Chapter 20
The sun rose too early. The sky’s the color of bruised fruit, and beneath it, the birds circle low, eerily quiet. No cawing or squawking, just the soft hiss of their feathers ruffling as they glide over the ocean.
It’s the type of morning that doesn’t belong to a mid-December day. There’s no bite. No sharp air or stiff joints. No sting of salt in the wind.
I lean against the helm of the speedboat and crack my neck.
“You ever get the feeling something bad’s gonna happen?”
No reply.
I glance down at the man staring up at me and let out a breath of amusement. “Stupid question.”
Stooping to zip up the body bag, I wince at the tenderness flaring between my ribs. Then I limp down to the stern and start the engine.
Even the fucking water is out of sorts today. The surface is calm, as though the entire Pacific Ocean is holding its breath. The waves feel sluggish and dense, sloshing against the hull as I make a beeline for the gaudy boat in the distance.
Irritation fissures through me at the sight of Rafe’s yacht.
It’s as flashy and as obnoxious as he is, bobbing against the horizon like a twenty-million-dollar iceberg.
I hate the fucking thing and hate myself too for not beating the stupid idea of opening a floating casino a mile from the shoreline out of him before he’d dropped the anchor.
Not only is it a disgusting show of wealth, it’s also a floating target.
Even counting Dante out, simply being a Visconti has put a bullseye on my brother’s back, and now every man he’s ever pissed off knows where to aim.
The fact he has his own security doesn’t put me at ease either, because they’re just a bunch of pussies in suits.
They’d probably jump overboard at the first sign of a threat.
As I line up the tender with the back platform, Rory comes into view. She’s standing with her arms crossed on the swim deck, scowling at me. Her gaze grows hotter the closer I get, and it burns like the look of a girl who found out I tied her up her bikini-clad friend and got trigger happy.
Gritting my teeth, I kill the engine half a second too late and throw my weight behind the wheel, just to make sure I put a noticeable dent in the paintwork.
“I have a question.”
I glance up at her, stone-faced. Here we fucking go.
“Can you beat Rafe up for me?”
Relief marred with amusement touches my chest. “You lose at Blackjack again?”
“No. Well, yes, but I’m working on that.” She throws her hands out dramatically, like Jesus on the cross. “Anyway, look at the size of this thing! Did you know that running a yacht for just a week emits more carbon than most people do all year?”
I rake an eye over her flight suit. “How much carbon does flying emit?”
She frowns at me, confused. “I don’t know. Why?”
Shaking my head, I secure the tender instead of pointing out that you can’t be an eco-warrior and take flying lessons three times a week in a bid to get your pilot’s license. She steps aside as I climb the ladder and follows me across the decking.
“What’ve I missed?”
“Hmm, let’s see. Well, I’ve put the Christmas decor up, but I’m going to need your help with the roof lights.”
I cock a brow. “Your husband can’t climb a ladder?”
“He can, he just doesn’t know I’ve bought more lights.
Oh, and I’ve been hanging out with Penny, Rafe’s new employee.
I think he’s a bit obsessed with her, but he won’t admit it.
Anyway, she taught me how to card count, so don’t worry about beating him up, actually; I’m going to shake him down for all he’s got instead. ”
A smirk lifts my lips. Penelope Price—she’s my new neighbor and definitely my brother’s new obsession. I’m getting sick of hearing about the girl and from the girl. She’s been using the hotline as a diary for fucking years.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.” Rory shoves her cell screen under my nose. I stop, tug off my aviators, and squint to figure out what I’m looking at. “Is that a dog?”
“Uh-huh, it’s Maggie. Look at her little curls!”
“I’ve only been gone three days. When did you get a dog?”
“Well, she’s not technically mine yet. She’s a Christmas gift from Angelo.
She’s been staying at the outhouse with the housekeeper, but I sniffed her out.
” She grins up at me, then her face falls when her eyes touch the welt on my cheek.
She cocks her head and studies me like she’s seeing me for the first time.
I fucking hate when she does that; it always brings a lump to my throat.
At least she never asks questions. Guess that’s why I can tolerate her more than I do most people.
We reach the door to the lounge, but before I can slide it open, something glints up at me from the shoe rack.
Pink. Sparkly. A heel so high it’d make a stripper jealous.
My gaze narrows. “Who’s here?”
“The usual. Angelo, Rafe, Dan …” She follows my glare. “Oh, and Wren.”
