Chapter Twenty-Five
Maverick
It’s been hours.
Victor is bleeding. Bruised. And barely conscious.
And he still will not talk.
“How long we been at this?” he asks sluggishly.
His head hangs forward, chin nearly touching his chest. One eye swollen. Blood drips from the corner of his mouth and lands on the floor between his shoes.
No one answers him.
Spike stands near the door with his arms crossed, jaw tight, watching me like he’s waiting for the moment I finally become too far gone to pull back from.
Bones is quieter than I’ve ever heard him. Which is wild considering who he is.
The twins and Foster are somewhere outside making sure we’re not disturbed.
And Victor Dane sits in the chair in the middle of the room, smiling like he’s won something.
Maybe he has.
Because four hours have passed.
Four hours since Nico and Marco dragged him in.
Four hours of beating answers out of him.
And I have nothing.
No location.
No confirmation.
No proof they’re even alive.
Nothing but his bloody smile and the sound of time slipping through my fingers.
“You took them,” I say.
Victor lifts his head slowly.
His eyes are glassy, but there’s still something ugly alive in them.
“I took many things.”
I step closer.
“Amelia Moore,” I say. “Olivia Moore. Where are they?”
Victor’s mouth twitches.
“Pretty names.”
My hand closes around his throat.
“Where are they?”
His pulse flutters weakly beneath my palm.
For a second, I think he’ll finally break.
His face goes red.
His mouth opens, and I release his throat so he can talk.
He sucks in a thin, broken breath when I let go.
Then he starts laughing.
At first it’s small.
A rough, wet sound that barely makes it past his split lip.
Then it grows.
Victor throws his head back and laughs until the sound fills the room. Until tears leak from the corners of his swollen eyes. Until his whole body shakes so hard the chair scrapes against the floor.
Bones looks at Spike.
Foster goes completely still.
“He’s lost it,” Nico mutters from the now open doorway.
Victor laughs until he nearly chokes on it.
Then, slowly, the laughter dies.
His head rolls forward.
His breath comes ragged.
For a moment, all I hear is that.
Breathing.
His.
Mine.
The men waiting.
The clock somewhere in the room ticking off seconds I can’t afford to lose.
Victor lifts his gaze to mine.
And smiles.
Not with victory.
With cruelty.
“You’ll never find them,” he tells me. “Wanna know how I know?”
“Did you kill them?” I ask brokenly.
Victor’s smile is slow.
Cruel.
“I know you’ll never find them for one simple fact,” he says. “I don’t have your family, Moretti.”
The words don’t land at first.
They slide past me, meaningless.
Wrong.
Impossible.
He blinks slowly, tears still clinging to his lashes.
“I never have.”
The room disappears.
“No.”
Victor’s smile widens.
“I have no idea where they are,” he says. “I was waiting as long as possible to tell you so that whoever does have them can get away.”
Victor sucks in a broken breath and laughs again.
“I would have never said anything,” he whispers, blood staining his teeth, “but I didn’t wanna die without watching you break.”
Something in me goes silent.
Not calm.
Not controlled.
Silent.
The kind of silence that comes after a bomb has already gone off, and all that is left is ringing.
“You’re lying,” I say.
“Nope.”
“You threatened them.”
“Yes.”
“You said you were watching them.”
“I was.”
“You said you would take them from me.”
“I wanted to.” His head rolls back against the chair, his eyes half-lidded but still locked on mine. “God, how I wanted to. Your woman. That little girl. I wanted you to know what it felt like to have your future ripped out of your hands.”
My hand curls into a fist at my side.
“But I didn’t take them,” he says softly. “Someone else got there first.”
No.
No, no, no.
Four hours.
I’ve spent four hours with my hands on the wrong man while Amelia and Olivia are somewhere else.
While someone else has them.
While every minute I wasted here gave that person more road, more distance, more time.
I stare at Victor.
Waiting for a twitch. A blink. A shift in his face.
Anything that tells me this is one final lie from a dying man trying to hurt me.
But the only thing I see is satisfaction.
Only the ugly peace of a man who knows the wound he just opened may never close.
“You should see your face,” Victor whispers.
Then his eyes roll back.
His body goes slack in the chair just as my now charged phone rings.
“It’s Luca,” Spike says, my phone in his hands.
“Answer it.”
He puts the call on speaker.
“Tell me,” I snap.
