Chapter 47
FORTY-SEVEN
STAN
“What’s the matter with you?”
I wasn’t happy about this meeting. Not only because I should have been either dick-deep inside Kitty right about now or we should be savoring the post-coital afterglow, snoozing away until the desire for round three overtook us…
Instead, I’d drafted in every single member of my Stiddari—apart from Chad and Dante, who I’d be punishing later as neither had answered their fucking phones—to search the many rooms in my house for Kitty. An hour later, we’d come up with nothing.
No one had seen her anywhere on the premises, and the camera system that had cost me a fucking fortune had come up with dick.
Once Hunter had joined the search, albeit on the down-low, and he couldn’t find her, we’d both accepted that something shady was happening.
As a result, Hunter had spent the last hour going through my security systems, trying to find any trace of a hack. Occam’s razor insisted a hack was the only solution.
Of course, Hunter had been quick to tell me that Occam’s razor was that she might have left.
Instead of pinning down her location, I was spiraling in Luc’s town car.
“Do you think I’m going crazy?”
His head tilted toward me. “What?”
“You heard me. Am I going crazy?”
“You’ve always been weird.”
“Weird? Fuck you.”
“Why are you asking? Is this why you’re in a bad mood?
We agreed that speaking with Commissioner Kingston ASAP was a smart move.
If he closes down the whorehouse in Nolita, that’s one step toward fucking with the Albanian’s current business plan.
Rory agreed and you know what a pain she is to get on board with schemes she didn’t create. ”
“I’m not talking about business.” I massaged my temple to ease the ache that had been growing since Kitty’s disappearance.
“Or am I? Fuck, I don’t know anymore. Angels might exist,” I reasoned, not wishing to trigger an existential crisis on top of a breakdown.
“But they can’t fly off of balconies. Am I right? ”
“Are you high?”
“No. I wish I were!”
“Sounds like an acid trip to me. You only ever say this kind of shit when you take LSD.”
“I haven’t taken any since before…” My shoulders slumped. “You know.”
“Then what’s brought this conversation on?”
And I had no alternative but to share what had happened today with him. I’d already had a powwow with my siblings about his cunt-in-law. That had led to Rory contacting the NYPD commissioner in our pocket after we’d obfuscated his part in the murder of a call girl from our stable.
But Kitty?
She was breaking news to my oldest brother.
He stared at me once I’d finished recounting everything, from using Conor O’Donnelly to trace her, Star Sullivan to upgrade her tickets, to the bomb blast that had killed Dead To Me and the unofficial meeting with Martinez.
Then the mechanical breakdown in Hell’s Rebels’ territory and onto tonight—my àncilu’s disappearance.
By the end, I felt like I’d gone to confession. I half-expected he’d make me go to church to atone then—
“And you said I was crazy when I met Jen.”
Glaring at him, I demanded, “That’s what you have to say?”
“After the fucking BULLSHIT you spouted at me when I met and fell for her? Damn straight that’s all I have to say.
” Then, he stroked his chin. “Let’s keep this from Rory for as long as we can, though.
She already thinks we’re the over-emotional siblings, and I can’t deal with her being right. Not when she’s this pregnant.”
“I had no choice but to get Hunter involved,” I muttered, semi-relieved that the extent of his anger involved payback. I really had bullshitted him during his courtship with Jen.
“Ah, shit. He’s a sucker for her. He’ll never be able to keep it quiet.”
Like I’d mentioned a thousand times, I threw in, “I’m telling you that he’s her Dom.”
“I don’t want to know.”
“Neither do I! You’re the one who’s slow to read their body language. Gésu, I wish I had a joint.”
“You know what? Me fucking too.” He fell silent. Long enough to tell me he was stewing. Then— “We have to inform the O’Donnellys.”
“Fuck that!” I exploded. “We have to tell her family—”
“They’ll liaise. You fucking owe me for this, Custanzu. Supra l'onori di mi matri, I’m only barely refraining from strangling you because the upside is, you look half-alive now.
“Do you know how worried we’ve been about you? This is proof. You bring this bullshit to my door and I can’t bust your face for it! Because I’m so goddamn happy that you’ve moved on—”
“Can we celebrate when she’s no longer AWOL?”
He flicked at some invisible lint on his knee. “We don’t know if she is.”
“What do you mean? We scoured the estate.”
“You scared her. Not all women are at ease with wet work.”
“I cleaned the knife!”
“You guesstimated 95%. There were clearly blood traces on there, or why would she have freaked out?”
“Do you want me to break your nose? We don’t know that she freaked out. Kitty’s ballsy enough to throw the knife at me if that had upset her. I never took her for a runner.”
“I’m saying that there might be no need to panic yet.”
“Too late. Look, I had to clean up your wife’s first kill and I did it without a grumble—”
“Bollocks! You gave me nothing but shit. We flew out to Aspen and I shoved you in coach to punish you.”
