Chapter 20
Constantine
Intuition is a funny beast. I knew something was off the minute I left Bishop’s office. He was too accommodating. Even though he needs Bianca, he was too… something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the feeling I was having when we left, but seeing the state of Henri and Ivan has me enraged.
“They took her,” Henri rasps out, holding the side of his face that’s already turning into a nasty bruise.
“We need to find her,” I say through clenched teeth.
Knox follows me to my office, and I find the number to the one man I don’t want to talk to—Bianca’s father.
“Mr. Amato, it’s me, Constantine.”
“Where’s my daughter?” he booms, sounding frantic—furious—worried.
It takes me a good five minutes to calm Mr. Amato down before I can explain my plan. “Mr. Amato, trust me, I don’t want Bianca getting hurt.”
After a moment of silence, he finally whispers, “I trust you.” He hums into the phone like he’s thinking. “Where’s Bishop now?”
“He’s still in town. Why?”
“A man named Dean Maddox, from my personal security team, will meet you at your place with a few of his men. They’re already in Greece searching for Bianca. So, they can help you out.”
“Sure thing.” I’ll take all the help I can get. I nod at Knox, and he hops to it, grabbing his phone to call my men to join us as well.
Mr. Amato and I speak for a few more minutes, and he tells me he’s heading to Greece as well. I kind of figured he’d come. He loves his daughter, and once again I apologize for worrying him, but I needed the kidnapping to look real. “I needed Bishop to believe me.”
“Why?” Mr. Amato asks.
He stays quiet as I explain everything to him.
“You could have told me. You could have told me your plan.”
“I know, and once again I’m sorry. I just couldn’t risk anything going wrong.”
Mr. Amato sighs. “I just want my daughter to return safely.”
I nod. “Me too.” We say our goodbyes and I hang up, glancing at Knox. “The men on board?”
He swipes his phone off and shoves it into his back pocket. “Yeah, they’re set whenever you are.”
“Some men are coming to join as well. Now we need to find her.” And kill Bishop once and for all.
“Dean Maddox,” a man with sandy hair and gray eyes says to me, holding his hand out to shake mine. “This is Sebastian Cain. He’s working closely on capturing Bishop with me. This is also my man, Ranger Cole. He’s one of my best specialists.”
I study the men as they enter my home. Ranger and Sebastian are a bit taller than Dean, with dark hair. Where Ranger has many tattoos covering both arms, Sebastian looks more refined, and older than the rest of us.
I shake their hands.
“This is Knox, Henri, and Ivan,” I say, introducing them to my personal team. “I’ve had one of my other men following Bishop since I left him.”
“Perfect,” Sebastian says, running a hand across his stubbled jaw.
I lay a map of the town on my kitchen island, pointing to the center of the city where I met with Bishop not over twenty-four hours ago. I point to the old industrial section of town. “I spoke to my guy following Bishop right before you got here. He’ll call me if Bishop moves.” I tap my finger on the map. “I’m guessing we start the search here.”
“Let’s get going then,” Dean says, already moving toward the front door.
I grab a gun from my safe and follow the men. “Stay here,” I tell Ivan and Henri.
They nod and resume their position. I know I need the manpower, but I can’t risk the chance of leaving my house exposed. Bishop is a sneaky fucker, and I don’t trust him.
We all pile into my black SUV, Knox taking the driver’s seat, and me sitting up front. Ranger, Dean, and Sebastian slide into the back.
My other men follow behind in a black sedan.
Knox flies through the streets, taking each corner faster than the last. I don’t mind one bit. My heart beats uncontrollably in my chest, and I’m nervous as fuck to know if Bishop has harmed Bianca.
I’ll kill him if he has.
A little over thirty minutes later, we pull up to the industrial lot at the edge of town. I feel it deep in my bones Bianca’s here.
We exit the SUV, Dean calling the shots as we go.
“No one enters the building without my go ahead,” he says.
I’m trying to listen to him, but a huge part of me wants to rush inside and save Bianca.
The sun threatens to leave us soon, and I know it’ll be harder to see anything once we lose the light of the sun’s rays.
Dean pulls out his gun, racking the slide to make sure it’s ready to fire. We all follow suit, checking our weapons, knowing things will most likely take a turn for the worst. “I want Bishop dead this time.”
I don’t bother asking what he means about ‘this time,’ and we head toward the front of the building where I spot my man, Charlie, hanging back.
“No one’s left the building since Bishop went in there,” Charlie says.
“Does he have the girl?” Sebastian asks.
Charlie shakes his head. “I didn’t see her, but it doesn’t mean he didn’t have some of his men grab her while Constantine was meeting with him.”
“Yeah, Bishop has to have her inside. There’s no way he doesn’t.”
Dean nods. “Good enough for me. Let’s head inside.” Dean moves toward the entrance and we file behind him, taking it slowly.
Dean leads the charge, and I want nothing more than to get to Bianca.
I should have known the meeting with him earlier was too weird. He acted like a man who had nothing to lose. I never trust a man who acts like that.
With our guns up, ready to fire if the situation presents itself, Ranger picks the lock and we head inside.
