Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Enzo
After the hour drive back to Saint Vale, the university building broke through the gray fog.
I parked my car at the circular entrance rather than the underground garage. The tunnels would’ve delayed my getting to the dorms.
As I entered the vestibule, I spotted Brooks hunched on the bottom step of the staircase, his elbows planted on his knees and his eyes glued to his phone.
His tie was crooked and loose. He looked exactly like a man whose father had just been shot. Furious and tired. Just like me.
“Dude, what the fuck?” I asked, stalking toward him. “Why aren’t you in Daphne’s room, already talking to her?”
He glanced up at me, a flash of irritation on his face, before pocketing his phone and getting to his feet. “She said she’d only talk to us together.”
As we started up the staircase, he rambled, “She’s in one of her moods, like always.
” He ran a hand through his hair. “Saying she doesn’t trust me alone, which is fine with me because the less time I spend with my father’s shooter’s spawn, the better.
I wouldn’t be surprised if she was involved in yesterday’s shootings. ”
I doubted that.
Daphne was dramatic and about a million other unpleasant things, but orchestrating an assassination attempt on the two most powerful men in the world was a stretch.
Still, like I’d told Benny, power had a funny way of changing people. I’d never rule anything out.
I had questions for Brooks. Whether he’d heard anything new about the car dealership or the shooters or where the VP was. But the hallway wasn’t the place for that conversation.
Too many ears around here.
When we reached their room, I knocked. A first time for that.
The door swung open almost immediately, like Daphne had been standing there, waiting for us. She didn’t smile or say a word, only stepped back and waved us inside before shutting the door and locking it.
“What’s with all the theatrics?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Brooks added, dropping onto her bed. He grabbed one of the stuffed animals piled against the pillows and tossed it aside. “What’s the emergency?”
Daphne slid her hair over her shoulder. “First,” she said, placing a manicured pink nail against her chest in sympathy, “I’m sorry your dads were shot.”
My jaw tightened instantly.
Brooks’s back straightened.
“I obviously had nothing to do with it,” she added.
“The fact that you felt the need to say that is suspect,” Brooks shot back.
I motioned between them. “You two argue later.” Crossing my arms, I fixed my hard stare on Daphne. “How’d you know my father was shot?”
The president’s shooting was on the news.
Only a handful of people knew my father had been shot. And Daphne wasn’t one of them.
She shrugged. “I know everything.”
Brooks let out a dry scoff.
I was already losing patience. “What was so important that I had to rush over here right now? Spit it out, Daphne. I’m a busy man.”
“Yes, right,” Daphne said, turning quickly and rushing to Blair’s bed. She grabbed a small paper off the pillow and handed it to me.
The note Brooks had mentioned.
I can’t wait to kill you, was typed across the center in black ink.
“Do you know who left it?” I asked.
Daphne shot me an offended look. “Don’t you think I’d tell you if I did?”
“Did you ask Blair about the note?” I asked.
“I’ve tried texting her, but she isn’t answering,” she said. “Do you know where she is?”
“She’s safe,” I replied.
She raised a brow. “Is she, though?”
“The hell does that mean?” I snapped.
She strolled toward her bed, opened a drawer beneath it, and pulled out a locked safe. She slipped her hand into the front of her bra and fished out a tiny key.
“I’ve been doing some research.” She dropped onto the rug in the center of the room, unlocked the safe, and pulled out a thick manila folder from it.
“When Blair first got here, something felt off. Not bad off, just like she had a past she was hiding. After what happened with Clarissa, I decided I should probably know who I was rooming with, so I started digging.”
“There’s nothing out there,” I said. “Trust me. I’ve searched, and so have people who can hack into a hell of a lot more shit than any of us.”
Daphne smirked. “Sure, if you don’t look in the right places or talk to the right people,” she said before singing, “Never have a man do a woman’s job.” She winked. “We’re basically better than the FBI.”
I made a move on with it gesture. “Tell us what you got then.”
“First, I found out that Blair’s mother was a Fawn.” She started flipping through her handwritten notes, as if going through bullets.
I winced, pissed that none of us had discovered that.
“Her father was also a Son,” she continued. “So is her stepfather.”
I frowned, further pissed at myself. “You figured out who her stepfather is?”
Daphne glanced at Brooks. “He’s the vice president.”
“Bullshit.” Brooks stood from the bed and stalked toward us. “I know the Second Lady, and they don’t have kids. She had infertility issues.”
Daphne held up a hand. “Let me correct myself. Her mother is his mistress. For some reason, Blair refers to him as her stepfather. No one knows Blair exists. Her mother rarely leaves her home in Arizona.”
Arizona.
That was where Blair had said the commune was.
Daphne had to be right about what she was telling us.
She kept going. “Blair’s father was some crazy-ass cult leader who murdered members and went to prison.”
“A cult leader?” Brooks asked. “Damn, Enzo.”
I flicked my hand through the air. “I know about the cult and her dad.”
“He and my father were at the same facility until hers was pardoned.”
“Pardoned?” Brooks stiffened. “By who?”
Daphne rolled her eyes. “Who do you think signs the pardons in the United States, Brooks?”
“Hell no,” Brooks said. “My father wouldn’t ruin his image by pardoning a cult leader who murdered people.”
“He would for a fellow Son,” Daphne fired back.
“They were all Sons at the same time. My dad, hers, the VP, President Byron. Blair’s mom was a Fawn at that time.
