Chapter 11
Aron
Jesus Christ in Heaven …
So much for texting Enzo. Whoever sent this message ensured that he won’t answer.
Before I can fully process what I’m seeing, my phone buzzes again. Incoming video call from Enzo.
Emily.
Somehow, Emily broke free. That’s the only explanation. Enzo wouldn’t be stupid enough to kidnap them when they’re surrounded by Empire goons, and with the gunshot wound I gave Lucinda, I doubt she’d be able to do this by herself. Enzo is—was—too tough for that.
Matt gets up and grabs a couple of t-shirts from the drawer, tossing one to me before donning his own. He moves over to the desk in the opposite corner and sits down, hooking his phone up to the laptop there. I follow suit, throwing on a pair of sweatpants before standing behind him.
Emily’s face is hopeful when Matt clicks to answer. Hopeful and bloody. “Hi, baby!” Her expression sours instantly. “Oh. He’s with you.”
“Good to see you, too, Emily,” Matt says. “I assume Enzo’s unavailable to speak with us?”
“Yeah … Sorry about that, baby.” She giggles, a manic, high-pitched sound. “He was very nice to us, but I couldn’t just let him live. He lied to us, Aron. He said you ordered him to kidnap us.”
Interesting how Emily refuses to address Matt directly. I lean forward, putting my hand on Matt’s shoulder. “I did order the kidnapping. I also ordered our men to bring your heads on a silver platter.”
Emily pouts. “That’s not very nice of you. What happened to loving and cherishing?”
“What happened to honoring and obeying?” I counter. “We could throw marriage vows at each other all day, but it won’t change anything. That contract ended the moment I found out you lied about who you are.”
“Did I really lie, though? I admitted I was adopted.”
“You said you didn’t know your birth parents. Don’t tell me that wasn’t a lie.”
Her smile is all the more disturbing for the amount of blood on her teeth. I don’t see any obvious injuries on her face, which means Enzo didn’t hit her.
She bit him.
“I didn’t know both of my birth parents.
That much is true. I never met Javier before he approached me on your behalf.
He didn’t want to kill his daughter-in-law, so we made an agreement: I would disappear until the time was right, and he’d offer us protection.
” She gestures to the background, turning the camera.
I finally notice Lucinda lying on a cot in the fishing shack Enzo brought them to.
Her chest rises and falls slowly, but her color is pale.
“Mom never said he was my father until after he was gone, and since Javier was trying to keep Mom a secret from you and Matt, he never brought her around me. I didn’t know until shortly before you found out. ”
We already know that Emily was fully aware of my relation to her when we started dating, but I get the feeling that forcing her to admit the truth won’t do a bit of good here. In whatever fantasy world she’s living, she thinks she did nothing wrong.
Matt fakes a yawn and points at the camera. “You got some lipstick or something on your teeth, sis.”
Emily runs a finger over her teeth and checks it. Laughter bubbles out of her, and she lifts an arm.
It’s Enzo’s … and it’s not attached to him.
“I got hungry. Mom refuses to eat, though. She’s not feeling too well after you shot her, Aron. I can’t even leave this stupid shack because I can’t move her by myself.”
That’s odd. I didn’t shoot her fatally; it was just enough to hamper her while I freed Matt and escaped. Even if Emily didn’t take her to a doctor, she shouldn’t be septic this soon, and I doubt she’s lost that much blood. It was a precision shot.
“Emily, what did you do to Mom?”
Matt’s thoughts must be heading in the same direction as mine.
We assumed the email demanding control of the Syndicate was from Lucinda, but the sign-off just said “Mrs. Martinez.”
Emily’s technically Mrs. Martinez, too.
That bloody grin returns. “I just doctored her up a bit. Took some poking and prodding, but I got the bleeding stopped … mostly.”
So, she made the wound worse. I wonder what Lucinda could have done to piss off Emily.
