Chapter Rafferty
Rafferty
I'm late and I hate it.
Fifteen minutes. That's all. A call from Connor that ran long, something about a distribution contact in Cork who needed reassurance after the Baron situation.
I handled it, but it put me behind, and now I'm pulling into Rosa's parking lot at six fifteen instead of six and Nadia isn't standing under the lamp.
She's always standing under the lamp.
I park and scan the lot. Two cars. Neither of them familiar. No Nadia on the sidewalk, not in the doorway, not visible through the restaurant windows. The closed sign is up. The lights inside are dim.
I get out. The air is cold and sharp and something in my gut is already tightening before I've taken three steps.
Her bag is on the ground.
It's half open, the contents spilling onto the asphalt. Her phone is face down two feet away. The screen is cracked. I pick it up and the glass bites into my fingers. The last thing on the screen is a text from Iris about cake.
I stand there holding her broken phone and her bag and the cold in my gut turns to ice.
I know. Before I check the security camera that doesn't exist. Before I call her name into the empty parking lot. Before I do any of the things a normal person would do, I know exactly what's happened and exactly who did it.
Kyle fucking Whitfield.
I call Liam. He answers on the second ring.
"I need you. Now. Rosa's diner on Greenfield. Nadia's gone. Someone took her from the parking lot."
Liam doesn't waste a second. "Who?"
"My money is on Kyle Whitfield. The asshole I dealt with last week.
" My voice is level. My hands are steady.
Everything inside me is on fire but my training holds me together the way it always does, locking the rage behind the discipline until I have somewhere to point it.
"He's driving a piece of shit sedan from what I recall.
I need you to track him. Pull traffic cameras, ATM footage, whatever we have access to.
He's local. Ridgemont area. He won't have gone far because he's too stupid to have a plan. "
"I'm calling Killian and Aidan. Connor too. Give me five minutes."
I hang up and go into the restaurant. The back door is unlocked. Rosa is still inside, wiping down the kitchen. She looks up, startled, then alarmed when she sees my face.
"Nadia. When did she leave?"
"About fifteen minutes ago. She took the trash out and—" Rosa's face changes. "What's happened?"
"Did you see anyone in the parking lot? A car you didn't recognize? A man?"
"No. I was back here cleaning. What's going on?"
"Lock the doors. Don't leave until I call you or someone you trust can pick you up."
I'm back outside before she can answer. My phone rings.
"Killian pulled traffic camera footage from the intersection at Greenfield and Fourth. Beat-up gray sedan, heading east six minutes ago. Plate comes back to a Kyle Whitfield, registered address in Ridgemont."
"He's going home."
"That's what we think. Aidan's pulling up the address now. Same one you went to last week?"
"Same one."
"Killian and I are fifteen minutes out. Aidan is closer, maybe ten. Connor's coming from the estate with backup."
"I'm not waiting fifteen minutes."
"Rafferty." Liam's voice is sharp. The boss voice. The one that's stopped me before. "Don't go in alone. We don't know what he's—"
"He has Nadia. He put his hands on her and dragged her into his car. I'm not waiting, Liam."
Silence. One beat. Two.
"I'll bring Grace and Iris. Nadia's going to need someone when this is done who isn't covered in blood."
"Fine."
I drive to Ridgemont in eleven minutes. I run two red lights and take corners hard enough to make the tires scream. The whole way, my mind runs scenarios. What he's doing. What he's saying. Whether he's touched her. Whether he's hurt her.
I think about last week. The way he screamed when I broke his fingers. He is a coward. A parasite. A man who preys on women because he can't face anyone his own size and wants an easy life.
I told him what would happen. I stood in his apartment with his blood on my hands and told him exactly what the consequences would be if he went near her again.
He didn't listen. Some men don't. Some men hear a warning and all they process is the humiliation, and the humiliation festers until it becomes something reckless and stupid.
This is reckless and stupid. And it's going to be the last decision Kyle Whitfield ever makes for himself.
His apartment building is on a dead-end street. Three stories. Run down. The gray sedan is parked out front at an angle, the driver's door still open, like he dragged her inside in a hurry.
I park and I'm out of the car before the engine fully dies. The main door to the building is propped open with a brick. Third floor, apartment 3B. I remember from last week. I take the stairs three at a time, my footsteps echoing in the concrete stairwell.
