Chapter Fifteen
GIANNI
H e tried to take her away from me.
I’ll make this motherfucker beg for his life. Then, I’ll watch him burn.
“He had to have been following you,” I say tightly. “Any other explanation is too much of a stretch.”
“Then why wait until we were on our way back? Why…?” Becca looks down, her lips rounding. “Oh.”
“Oh?”
“Promise you won’t get mad?”
I close my eyes.
You almost lost her. Don’t be a dick.
With a heavy exhale, I open them to find her arms crossed over her stomach in a protective huddle.
Something about the way she’s guarding herself from me drives my rising temper into the ground.
“No, but I promise to listen,” I say calmly.
“Let’s start with why you conned one of my best men into driving you and your father to Hackensack. ”
“I didn’t give him much of a choice.”
“I’m still waiting for the why .”
“After you left, my father shut down, so I figured a change of scenery might help. I thought he may have been more inclined to answer my questions if they were asked somewhere other than his arch nemesis’s house.”
I raise my eyebrow. “Arch nemesis? Isn’t that a bit dramatic?”
“Says the man who only yesterday referred to one of his men as a braindead cock leech.” At my silence, she sighs and drags her hand down her bruised face. “Do you want to dissect my vocabulary or hear the rest of this?”
I nod. “By all means, continue.”
“I heard you mention Cucciola’s more than a few times to Anton,” she starts, quickly adding, “I wasn’t eavesdropping if that’s what you’re thinking.
Our bedroom isn’t that far from your office, and you haven’t been exactly calm on the phone lately.
You shut me out of so much of that side of you, I got curious.
” She pads the confession with a shrug. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to have a meal. ”
“Becca, the man who murdered your mother crossed into New Jersey,” I say, a bit more loudly than intended.
“I tripled your security. How could you not see the harm in…?” With every word, I see her body stiffen and start pulling away.
Taking a breath, I try to keep my fear-driven anger on a leash.
“Did you ever stop to consider I kept you away from it for a reason?”
“Yes. But you have to remember I’m a psychiatrist. I operate under facts and logic. Throwing out vague warnings under the ‘trust me, babe’ umbrella only makes me dig my heels in even harder.”
Sometimes I forget this is the same tight-assed doctor who sat across that coffee table judging me with pinched lips and a know-it-all stare. So much has happened, the line separating the two has gotten muddled. I miss that woman. I wanted to throttle the shit out of her, but I still miss her.
“I’ll admit I shouldn’t have excluded you. But the fact remains, if you had questions, you should’ve come to me instead of circling around me.”
“I know, but the plan worked. My father talked.” I don’t like the wobble in her voice.
Whatever it is, she doesn’t want to tell me.
“He admitted he and Dagger would meet at the docks on Tuesdays. Afterward, Dad would leave, and his tormentor would walk toward the cargo berths. I asked if he ever saw anything, and he said no. He assumed they were running drugs, and other than a couple of reports about undocumented outgoing shipments he buried, he stayed out of it.”
“Until he didn’t.”
She nods. “After my mother was murdered, he went off the rails and followed Dagger to the berths. He watched him help load five huge crates onto a freightliner. I asked if he saw what was inside, and he said no…” She takes a ragged breath. “But he heard their screams.”
I hit my feet, the bars of my demons’ cage rattling. “They were fucking trafficking humans?”
Her chin trembles. “Dad said he pulled his gun and confronted them, but Dagger threw his own ace of spades.”
The ultimate fuck you.
I know what she says next will change everything—my life, her life, our life.
“He never held my life over my dad’s head, Gianni. He held my innocence.”
Goddamn it. God-fucking-damn it.
I pace the room, the roars getting louder, the demand for blood stronger. “He threatened him with the fear of those being your screams.”
Do it. Let them out.
Before I can, my phone lights up with a text from Anton.
I’m in the lobby. We need to talk.
Any other time, I’d tell him to go fuck himself, but I need air. I need to get a hold of myself before I free something I can’t put back.
But I’m also not leaving her alone.
Pulling up another contact, I type out a quick text.
I have to take care of something. Come to the sixth floor, room 6441.
Becca watches me closely as I return to her bedside. “I have to go downstairs and talk to Anton. Sera will be here in a few minutes.” I lift my hand, intercepting her inevitable protest. “I know you can take care of yourself, but so can I. So, don’t fight me on this, all right?”
“All right.”
“Good. By the way, where’s your father?”
She winces. “I convinced him to leave Providence. I didn’t think it was safe for him, so I got him to agree to stay at a co-worker’s cabin in the Poconos.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
“You’re not pissed?”
Not if it gets George Reese the fuck out of my way.
“You followed your survival instincts. How can I be mad at that?” Determined to distract her, I lower my head and crush my lips against hers.
It works. She wraps her arms around my neck, deepening the kiss while monitors all around us wail in protest. I almost say fuck it and crawl in bed with her, but she needs to heal, and I need answers.
So, I pull back, her little whine hitting me straight in the dick.
“Try to rest. When I come back, I’m taking you home. ”
She scrunches her nose. “What about the test results?”