“Now, husband of mine, I have something more important to discuss.” She drops Enzo’s arm and puts her hand on her hip. “Where did he take our daughter? When I woke up after that nasty sedative, she was gone. I know you too well to think he killed her, so she’s got to be somewhere. I want her back.”
Thank God! Whatever Emily did to Enzo, it wasn’t enough for him to break and confess. That means Maria should be safe with Cinder and Gia, who are hopefully far, far away by now.
I’m also grateful that I sent Enzo on this task before we let anyone else know about the coordinated attacks on the Empire. No amount of torture and interrogation can make him spill information he doesn’t know.
“Well? Where is she?”
Matt shrugs. “Don’t know. She’s safe; I know that much. But her whereabouts? No clue.”
Emily scowls. “I didn’t ask Matt. I asked you, Aron.”
This is ridiculous. She’s not just insane; the woman is a fucking child. “You can speak to Matt directly, Emily. Don’t be immature.”
“Immature? You think I’m immature?” Her voice rises in tone and pitch, and her face reddens beneath the blood. “I can show you immature!” Enzo’s phone camera swings wildly as Emily crosses to the other side of the fishing shack to Lucinda.
“What’s she doing?”
Matt’s guess is as good as mine. I wouldn’t be surprised if she murdered their mother right in front of Matt. There’s not much Emily does that surprises me anymore. Murder, cannibalism … It’s all just more evidence of her growing mental instability.
“Mom?” Emily’s hand comes into the frame to poke Lucinda in her gunshot wound. Her tailored suit coat is pulled up to expose it, and there’s no dressing on the site. When Emily pokes it, putrid, greenish-yellow pus oozes out. “Mom! Wake up!”
Lucinda groans and recoils from Emily’s touch. “W-what?”
“Mattie won’t tell me where my baby is. Make him tell me!”
Mattie? Seriously? If anyone in the Syndicate called him “Mattie”—even when he was a kid, even Lucinda—they’d be executed.
“Emily … Sweetie, you need to—” A fit of coughing interrupts Lucinda. “Y-you need to let your brothers come get us. M-maybe they’ll bring Maria w-with them. Mommy needs a hospital, Emily.”
My former wife scoffs. “Psh! Hospitals are for weaklings. I gave birth in an Empire penthouse suite. I didn’t need a hospital, and neither do you.”
While Emily and Lucinda argue, I nudge Matt.
“Does the murder and cannibalism of our enforcer count as a Syndicate-level crime?” I whisper in his ear.
“One worthy of a one-hundred-million-dollar hit? Absolutely.”
“And Lucinda?”
Matt sits back in his chair. “She seems to have bitten off more than she can chew with our little sister.”
Our sister. I keep forgetting that part.
“Are you thinking a pardon for dear old Mom?”
He scrubs his face with his hand. “Maybe … Maybe instead of her head, we ask for her to be brought to our physicians alive. Provided Emily hasn’t made that impossible, of course.”
The sounds of argument dim on the other end of the line, and the camera swivels back to Emily’s face. “What are you mumbling about?”
Matt sighs. “Listen, Emily, if you guys stay there, we can have a Syndicate car pick you both up in … Aron?”
“Forty-five minutes.”
“In forty-five minutes.”
Suspicion flashes across her face. “Why a Syndicate vehicle? Why not Empire?”
“It’s this or nothing, Emily.” Matt’s finger hovers over the button that will disconnect the call. “We can’t hand you back to the Empire. Do you agree or not?”
“No.”
The camera image pans again, finally zeroing in on a bloody key fob.
“Looks like I have a Syndicate car here right now. Why do I need you two to rescue me when I can just save myself?”
Shit. If she bolts, we might never find her again.
“Emily, you know we can track that car.”
“True, my love, but only as far as I drive it. I’ll just take a page from my big brother’s book and switch cars. Easy peasy.”
“What about Mom? You said you can’t move her.”
An ominous sound echoes through the phone line just before the call drops, and my blood runs cold.
The distinctive click of a lighter.