“—but I arranged it. Made it spic and span. She’s my Fi, Luciu,” I rasped, using the name that he only called her when they were alone. “I can’t… Kitty has to be okay. I cannot lose her too.”
His tone settled as he vowed, “You won’t lose her, frate.”
“First, Accursio, then Evangeline—this shit comes in threes.” The thought of how my childhood best friend had been slaughtered by the Fieris on the grounds of the house I fucking lived in now ruptured something in me—
Throw in Evangeline’s loss…
Was it any wonder I was so fucking broken?
I couldn’t deal with this. Not anymore.
I was so sick of losing people. So fucking sick of it.
He clapped me on the shoulder. “First was Patri, Stan.”
I choked out a laugh because maybe he was right.
But that had come with terror of its own.
I’d found his body. Tortured, maimed, and dumped outside the gates of our home.
Luc hadn’t been there. He hadn’t witnessed what I had. He’d seen the version of Patri that the funeral home had wanted him to see.
I dug my thumbs into my eyes, wishing I could dig the memories out that easily.
“If it comes in threes, Stan,” he was saying to me, half-promising, half-pleading, “it’s come and gone. She will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. You hear me? And I’ll liaise with the Irish. Maybe I should get Jen in on this. You know the power she has being friendly with Aoife, Savannah, and Star.
“Plus, for some crazy reason, she likes you. Don’t try to tell me she didn’t coordinate with Conor to trace this Kitty of yours…”
He carried on mumbling under his breath when it registered he’d lost me to the memories of death and picked up his phone and began making calls.
Seeing my father’s blank stare through spiritless eyes, a memory as raw and fresh as if it were yesterday and not a lifetime ago, I turned my head to look out of the window.
It was dark. I was supposed to be boning Kitty after gorging on our pasta feast. She should be living up to her name and purring as she slept in my arms, full of a different kind of cream...
But that wasn’t how my night had gone.
Instead, the commissioner had asked how high when Rory had requested he jump and we were meeting tonight. So that was where we headed—to the same construction site where I’d butchered a gaggle of Albanians to death.
Luciu enjoyed reminding Kingston that he might have been at the top of the tree in his little world, but he was on the bottom rung of our ladder.
But I didn’t give a damn about any of that. Business could go to hell.
Where the fuck was she?
Every instinct I possessed raged.
I’d barely had her for three days and I’d lost her already.
The streetlights flared into one long glare that made my eyes hurt. The headache from earlier had returned, intensifying under the strain of Kitty’s disappearance, and I wanted nothing more than the joint nap she’d promised me.
But I knew, I fucking knew, that something wasn’t right.
Kitty wouldn’t run off like that.
She wasn’t that type of woman.
She’d have bit my fucking chin. Again.
She’d have slapped me.
She’d have demanded to know who I’d murdered.
She didn’t shy away from this stuff.
She wouldn’t ghost me.
She wouldn’t.
I gave it one last shot. Hope and prayers and faith coagulated before this whole mess with the commissioner went down.
I hit ‘connect’ on her contact name.
Nothing.
No answer.
The call rang off.
My gut twisted.
My heart twinged.
My eyes fucking burned.
Then, my phone pinged.
Her name appeared in my notifications.
Kitty: You took one of my girls.
“Luc,” I rambled, opening the message so fast I nearly broke the case with the ferocity of my grip.
“What?”
“She messaged!”
I swallowed. That pit of despair opened wider as I read that first line of text over and over and over again.
Kitty: Only fair that I take one of yours.
But that was nothing to the third and final message.
*Kitty sent a picture*
“Gésu mia misericordia,” Luciu bit off.
But there was no mercy that the Lord would bestow upon me.
Not with as many sins that could be laid at my feet.
Maybe, in truth, this was my penance served in the flesh.
I stared at her, seeing too many likenesses to the penultimate time I’d seen my father, and I breathed, “They think they can take away my salvation—”
“Stan.” Luc dragged my attention off the picture of Kitty beaten, partially nude, bleeding, and, worst of all, blown pupils—
Sightless.
But not dead.
No.
Not yet.
I turned to him, every ounce of me flung into the riptide of rage that consumed me whole as my mind raced—I did have a traitor in my personal staff.
Someone had hacked my security system.
Someone had betrayed me.
Someone would pay for that mistake and they’d plead for death, but I wouldn’t give—
“We’ll get her back, frate.”
I studied him for a scant second before I dipped my chin and, hoarsely, invoked, “Manhattan will bleed until I find her, Luciu.”
“Of course.”
“No Albanian will be safe—”
“Naturally.”
We shared a look then growled our family motto: “Para bellum.”
‘Prepare for war.’
But as we uttered the words, Luigi spat, “What in the fuck?” as the car veered to the right, swerving off the road and into the median strip.
The seatbelt cut into my throat as we were tossed from left to right in his struggle to control the vehicle, and I rocked my head to stare out the window.
That was where a gift bag, with floating black-and-white balloons, had been set right in the middle of the lane…
TO BE CONTINUED IN THE ANGEL