“Screw the test results. I’ll pay Dr. Fuckboy to make a house call if need be.”
“Dr. Fuckboy?”
“Don’t care enough to know his actual name,” I mutter, as my phone ignites with an incoming text. “Probably safer for him, too.”
I glance down. It’s from Sera.
On my way.
Giving her one last kiss, I turn to go, making it halfway out the door before I hear…
“You didn’t know about any of it, right?”
My first instinct is to lash out. How could she think I’d be a part of something so vile? But then, something grabs hold of that rage and turns it around.
“Here .” It shouts. “Look. See what she’s saying.”
All that anger fades when I realize her concern is me . Becca confessed her father was complicit in a trafficking ring that held her like a dangled carrot, and the fear in her eyes rests with me .
“No, cara mia .” Glancing over my shoulder, I look into her eyes and leave no room for doubt. “I had no clue my father was trafficking women. But I swear, it stops with me.”
I exit the elevator to find Anton pacing the lobby like an expectant father. He looks up, his face riddled with fresh lines. “How is she?”
“Alive,” I say, motioning to a quiet corner where a lukewarm coffee pot sits daring someone to try their luck. Grabbing a flimsy paper cup, I fill it to the top. “Unlike the asshole who hit her will be once I get my hands on him.”
“What happened?”
“First, tell me what was important enough to pull me away from her hospital bed.”
“My contact did some more digging and found out Henry’s story goes deeper than we thought.”
That gets my attention.
“How deep?”
“Seems he didn’t become Henry Saddler until age three, when he was adopted.”
Cold coffee sloshes onto my hand as my grip dents the paper cup. “Christ, how many fucking names does this asshole have?”
“I’m guessing three, and the first is locked up somewhere in Brooklyn.”
“So what does this mean for us?”
He shrugs. “Maybe nothing, maybe everything. We have to get those adoption records unsealed, first. They could show Saddler was just another unwanted kid in the system…”
“…or draw a line back to Providence,” I finish.
I’m coming for you, asshole.
He waves his hand. “Forget about that for now. You were saying something about the guy who hit Becca and Leo’s car. Are you telling me she knows the bastard?”
For twenty-two fucking years…
After another look around confirms no one is within earshot, I relay everything Becca told me, watching my same reaction play out across Anton’s face.
“Holy shit,” he says in a low voice.
“Nothing holy about it.”
“This guy has gotten too close, Gianni.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I jab my finger toward the ceiling. “That’s my wife up there he tried to kill.” I glare at him, Becca’s last question to me taking up space in my head. “You didn’t know, right?”
The familiar wave of anger sweeping across his face gives me my answer. “I’m going to chalk that up to your head not being clear. But for the record, no, I had no clue Marcello was into flesh trade. Not that I’m shocked. He sold Serafina off like she was cattle.”
The way he says that reminds me of his comment at Cucciola ’ s.
“Marcello and Alejandro Carrera are kindred spirits cut from the same putrid cloth. They’d sell their own mothers if it’d turn a profit.”
Fuck me.
“You said your contact found deposits to the shell companies that traced back to the Carrera Cartel?”
“Yeah…” His eyes slowly widen. “Oh, shit . That’s brilliant.”
“Of course, it is. Now, get me Valentin Carrera’s number. I have an Irishman to uncover.”
“Alejandro’s son? The one he shipped to Houston to get out of his way?” he scoffs. “Marcello would’ve dealt with the kingpin, not his spinoff. The kid’s a punk who isn’t told shit. It’s a waste of time.”
I smirk. “People said the same thing about me, and now, here I am running my father’s empire while he sits in an urn on the mantle.
” I toss my empty cup into the trash and turn toward the elevator only to hear a low “ fuuuuuck ” behind me.
I’m not sure what’s got my underboss all wound up, but I don’t have the time, nor do I give enough of a shit to ask.
But two more steps, and I see her … rushing toward me, her long dark hair flowing behind her as her high heels click-clack against the floor. “Fuuuuuck,” I echo .
Cathalina.
“Gianni!” She throws her arms around me in an assault of nauseatingly sweet vanilla perfume. “I just heard.”
“Heard, what ?”
“That Becca was in a bad car accident. Is she okay? Do they know who did it?”
I catch Anton’s eye as he steps forward. He doesn’t have to say anything. I can read the thought behind that hard, narrowed stare. It’s the same one that’s behind mine.
There’s only one way she could’ve heard about the accident.
Our suspicion of a Connecticut contingent playing an active role in all this is growing stronger by the minute. Any other time, I’d back her into a corner until the truth spilled out. But I’m not in the right headspace for an interrogation, especially here.
“Go home, Cathalina.”
Her heavily lined eyes widen. “But you don’t?—”
“Let me rephrase that. Go the fuck home, or I’ll have you escorted there.
Your choice.” I don’t bother waiting for an answer.
Leaving Anton to deal with her, I storm toward the elevator, my mind spinning.
As the doors close, I catch both Anton and Cathalina’s slack-jawed stares and shift from wondering who’s waiting to shove a knife in my back to wondering who isn’t.