Chapter 5
GIOVANNI
One glance at Meggie, and I know that she heard.
“Where is he?” The color she had gained earlier has drained from her face.
“I don’t have the details. But he’s close.”
Too fucking close.
And something tells me that he knows we have eyes and ears everywhere looking for him.
The cabin door bounces open.
“Ready?” Demi asks.
She and Enzo fill the cabin with their energy that seems to rebound back and forth between them.
“Demi, I want you to stay here with Meggie.” I glance around to find Meggie already on her feet and limping around the back of the sofa towards us.
“Gio.” She’s so close, I can see her veins beneath the pale skin of her face. “Be careful.”
I tilt her face towards me and kiss her on the lips. This will not be the last time I kiss her, that’s what I tell myself as Enzo and I step outside, and Enzo hands me a revolver.
One of Bruno’s men spotted the target outside a bar in a nearby ski resort. Fewer people visit the resorts outside of the winter season, making it easier for someone to fly under the radar, perhaps even holing up in an empty vacation property, but something about this doesn’t sit right with me.
We cut radio contact en route.
Enzo and I don’t speak in the back of the car. This is the first time my brother has been involved in family ‘business’, and I sense the twitchiness lurking beneath the surface. My brother was a loose cannon when he was younger. Perhaps I should’ve left him behind with Meggie instead.
The ski resort looms ahead of us as Stowe becomes a myriad of glowing lights in the rearview mirror.
“What’s the plan, brother?” Enzo keeps his gaze firmly fixed on our destination. “Will we just stroll in, order a drink, and act like we’re on vacation?” There’s a slight edge to his voice. He’s here, but he’s frightened, and adrenaline hasn’t quite kicked in yet.
“It’s as good a plan as any.”
Because The Fish isn’t going to be there. I don’t voice my opinion out loud; better that Enzo remains on red alert.
We pull into the parking lot and park up in a bay between an SUV and a Porsche. Bruno and several of his men are in another vehicle behind us.
We exchange glances. Allow the atmosphere to settle around us. There’s no sense of urgency here. The resort isn’t holding its breath waiting for shit to go down. The Fish has either moved on or it was a false sighting.
Splitting up, Enzo and I cover the front entrance.
The bar, when we go inside, is cozy, a fire roaring in a central log burner, tourists gathered around tables in their obligatory Fair Isle sweaters and Moncler sweatpants.
Eyes drift our way and back again, sliding in and out of boisterous conversations without a care in the world.
At the bar, I order two beers and casually survey the bar area. No one stands out. Everyone is having fun. Relaxed. Kicking back from reality for the duration of their vacation.
I’ve hardly swallowed my first mouthful of beer, the bubbles clinging to the back of my teeth when Bruno appears from an internal corridor. With a barely perceptible shake of his head, he passes through the bar and out through the front entrance, nodding at some guests along the way.
Enzo and I swallow another couple of mouthfuls of our drinks before we head back out the way we came in.
“There’s been another sighting,” Bruno says when we join him and his men. “Another exclusive bar frequented by tourists.”
I hear him. When a man’s reputation is founded on his ability to remain invisible, there is only one reason why we’ve had two ‘sightings’ in one evening.
“Is he alone?”
“Yes. No sign of the child.”
He wants us to know that Amber is hidden away somewhere. He’s taunting us. Now you see me, now you don’t. Because the players on both sides of this game are fully aware that if we kill him, we severely jeopardize our chances of finding out where she is.
“We’ll check it out, then head back.”
“You don’t think it’s him?” Enzo asks.
“I don’t think we’re going to catch him by barhopping around the resort, always one step behind.”
It’s the one step behind that worries me. This is another distraction while he keeps Meggie in his sight; he knows that she is back. Why else would he be playing this game?
The next stop on this wild goose chase is closer to Stowe. Closer to the mountain slope where Meggie is waiting for me inside the cabin that has already been compromised once. We reconvene with Bruno and his men to plan our next move.
“Seems to me,” Enzo suggests, “that we know exactly where he’s headed. Shouldn’t we jump a few steps ahead and lie in wait?”
“Force him away from his target, you mean?” The cogs are turning behind Bruno’s eyes. “It’s our best option. For now.”
Enzo flashes a lopsided smile that makes him look like a kid again. My little brother. “That wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but you’re welcome.”