The door to 3B is closed but not locked. I can hear his voice through the wood. High, agitated, the pitch of a man who's spiraling.
"—think your fucking boyfriend scares me? He broke my fingers, Nadia. My fingers. Do you know how much that cost me? Do you know what I lost because of you? I’m going to fucking make you pay, you bitch!"
I open the door.
The apartment is the same shithole it was last week. Fast food containers on the counter, clothes on the floor, the remains of the laptop I smashed still sitting in pieces on the desk. Kyle is standing in the middle of the room with his back to the door. Nadia is on the couch.
She's alive. She's conscious. Her left cheek is red and swelling and there's blood on her lower lip where she's bitten through it or been hit. Her eyes are wide and wet and she's pressed into the corner of the couch with her knees pulled up, making herself as small as possible.
Her eyes find mine over Kyle's shoulder and the relief that floods through them is so raw it nearly takes me to my knees.
Kyle turns.
The color drains from his face. Whatever bravado brought him to that parking lot, whatever desperate courage made him think this was a good idea, it evaporates the second he sees me standing in his doorway.
"Sit down," I tell him.
He sits. On the floor, because his legs give out before he reaches the chair. He's shaking. His splinted fingers are cradled against his chest and his one good eye is locked on me with the wide, frozen terror of a prey animal that's just realized it can't run.
I cross the room to Nadia. I crouch in front of her and take her face in my hands, gently, tilting it toward the light. The mark on her cheek is a handprint. His handprint. She's trembling but she's whole. He didn't get far enough to do anything else.
"Did he touch you?" I ask quietly. "Beyond the hit."
She shakes her head. "He just... he kept talking. Threatening. He said he'd go after my family. He said he was going to fuck me and then fuck me up."
"Okay." I brush her hair back from her face. "It's over. You're safe. I need you to do something for me."
"What?"
"Grace and Iris are on their way. When they get here, you're going to leave with them. You're not going to look back. Can you do that?"
She nods. Her hand comes up and grips my wrist. Her fingers are ice cold and her nails dig into my skin. "What are you going to do?"
"What I should have done the first time."
Headlights sweep through the window. Car doors. Footsteps on the stairs. Liam comes through the door first, reading the room in half a second. Killian behind him, silent, already positioned. Aidan a step later, phone in hand, already handling logistics.
Then Grace and Iris with Connor behind them. Grace is calm, steady, a woman who married into this family and learned long ago when to step forward and when to step back. Iris takes one look at Nadia and crosses the room without hesitation.
"Come on, sweetie." Iris wraps her arm around Nadia's shoulders. "Let's get you out of here."
“You all came?” Nadia asks, incredulous.
“Of course we did,” Iris says to her. “We’re family.”
Nadia stands. Her legs are unsteady and Grace moves to her other side, supporting her weight. Nadia looks at me one more time.
"Go on," I tell her. "Go with them. I'll be right behind you."
She lets Grace and Iris guide her toward the door. Iris is already talking to her softly, one hand rubbing circles on her back. Grace catches my eye as they pass and gives me a single nod.
The door closes behind them.
The room is quiet. Kyle is still on the floor, trembling, surrounded by five Orlov brothers who are looking at him the way wolves look at something wounded and cornered.
"You were warned," Liam says. His voice is conversational. Almost pleasant. That's when Liam is most dangerous.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, okay? I wasn't going to hurt her. I just wanted—"
"You hit her," I say. "There's a handprint on her face."
Kyle's mouth opens and closes.
I take off my jacket and hand it to Aidan. Roll up my sleeves. Kyle starts scrambling backward across the floor but there's nowhere to go. His back hits the wall and his one good eye darts from brother to brother, looking for mercy.
There isn't any.
"Killian," I say. "Door." He locks it.
I crouch down in front of Kyle Whitfield the way I crouched in front of Nadia sixty seconds ago. Same position. Same closeness. Completely different intention.
"Last time, I broke your fingers and your devices," I say quietly. "This time, you will disappear. Completely. Permanently. No one will look for you. No one will find you. It will be as if you never existed."
Kyle starts to cry.
I stand up.
"Hold him," I say to Liam and Aidan.
And then I go to work.