The same with my mother. She said that Blair’s mom was, in her words, ‘A power-hungry cunt who wanted influence over every Son.’ She slept with a few to get that. Again, cult shit. It checks out.”
“How did you figure all this out?” I asked her.
Daphne’s gaze slid to Brooks. “You know the guy you killed, Brooks? The twin?”
Brooks scratched his cheek. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
She blew out a breath, rolling her eyes again. “He was feeding me information, and I lost that source when you killed him. The idiot would get drunk, I’d give him a little striptease, and he’d talk. I guess his father liked to brag about other Sons’ secrets when he drank.”
“So her dad was a Son, and the VP is banging her mom.” Brooks spread out his arms. “What’s the issue?”
Daphne frowned. “My father has been trying to get in touch with me, so I finally reached out to him.”
“Why was your father trying to get in contact with you?” Brooks asked with suspicion in his voice.
“He heard that someone had chosen me as their Fawn.”
Brooks’s mouth slammed shut.
I wasn’t sure if her father knew I’d told Brooks he had to choose Daphne or if he’d heard another Son wanted her, like the twin of the guy Brooks had killed. But right now, I didn’t have time to hash that out. We needed to get to the bottom of what Daphne had just told us.
I rubbed at my forehead. “What else did you find out, Daphne, and what does your father have to do with this? With Blair?”
She held up a hand. “I don’t know if what he told me has anything to do with Blair, but he did say that the current shooting with your dads? He thinks that the VP had something to do with it.”
“Bullshit,” Brooks hissed. “That’s my father’s best friend.”
Daphne glared at him. “The VP thinks your father is a traitor for bringing the Mafia families inside the Sons and to Saint Vale. Before that, no outsiders were ever allowed. Some of the Elder Sons, including the VP, believe he corrupted the Sons and spoiled the blood of the First Benefactors by bringing those not worthy.”
If what Daphne had said was true, then we needed to find the vice president and question him. Right now, this Blair research would pause. I had a vice president to torture for information.
“Where is Blair?” Daphne asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“She’s in the Fawn Quarters,” I replied, knowing I shouldn’t have told her that, but fuck it. She seemed to know more than us at this point anyway. “I texted her on the drive here. She texted back that she was going to take a nap and would call me when she woke up.”
“Wait.” Daphne scrunched her face. “She said she’d call you?”
I nodded.
“Are you serious?” she huffed out, jumping to her feet. “Do you not see any issue with that?”
I stared at her, unsure where she was going with this.
“When was the last time she called you?” Daphne grabbed her jacket. “We don’t call. That’s alarming.” She pointed at my pocket, where I’d stashed the note. “We need to make sure she’s okay.”
“Wait,” I said as something hit me. “You said her father was pardoned. When was that?”
“Last night,” she replied.
My head started to pound. “He said that if he ever got out, he’d kill her.”
I wanted to burn down the tunnels, the university, everything in my sight when I found Blair’s bedroom in the Fawn Quarters empty.
My blood boiled as I took in the scene. Her disheveled bed, the half-empty water bottle on the small nightstand, and … I inched farther, looking down at the sheets to find a small notebook.
I grabbed it, every muscle in my body tightening when I flipped through the pages of her mother’s diary.
Daphne was right; she had been a Fawn.
Did Blair just find this out?
Or did she know before?
I’d told Brooks to call Nico and ask him to hack into the university camera footage to see everyone who entered and left the university. If Blair’s father had come here, he’d have to be on camera.
I clenched my hand around the diary.
Unless …
Baring my teeth, I knew exactly what was happening when I called Brooks, who was still with Daphne.
“Blair’s not here,” I told him.
“Fuck,” he said on the other line. “Nico is getting into the system right now.” He paused for a second. “Whoever texted you wanted you to believe she was safe down there.” He cleared his throat. “They think you’re gone, in the city, with your family, Enzo.”
“I know.” I ground my teeth while refraining from smashing my phone through the goddamn wall. “They knew this was the perfect time to take her because she’d be unprotected.”
A tightness formed in my chest, rough and hard, spreading until it hit my heart. “Where do you think they’d take her?”
“I have no idea,” he replied. I heard him whispering to Daphne in the background but couldn’t make out their words.
“Either a Son took her from the tunnels for himself or her father is down here. You keep having Nico check the footage.”
I pressed my tooth into my lip until it drew blood, debating on asking Brooks to call the vice president. They were supposed to hold meetings down here today. I could ask him if he had seen Blair.
But right now, after what Daphne had told us, I didn’t trust him.
If he had shot our fathers because he saw Brooks’s father as a traitor, then I didn’t want the fucker knowing my whereabouts or that my Fawn was in trouble.
I also didn’t want him to know I was here.
A thousand thoughts ran through my mind like a movie I couldn’t shut off.
Did they shoot my father to get me away from the university?
“You still there?” Brooks asked.
“Yeah. I’m going to search the tunnels.”
Brooks let out a long breath. “You want me to come down there with you?”
“Keep looking outside and tell Daphne to wait in the dorm room, just in case Blair goes there. If you don’t hear from me soon, come down and look for me.”
“Be careful, man.”
I ended the call, threw the diary across the room, and left to search the rest of the tunnels.
I needed to kill Blair’s father if his plan was to hurt her.
Even if he wasn’t responsible for her current disappearance, he was too much of a liability.
And if he did hurt her, if he had her now, I’d rip the motherfucker apart limb by limb.
Then, for fun, I’d dump his dead body into the water, just like he said he’d do to my precious Fawn.