Her name lights up the bruises on my back and tightens a noose around my neck.
The last time I saw her was days ago, strung up and indecent in my garage.
My shot at the light was like a camera flash, burning my last glimpse of her into my retinas.
She was all bikini body and Bambi eyes, and I couldn’t get the image out of my fucking head even if I blew my brains out.
I see it in the dark. Behind every blink.
And now she’s here. The irony isn’t lost on me: I can’t escape the girl, even in the middle of the fucking ocean.
I drag my knuckles over my mouth to hide my grimace.
Rory’s gone back to the subject of her new dog, showing me a whole camera’s worth of pink tongues, floppy ears, and tiny paws.
I nod in all the right places, but I’m barely listening.
Too busy straining my ears for any sign of Her on the other side of the door.
Like her fairylike laugh, or worse, the damp, heavy pants that grazed my nose as my hand considered exploring the curve of her bare hip.
Fucking Denis. Though he made good on our pact and cracked me around the head with a pool cue, he didn’t hit hard enough to shake her out of it.
Rory’s moved on to showing me videos. When her phone speaker crackles with the sound of her cooing behind the camera, I make my excuses, plus a promise not to tell my brother about her snooping, and take the long way round to the sky lounge.
If I weren’t already on edge, stepping inside the lounge shoves me closer to it.
Nineties hip-hop thumps out of the surround-sound speakers. Empty beer bottles litter the coffee table, and behind it, are my idiot brothers sitting side by side on the sofa, controllers in hand.
“You drive like your wife,” Rafe muses, not taking his eyes off his mushroom-shaped avatar on the screen.
Angelo’s dinosaur thing skids around a bend, knocking the mushroom off the road. “One more comment about my wife, and I’ll shove this controller up your ass sideways.”
“According to your wife, ass play is more your thing—”
As Angelo’s fist clenches, I snatch up a beer bottle and hurl it at the television. It was either that or throw it at their fucking heads.
The screen shatters the Mario Kart track into a thousand pieces, and both pairs of eyes slide up to me.
“Well, that was a bit dramatic,” Rafe tuts, tossing the controller on the couch beside him. “You got Bud Light all over my rug too.”
I let out an acidic hiss. “Where are your men?”
Rafe shrugs. “Probably hiding from you after you shot out Leo’s kneecap last week.”
Angelo smirks. “What did Leo do?”
“Looked at him too long, apparently.”
“They shouldn’t be hiding from anything,” I grit. “You’ve got three points of entry, and none of them are covered.” I nod to the sea beyond the glass. “Even a one-armed sniper on a paddle board could have taken both of you out by now.”
My blood heats up with every security flaw I notice, and unease runs through me like an undercurrent.
Something about Rafe’s men, especially his head honcho, Griffin, has never sat right with me.
Though my background checks always come up clean, the fact he’s just hired his nephew … I don’t know, something stinks.
Maybe it’s just another bad feeling, like the one I have today.
Rafe calls for one of his slaves to clean up the mess, and I sink down into an armchair. The sharp pain in my thigh must have shot right up to my face because Angelo’s gaze thins on me.
“Christ. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Bitter amusement rolls through me.
That question used to be paired with another: Where have you been?
The first time I heard it was when I graduated from Hell and limped into the dining room just in time for dinner. I’d been gone for three years, and the world I returned to was different to how I left it. It was darker.
And so was I.
I had a new scar running from my eyebrow down to my chin and a look in my eye that reflected all the fucked-up things I’d done to get it.
They could have found the answer if they’d looked hard enough. It doesn’t matter now, anyway, they’ve grown so used to me disappearing on a whim that the second question disappeared and the first became rhetorical.
Which is exactly why I don’t bother answering it.
“Let’s get on with it. I’ve got shit to do.”
Angelo purses his lips, gives me a final once over, then drops it. “How’s it going with eliminating Dante’s men?”
“Fine.”
Rafe studies me, rolling a poker chip between his thumb and forefinger. “And you’re sticking to the plan? Making them quietly disappear without Dante noticing?”
Well, two are hog-tied in my cave, and another is wriggling about in a body bag on the tender, but I did cut out one of their tongues the other day because their screams were pissing me off, so I guess that counts as being quiet. “Yep.”
Then again, I left said tongue on Dante’s pillow during my last nighttime visit, so maybe not.
Angelo releases a tense breath. “Good. The stupid fuck is going to be the last man standing soon enough. Then we’ll figure out what we’re going to do with him.”