flicked back to my prey. “What’s this guy’s deal?”
My smirk faded as my eyes darkened. “He’s here because he wants the same woman I want.”
Raz let out a low hum, studying the terrified man like he was finally understanding why he was chained up. “Yeah, he deserves to be down here then.”
“Exactly.”
“I’ll leave you to your business while I go deal with mine.” With that, Raz turned and strode toward Trevor. He stopped and called over his shoulder. “You got the wedding invite Monique sent out, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I got it. I’ll be there with my plus one.”
“I expect a nice gift from you for my Rose.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Chuckling, Raz continued forward. My eyes were locked on the bastard strapped to the chair, watching him shake like a fucking leaf. I took a slow step forward. The man pissed himself. I grinned.
Good. He should be scared. I crouched down, picking up the knife I’d been using to carve into my target. Slowly, I ran my fingers over the blade, eyes flicking up to meet the man’s frightened gaze.
“I’m gonna enjoy this,” I murmured. “Stefanie is mine. And I warned you to stay the fuck away from her.”
The man whimpered, trying to shake his head, trying to plead through the gag. I ignored him. I’d given this fool too many warnings already. Since words hadn’t worked, it was time to make sure the message was written into his fucking bones.
I dragged the blade over his trembling arm, pressing just enough to see red bead across the skin. The bastard let out another muffled sob.
I smirked. “Since you didn’t listen, I’m gonna have to make you.”
The man let out a pained whimper as I pressed the knife deeper into his flesh. I would take my time with him before finally ending him. This bitch needed to suffer for thinking he could go after what didn’t belong to him.
Once I was done here, I’d go home, shower, and find Stefanie. I was done playing by her rules. I loved her. She loved me. And I’d tried doing things her way, giving her time, giving her space, letting her come to terms with what we were.
But her way wasn’t working. Her way was sending us around in circles, and I was ready to get off this fucking ride. Since her way wasn’t working, we were going to do things my way. We were going to do things the Cattaneo way.
The Cattaneo way always worked. Just look at Raz and his fiancée. He’d kidnapped her. She’d forgiven him. Now they were getting married. Sure, he’d had to kill his father, the old don, first.
And sure, the woman he loved drugged him a little bit, but she also protected him that night at the gala. If you asked me, that was true love. What Stefanie and I had was true love, also. But sometimes it took something drastic to remind the person you loved that it was real.
I was ready to do something drastic to get Stefanie back. Being the gentleman wasn’t working. It was time for her to meet the savage. Hudson whimpered again. Before I could go to Stefanie, I needed to get rid of this bitch.
“You thought this was a game,” I muttered, pacing in front of him.
He groaned through the gag, trying to raise his head. I crouched in front of him, grabbed his face with one hand, and forced him to look at me. I pressed my knife against his face. His eyes widened. He started shaking his head, trying to yell through the rag.
“I told you to stay away from her. But you couldn’t listen, could you? You thought she was yours. You thought she’d be flattered, impressed, scared into submission.”
I walked around him slowly.
“She’s not scared of you. But you should be terrified of me .”
I stopped behind him and sliced a clean, shallow line down the back of his arm. He screamed through the gag, jerking against the chair, but the bindings held.
“That’s just the start,” I said, voice low.
The knife danced again, this time across his thigh. A ribbon of blood soaked through his jeans. He thrashed.
“Every drop you bleed is penance for what you tried to do to her,” I told him, standing in front of him again, eyes locked to his.
Then my phone rang. Fuck. I strode over to the table in the corner and wiped my hands on the rag while staring down at my phone that was on the table. Her name lit up the screen. I snatched it off the table so fast I almost dropped it. Answered without thinking.
“Hello?”
“Julian... I need you,” she cried.
She was crying. My heart stopped moving for a second.
“Tell me what you need, baby.”
“Julian... I think Hudson took India.”
My gaze jerked to the bastard I had tied up. “What? Why do you think that?”
“He left a note... and a photo on my back door,” she cried.
So, that was what that fucker had been doing back there. Shit. If I’d just checked, I would’ve found the note hours ago.
“It’s a picture of India tied up and blindfolded. And... and,” she said. “He said if I don’t call him, he’ll tell the cops I caused the crash... He said he’ll keep India. But I called and he won’t answer his phone.”
Because he was a little tied up at the moment .
“I’m on my way,” I told her. “We’ll find your baby girl, Stefanie. I swear it. Just hold on.”
“Thank you, Julian.”
The way she said my name made something rip open inside me. I hung up and turned back to the piece of shit slumped in the chair.
“Where is she?” I asked. “Where’s India?”
He mumbled something behind the gag. I ripped the cloth out of his mouth, watching his cracked lips tremble.
“I won’t tell you... Unless you let me go,” he rasped.
I laughed. The fucking audacity. I didn’t fucking negotiate with motherfuckers I planned to kill.
“Okay,” I muttered. “Let’s turn things up a notch.”
I walked to the supply shelf in the corner and rifled around until I found what I was looking for. The small torch. Hudson’s eyes bulged when he saw the flame ignite.
“Please...” he rasped.
“You’re dying here today,” I said. “But how you die depends on you. It can be quick. Or I can start with your feet and work my way up, lighting your ass up, inch by fucking inch, until you’re nothing but a puddle of scorched flesh stuck to this chair. Then I’ll box the whole damn chair up and mail it to your family.”
He started sobbing. Hard. Snot ran from his nose, dripping onto his chin, which trembled uncontrollably. I stepped forward, flames dancing before me.
“Tell me where she is,” I said again.
When he didn’t answer fast enough, I burned him. The torch flared, caught the fabric of his sock, and in two seconds, the scent of charred flesh filled the basement. His scream nearly split my skull.
“Tell me where she is!” I yelled.
“S-storage facility!” he wailed, stamping his feet, trying to put out the flame. “O-on exit 23. Unit 311. The key to it is in my car! In the glove box!”
I shoved the rag back into his mouth.
“I’ll finish this once Stefanie has her daughter back. Try not to bleed out while I’m gone.”
I walked to the bathroom in the back of the basement, washed the blood off my hands and arms, splashed water on my face, and opened the supply closet where my cousins kept extra clothes.
I found a clean shirt and some slacks. I quickly changed out of my bloody clothes, then grabbed my keys, phone, and walked out. I was going to get Stefanie. And we were going to get her baby back.