42. Bram
brAM
Headed across the Atlantic in the Kings’ jet all I could think was how the fuck did I end up on a private jet to Capri with my little sister and the three guys she was fucking?
The fucking Hawks no less?
It wasn’t where I wanted to be. That would have been at home with Maeve in the loft, preferably wrapped up in her sweet-ass body, or maybe eating one of her homemade Snickers cupcakes.
Or both.
But here I fucking was, watching Vigo toss a rubber ball into the air and catch it (over…
and over… and over) while Hawk Cruz eyed my sister like he wanted to undress her right there and bend her over one of the jet’s plush leather seats.
Jagger was more circumspect at least, gaze focused on his laptop, working on whatever fucking nerd spreadsheet he’d come up with to try and figure out how to get to Dimitri Kaprolov.
And that was really the only reason I was here.
I wanted Kaprolov’s head on a spike.
And I wanted to be the one to tear it off his body.
I wanted it for Maeve, who’d lost her sister to a boyfriend radicalized by a manosphere douchebag that had been financed by Kaprolov.
I wanted it for my parents, who’d been murdered by Kaprolov for doing the right thing.
I even wanted it for myself — wanted it for the kid I’d been when I’d gone over the side of the mountain with my parents — although I wouldn’t admit it to anyone but Maeve.
But most of all I wanted it for Cassie.
Sweet, shy Cassie, who had our mom’s hair and eyes and our dad’s smile.
Who’d had the great misfortune to be raised by me.
Who’d let me shield her from anything and everything, even when it had been slowly strangling her, who’d let me hide her from the world, not just because I’d wanted to keep her safe, but because I’d been so fucking scared to lose her.
I wouldn’t have chosen the Hawks for her.
Hell, I don’t know if I would have chosen anyone for her, if I was being honest. Didn’t know if anyone ever would have been good enough.
But she’d chosen them, and she deserved to have the life she wanted.
Not the one I wanted for her or the one I chose for her.
The one she wanted.
Kaprolov had painted a target on her back, hired bad people with worse weapons to try and hit that target not just once but twice.
They’d run her off the mountain. They’d tried to kill her at the paper mill. Stalked her at the coffee shop.
They’d gone into her fucking home.
And I was done fooling myself: the Hawks were Cassie’s home now. I saw the way she looked at them, saw the same thing I felt in my fucking chest when I looked at Maeve, like she was the sun, moon, and stars rolled all into one.
My fucking world.
I looked at Cassie, curled up in one of the seats, sound asleep under a blanket Hawk had tucked around her. She’d been through a lot the last few months and it was obviously catching up to her.
My attention was pulled from my sister when Jagger got up from his seat and carried his laptop toward me.
I was surprised to find I wasn’t bracing myself. Not that long ago just talking to the Hawks got on my fucking nerves. Then they’d claimed Cassie in the Hunt and they’d more than gotten on my nerves.
They’d made me want blood.
But somewhere along the way either they’d gotten less annoying or I’d started to see qualities in them I hadn’t known were there.
Both. Maybe.
Although Vigo was still annoying as fuck.
The man couldn’t sit still. And what was up with the metric fuck-ton of Oreos he’d told the cabin crew to stash for the flight, along with something he’d called his “special cup,” a 32-ounce plastic tumbler that looked like it had come from the dollar store?
Jagger took the seat next to me. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I said.
Jagger was definitely the least annoying of the three guys fucking my sister. Hawk had grown on me, but sometimes his dick swinging got on my nerves.
Maeve said it was because I was always swinging my own dick around and there was only so much space in a room for swinging dicks.
But Jagger was okay.
“I think I might know what she’s doing in Capri.”
He didn’t have to identify the “she” in his sentence: these days we were either talking about Kaprolov or we were talking about his daughter, Alina Volkova.
I looked at his laptop screen where a news article screamed in Italian. Below the headline a dark-haired woman draped in jewels stepped out of a black SUV with tinted windows, her security team surrounding her.
“I don’t speak Italian,” I said. “And who’s that?”
“She’s not important,” Jagger said. “Some celebrity. But the article is reporting on something called Capri White Night.”
“What is it?”
“Annual black-tie event on the island,” Jagger said. “Hosted by Maison Valmont, a designer jewelry house. It’s ostensibly for charity, but really it’s a chance for the rich and famous to rub elbows away from the prying eyes of the American press.”
I wasn’t surprised Jagger knew all this shit. That was something else I’d learned about the Hawks in the last few months: they were smarter than they looked.
Because who the fuck used a word like ostensibly in casual conversation?
“And it’s happening now?” I asked. “This… Capri White Night?”
It was like talking about another planet. I couldn’t imagine giving a shit about fancy clothes and the elbows of the rich and famous. Give me Southside, the loft, the mountains.
Give me Maeve.
“In two days,” Jagger said.
“But how do we know that’s where Alina’s going?”
Alina Volkova’s social media made it clear she was a party girl, traveling from city to city, party to party, club to club.
She could be going anywhere on Capri, assuming we were even right about Capri.
Jagger clicked on another tab. “I was going to ask Cass, but I didn’t want to wake her so I checked Alina’s social media myself. Nothing’s private, these rich kids live to be seen.”
He scrolled down on Alina’s page until he got to a picture of her in a revealing white dress. She held a glass of champagne, her head tipped toward another young woman, this one with black hair, both of them smiling.
I read the caption: Always the best party of the year.
“Look at the date,” Jagger said.
“This time last year.”
Jagger nodded. “There are more pictures from the year before, and even the year before that.”
I rubbed at my jaw. “She’s a regular at the party.”
Jagger sat back in his seat. “Looks like it.”
“So we have to get into the party. Either that or her hotel.”
“Hotels are probably booked,” Jagger said. “Especially the Quisisana.”
“What the fuck is the Quisisana?”
“Only the most exclusive hotel in Capri,” Jagger said. “It’s where she stayed last year, which I only know because I recognized the pool in one of the social media pictures.”
Of course he did.
“Okay, so no hotel,” I said. “What about the event itself?”
“Better odds,” Jagger said. “It’s held at the Villa Lysis.”
“Somebody’s house?” I asked.
“Not anymore. It’s owned by the municipality of Capri now, but Maison Valmont takes it over every year for the event.”
“Odds that she’ll meet up with Kaprolov?” I asked.
Jagger considered the question. “Fifty-fifty.”
We knew Alina met up with her father all over the world. The cropped pictures of her with the older man — wearing some rich-guy watch Jagger recognized — appeared in Paris and Austria, Prague and Ibiza on her social media page.
“So we tail Alina to the event,” I said, “keep an eye on her.”
Jagger nodded.
“How do we get in?” I asked.
“We pretend we’re one of them.”