He was hoping to catch a fish, not send him back into deeper waters. He wanted to prove that he is worthy of being my Underboss in the only way he knows how, by starting a fight with the bad guy, a fight that he knows I will finish for him.
I rest my hand on his shoulder and hold his gaze. Despite our differences and me cutting my siblings’ ties with the family business, blood still runs thicker than water, and we have no need for words.
As predicted, another ‘sighting’ of the Fish is called through from Demi’s contacts, and he is hopping ever closer to Meggie. Closer than I feel comfortable with.
Driving, as Enzo suggested, to a potential port of call a few stops ahead of The Fish, I call Demi on the radio. “I want you to move Meggie down to the bunker.”
Enzo’s head snaps away from the passenger window where he has been peering out into the darkness since we left the cabin.
“You think he’s heading this way?” I hear the incredulity in Demi’s voice through the radio crackle. He followed Meggie there once before, how has the man got the balls to try again?
“I’m taking no chances.”
There’s a pause during which I assume Demi is talking to Meggie.
The radio hisses back to life. “No can do. Sorry.”
“Don’t let her out of your sight.” I end the conversation.
I don’t need to look at Enzo to know that he’s grinning at me. “One, you have a bunker that you chose not to tell me about. And two, you didn’t honestly think that she would run and hide while her sister is still missing. Did you?”
I look at him, and the smile fades.
“You did.” Enzo runs a hand over his stubble. “Did you learn nothing back in high school?”
“High school?”
“You tell a woman what to do, and she’s going to rear up like a Praying Mantis on heat. If you really wanted Meggie to hide in the bunker, you should’ve given her an incentive, not an order.”
Trapped in the back of a moving vehicle with my brother, I have nothing to lose by asking the question that he’s itching to hear. “What kind of incentive?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, she’s your woman. But off the top of my head, how about: you’ll bring her sister home. Or…” He pretends to think about it. “You’ll feed her chocolate coated strawberries while you give her the greatest orgasm of her life.”
I can’t help smiling.
“Already done that one.”
Enzo inclines his head. “In my experience, there’s always room for improvement.”
The Fish miraculously appears outside a busy restaurant in another part of the resort within throwing distance of our small convoy. We ignore it and proceed to split up over the next few prospective spots.
Then he conveniently disappears.
Back at the cabin, Meggie and Demi are waiting for us with the door wide open.
Demi throws me an apologetic look that means this was a fight she wasn’t going to win.
Meggie stares at the car as Enzo and I climb out, and I realize with a stab through my heart that she was praying we would return with Amber.
“Meggie, I’m sorry.”
She practically falls into my arms, and I gesture for Enzo and Demi to head back inside while she sobs against my chest. For a long while, neither of us speaks.
When she finally pulls away, her lashes are damp, and her eyes puffy, but she smiles and takes my hand to lead me back inside. Not for the first time, I’m astounded by her resilience, her unflinching ability to keep bouncing back, no matter what.
“There’s something I want to tell you.”
I’m not sure I like the sound of this, but I get a sense of excitement buzzing around her like bees around a bellflower. So, I allow her to guide me through the cabin to the kitchen, where a large hand-drawn map of the resort is spread across the table.
She sits heavily in a chair and raises her damaged foot onto a spare seat before I can prompt her to keep it elevated.
I dismissed the nurses earlier, at Meggie’s insistence, but it was on the proviso that she followed instructions and gave herself a chance to heal. She’s keeping her end of the bargain.
Demi switches on the coffee machine which, going by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, she has kept in use while we’ve been gone.
Then, we all sit around the table.
“These crosses here—” Meggie taps the map with her fingertip “—are where Demi’s contacts claim to have seen him.”
I’ve noticed before that she never calls him by his name, and now it’s noticeable that she is also refusing to use his pseudonym as if allocating a label to him will give him more power over her.
“They were chosen deliberately,” she continues. “He wanted us to believe that he was coming here to find me, but I don’t think that’s the case.” She seems convinced about this.
“He’s playing a game.” Enzo shrugs. “That much is true.” In true Enzo fashion, he is unfazed by his earlier unsuccessful suggestion. In his world, there are always more opportunities waiting around the corner.
Meggie swallows a mouthful of coffee. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. But he used to play the same mind games with my mom. He would stay out all night, sometimes not come home for days, then he would brazenly lie about where he’d been.”