“Near the south end,” Ranger says, holding his gun a little higher. “Do you hear that?”
We stop, straining our ears to hear whatever Ranger’s talking about. Voices. I hear them.
We move quicker now, practically sprinting across the dusty terrazzo floor. We turn a corner, and it takes a minute for me to accept I was right about everything when I see the woman standing in the back of the large space, Bianca at her side.
My mother. Alive and well.
“You’re just in time,” Bishop says, standing on the other side of the room.
My eyes clock Bianca, looking for any harm these motherfuckers may have caused her.
“Constantine, long time,” my mother says, her voice softer than I remember.
Maybe it’s her age. It’s been so long since I’ve laid eyes on her. And no matter how much I’ve tried to prepare myself for this moment, I still lose my breath at the sight of her.
Wrinkles crown her eyes, but other than that, she looks the same.
“I thought you were dead,” I say, stepping closer to Bianca, checking her out to make sure she hasn’t been harmed.
The dusty warehouse is empty, and soft light from the setting sun filters through the windows high above our heads. Our footsteps echo with each step we take into the room. We’ve got ten men, but Bishop seems to have double that, all standing guard around him.
Bianca sits duct taped to a chair in the center of the action with her hands bound behind her back. Her emerald eyes find mine and I try to silently reassure her.
“There seems to be a lot of that going around. Isn’t that right, Dean?” Bishop cackles and strides across the floor, all in black, raising an eyebrow as he moves toward Dean.
The tension in the room is thick, but even with all the testosterone floating on high alert and guns aimed all over, Bishop moves around the space without a care in the world. Like no harm could ever come to him.
Motherfucker.
My mother has the same air of confidence surrounding her. Like her being dead for so many years didn’t completely fuck up her only son.
“Costi, come give your mother a kiss,” she says with a little sneer.
“No, thanks,” I say back, moving slowly toward Bianca. “Why did you fake your death?”
She doesn’t answer right away, just studies my face like she’s trying to figure out if I’m really the same boy she left over ten years ago. “I was getting very close to being figured out.”
I raise a brow. “What do you mean?”
She sneers. “I did something. Something I don’t regret and Don Amato was getting very close to figuring it out.”
“Stealing money from him?” Bianca says.
My mother chuckles. “Money is a powerful drug.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Money is a drug? I have tons of it as well, but I’m not obsessed with it. I don’t need it to breathe.
I’m not addicted.
Not like her.
She stares at Bianca, moving closer. “It means when you want something bad enough, you take it. You make it yours.” Her voice grows louder, more confident.
“That doesn’t sound like the mother who raised me,” I answer.
“I’m not the same woman I was before.” She runs her fingers through Biana’s dark tresses, and I raise my gun.
“Don’t touch her,” I warn, moving closer.
“I can see the love all over your face, Costi. But she’ll never love you. She’s just like her father.” My mother spits on Bianca. “She’ll reject your love and marry another. The Amatos aren’t good people.”
No one speaks as my mother continues on about how she never gained the affection of the one man she loved more than anything—Don Amato.
“He loved that whore,” my mother hisses. “That woman , and you’re just like her,” she says, leaning over Bianca, addressing her.
“You’re wrong,” Bianca shouts. “I love him.”
“The Amatos don’t know how to love. Don never saw that I’d loved him for years. He chose that whore over me.”
Bianca struggles against her ties. “Stop talking about my mother that way.”
My mother leans closer, yanking Bianca’s hair in her fist. “Or you’ll what? Kill me?” My mother narrows her eyes, pure evil emanating through every molecule of her body. “I’ll finish you the same way I did your mother.”
Tears fill Bianca’s eyes as my mother goes into detail about how she killed Bianca’s mother, and made it look like a mafia hit. Bile rises in my throat at ever once having loved this woman.
How could someone be so horrific?
I glance at Dean, and he nods, inching closer.
“Yes, I killed your mother. And your father wouldn’t stop looking for who did it. He was getting close to catching me. I had to fake my own death.”
My mother gains her composure, standing upright and dropping Bianca’s hair. “I’ll take her, Bishop. This is money well spent. And it’s not even my money.” She laughs, thinking she’s the funniest woman on the planet.
My only concern right now is getting Bianca home safe. “Why don’t you let her go?” I tell my mother.
She lifts a brow. “I paid good money for this little whore.”
My heart hammers in my chest, and I aim my gun higher, trained right at my mother’s head. I don’t want to kill her, but I’ll do whatever’s necessary to bring Bianca home in one piece. “Let her go or you’ll die where you stand.”
“Is that any way to talk to your mother?”
I shrug. “I’ve already mourned your death once.”
Bishop interjects, “Now, now, maybe we can come to some sort of arrangement.” Bishop turns his attention to Dean. “I can offer you more money than you could imagine, if you hand over the other daughters to me.”
“Over my dead body,” Sebastian says, stepping closer.
“That can be arranged.”
One of Bishop’s men aims his gun at Sebastian and takes the shot.
And Sebastian falls to the ground in one quick motion.