Chapter 32 Kingston
KINGSTON
I wake up to cold sheets and the kind of eerie silence that makes my gut clench with foreboding.
I slide my hand across the mattress, searching for Livvie’s warmth, the curve of her hip, anything. But there's nothing. Just empty space where my wife should be.
"Livvie?"
My voice echoes off the bedroom walls. No answer.
I sit up, every muscle in my body coiled tight. The bathroom door is open, but the light is off. I strain my ears to pick up on any sound. There’s no running water. No music. No light patter of footsteps moving across the floor. No sign of life anywhere in the penthouse.
Something's fucking wrong.
I'm on my feet before my brain fully catches up. Her clothes from yesterday, the torn, bloodstained shit we peeled off after the warehouse standoff, are gone. So is the towel we left crumpled on the bathroom floor.
"Livvie!" I call out, louder this time, my voice reverberating between the walls.
Nothing.
I check every room in the penthouse. The kitchen where she makes coffee that's too weak for my taste… empty. The conservatory where she goes to play the violin, think, and hide… fucking empty.
Every room in this penthouse closes around me like a fucking tomb.
Back in the bedroom, I yank on jeans with shaking hands when I see it. The necklace. The one with the GPS tracker, the one she told me meant everything to her, sitting on her nightstand like a fucking goodbye gift.
There's a piece of paper underneath it.
My breath hitches as I snatch it up, unfolding the note as blood pounds between my ears.
Kingston,
I want you to keep this. Not because I don't want it, but because I need you to remember that what we had was real. Every moment. Every touch. Every time you made me feel like I was worth protecting.
You gave me a home. You gave me love. Now, I'm giving you your life.
I’ll do whatever it takes to protect you.
Forever yours,
Livvie.
The paper crumples in my fist before I can stop myself. She's gone. She fucking ran on me.
Only this time, it’s because she loves me.
The realization hits me like a sledgehammer to the chest. She didn't leave because she wanted to. She left because she thinks it's the only way to keep me alive.
I grab my phone and call security. The phone rings twice before someone picks up.
"Where is she?" I bark before the guy can finish his greeting.
"Sir?"
"My wife. When did she leave the building? Which direction did she go? What fucking car was she in?"
There's a pause, the sound of typing. "Mr. Viacava, I don't have any record of Mrs. Viacava leaving the building tonight—"
"Check again. Check every camera, every exit, every goddamn elevator in this place."
More typing. I pace the bedroom, free hand clenched in a fist, ready to put it through the nearest wall.
"Sir, I'm looking at the main lobby feeds now.
There's no sign of her leaving through the front entrance.
Let me check the other exits… Wait." There’s a longer pause this time, making me impatient.
"The service elevator at 4:23 a.m. There's a figure in dark clothes, hood pulled up.
Can't see the face clearly, but the build looks right. "
Okay, 4:23 a.m. I check the clock. It's past seven now. She has a three-hour head start and I have no fucking idea where she went or what’s she’s planning.
Actually, that's not true. I know exactly why she left. The question is, where the hell did she go?
"Which direction did she go when she hit the street?"
"Give me a second to pull up the exterior cameras.” This pause bleeds like a goddamn fucking hour when it’s really only a few beats of time. “She turned left out of the service exit. That's all I can see from our building's cameras. After that, she went out of range."
Left leads to the subway station. Or the taxi pickup spots on Fifth Avenue. Or a hundred other ways to disappear in this fucking city.
I end the call and immediately dial Bronx’s number.
"K?" His voice is groggy, pissed off. "What the hell time is it?"
"I need data from the street cameras around my building. Every feed you can access for the last four hours."
"Slow down. What's going on?"
"Livvie's gone."
Silence on the other end. And then he says, "Gone how?"
"She left. On her own. Middle of the night. I need to know where she went."
"Shit." I hear him moving around, probably walking from his bedroom to the computer setup. "Okay, give me twenty minutes. Maybe thirty. These city systems aren't exactly user-friendly, and we’ll need to hack through firewalls."
Twenty minutes. Thirty. She could be anywhere by then. On a plane to Ireland. On a train to fucking nowhere. Or bleeding out in some alley because the Red Tribunal found her first.
"Make it faster," I growl.
"I'm doing what I can. But K…" He pauses. "Why would she run?"
I think about the note, about the look in her eyes last night when I promised to protect her. "Because she's trying to save me."
"From what?"
"I'll explain later. Just find her."
I end the call and start pacing again, the necklace heavy in my palm. The tracker that could have led me right to her, useless now because she was smart enough to leave it behind.
My phone buzzes. Reign, probably wondering why Bronx is awake and hacking city cameras at dawn. I ignore it.
Then it buzzes again with an unknown number.
I stare at the screen for half a second, hope flaring in my chest. Maybe it's Livvie calling from a burner phone. Maybe she changed her mind.
"Livvie?"
"No." The voice is female, older, with a thick Irish brogue. "This is her mother."
Fiona O'Callaghan. Fuck. Why is she calling me?
"Where is she?" I say, the phone tight to my ear like I’m afraid to miss a single syllable.
"I don't know. But I know why she left."
"Tell me what the hell is going on, Fiona."
"I've never involved myself in my husband's business, Kingston. Thirty years of marriage, and I've kept my mouth shut about every decision he's made. Never interfered with family matters or asked questions I didn't want answers to."
"I don't give a shit about your marriage. Where's my wife?"
Her voice is icy when she continues. "But when my daughter falls in love with the man who protected her instead of using her…
" Her voice cracks slightly, and for the first time, she sounds like a mother instead of a mob wife.
"I can't stand by and watch her sacrifice herself for selfish bastards who don't deserve it. "
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"The Red Tribunal gave her an order to kill you or watch her entire family die. Every O'Callaghan in Ireland, including their children will be murdered."
I drop onto the mattress, my head falling into my hands. “I know. And I told her I’d handle it.”
Earlier, everything had clicked into place. Her conflicted behavior. The way she pulled away from me sometimes, like she was fighting herself.
Livvie was never planning to kill me. My wife was trying to find a way to save everyone she loved, including me.
"She's been torturing herself for the past week," Fiona says. "Trying to find another way. Trying to protect you and us at the same time. But there’s no other way with these people."
"So she disobeyed me… She ran straight to our enemy."
The line goes quiet and my scalp prickles.
"She's sacrificing herself, Kingston. Her life for yours."
I jump off the bed and grab a shirt from the closet. "That's not how these people work."
"No. It's not. They'll kill her and come for you anyway. But she doesn't see that. All she sees is the man she loves in danger because of her family's mistakes."
"Where would she go? How would she contact them?"
"I don't know the specifics. Cormac keeps me locked out of that side of things. But Kingston…"
"What?"
"My daughter loves you. More than her own life. More than her family. More than anything she's ever known. If you love her the same way, you have to find her before they do.” Her voice cracks. “Please save my baby girl."
Then the line goes dead.
I stare at the phone for exactly three seconds, my mind working in overdrive to process what she just told me. I pull on my shirt, grab weapons and extra magazines from my safe, and stuff them into my duffel bag.
Livvie didn't betray me. She's been protecting me this whole time, even when it was tearing her apart.
And now she's going to die for it.
My phone rings. Bronx’s name flashes across the screen.
"Tell me you found something." I hoist my bag over my shoulder and rush toward the elevator.
"Still working on the street cameras, but I managed to pull all the Blood Vault files from that USB drive Roman gave her. The Tribunal's been planning this for months. A complete takeover of both families. They never intended to honor any deals with anybody."
I rake a hand through my hair. “Maybe she went to the estate in Long Island. I don’t know where else she’d find those bastards.”
"According to the intel on the drive, they have multiple locations across the city. Warehouses, office buildings, even a few legitimate businesses. But there's something else. According to these files, they've got a Tribunal session scheduled for today. Some kind of formal meeting."
"What kind of meeting?"
"Fuck if I know. They’re secretive bastards. But if she shows up there—"
My blood turns to ice. "Where?"
"I’m working on it. There are coded references, but I need more time to—"
"How much time?"
"Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen."
Ten minutes. Livvie could be dead in ten minutes.
I grab my Glock, check the magazine, then shove it into the back of my waistband.
"Bronx, whatever you find, send it to my phone. I have to save her from those twisted fucks.”
I'm heading for the garage to sit and wait because I can’t keep pacing my living room when my phone buzzes with a text message from an unknown number.
Your wife chose wisely. Her sacrifice will be honored. Join us at the harbor warehouse. Pier 47. 9 a.m. Come alone or she dies screaming.
My heart plummets into my shoes and a lump forms in the back of my throat.
Pier 47. I know the place. Old shipping warehouse, isolated from the main port, perfect for keeping things private. Easy to control access, plenty of space for a crowd if they want to make a show of it for their members.
And it's eight fifteen now. I have forty-five minutes.
I text the address to Bronx and tell him to get Reign and the crew together. Fuck going in alone. If they want a war, I'll give them one.
My truck roars to life in the garage, and I peel out onto the street. Traffic is light this early, which means I can make it to the docks in twenty minutes if I ignore every traffic law in the city.
My phone rings again.
"Bronx filled me in. What's the plan?" Reign says.
"The plan is, I go in and kill every fucker who's touched my wife."
"That's not a plan; that's a suicide mission."
"Then don't follow me."
"Like hell. We're family.”
“Yeah, and she’s family, too,” I remind him. “She’s Livvie fucking Viacava, Reign. She’s one of us.”
“Where you go, we go."
I take a corner at fifty miles an hour, tires screaming against the asphalt. "Then you’d better bring enough firepower to level the building."
"Already on it. See you at the pier."
The line goes dead, and I'm alone with my thoughts and the throbbing between my ears. Livvie thinks she's saving me by sacrificing herself. She thinks if she gives them what they want, they'll leave me alone.
She's wrong.
But I'm going to save her anyway. Even if it means burning the whole fucking Red Tribunal to the ground.
They want blood? They're about to get it.
Just not the blood they were expecting.