Luca’s voice comes through tight and controlled. “Stefano is awake.”
The world stops.
For half a second, I forget Victor.
Forget the room.
Forget the blood drying on my hands.
“He’s awake?” I ask.
“Yes, Don. He’s asking for you.”
My knees almost give.
A few hours ago, Luca called to tell me Stefano had made it out of surgery. The doctor said the bullet missed anything vital. By the grace of God and stubborn Moretti blood, my brother would live.
Sore, weak, and angry.
But alive.
I should have felt relief then.
I couldn’t.
Not with Amelia and Olivia gone.
But now he’s awake.
Stefano saw.
My brother saw the man who took them.
“Did he say anything else?” I ask.
“I was kicked out of the room so the doctors could do some scans.”
“Keep him awake,” I order.
“Don, the nurse said he needs—”
“Keep him awake.”
“Yes, Don.”
I end the call and turn to Spike.
“Go,” he says. “I’ll take care of this mess.”
“I’ll drive,” Foster says.
The drive to the hospital is a blur.
Too slow.
Too long.
By the time we reach the hospital, I’m out before the vehicle fully stops.
Luca is waiting near the private entrance, face drawn.
“He’s weak,” he says quickly. “Doctor wants him calm.”
“He should have thought of that before getting shot.”
For one brief second, Luca smirks.
He turns and leads me down the hall.
The smell of antiseptic cuts through the blood still on my clothes.
Soon, we’re standing outside an ICU door in the private sector of the hospital. The one I help fund.
Luca opens the door, and there he is.
Stefano.
Pale against white sheets.
Chest wrapped.
Tubes and monitors attached to him like machines are the reason he’s still alive and not sheer stubbornness.
His eyes open when I step inside.
For one second, he’s not the man in that hospital bed.
He is my twin.
My brother.
The other half of every memory I have before blood and power and duty made us into different men.
Relief hits so hard I almost hate it.
“Fratello,” I whisper.
His mouth curves faintly.
Barely there.
“You look terrible,” he rasps.
A broken laugh tears out of me before I can stop it.
I cross the room and take his hand carefully.
“You got shot in the chest and still find time to insult me.”
“Importanza.”
I bow my head over his hand.
Only for a second.
That’s all I can afford.
Then I lift my gaze.
“My girls?”
Stefano’s weak smile disappears.
His fingers tighten around mine.
“He took them.”
My stomach turns to stone.
“Victor didn’t,” I say quickly. “Trust me, brother. I have spent hours trying to get answers from him. He does not have them.”
Stefano’s eyes sharpen.
“No,” he breathes.
I lean closer.
“What?”
“Not Victor.”
The room goes so still I can hear the monitor beside him.
Beep.
Beep.
Beep.
Stefano swallows hard.
Pain flashes across his face.
“Rory.”
The name doesn’t make sense.
Not at first.
It is too small.
Too ordinary.
Too close to Amelia’s life before me.
Rory.
The sanctuary.
The man she trusted.
The man Olivia knew.
The man who could get near them without making anyone reach for a gun.
The man no one was looking at.
“No,” I say.
But even as the word leaves my mouth, pieces begin to move.
The fire.
The timing.
Pulling my daughter from school without telling us.
My blood turns cold.
Stefano’s eyes fill with apology.
“I saw him,” he whispers. “He shot me. He took them.”
I let go of my brother’s hand gently.
Carefully.
Because there is too much violence moving through me now, and none of it belongs in this room.
“Rory Holsinger?” Foster asks. “The man who worked for Mia?”
I turn slowly.
“Find him,” I say. “Address. Phone. Vehicles. Bank accounts. Family. Any property connected to him. Any old barns. Any empty houses. Any place he could take them.”
Foster nods, backing toward the door with his phone already in his hand.
I look back at Stefano.
His eyes are barely open.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
The words gut me.
I bend over him and press my forehead carefully to his.
“No,” I say. “You lived by sheer stubbornness to tell me.”
His breath shakes.
“That’s what I needed from you. Now, I just need you to get better so I can take you home.”
I straighten.
The man who threatened my family wasn’t the one who took them.
The monster wasn’t across the country.
He was close.
Trusted.
Standing near Amelia with clean hands and patient eyes while he waited for the right moment to steal her.
I turn toward the door.
“Maverick,” Stefano whispers.
I stop.
His eyes meet mine.
Terrified.
Not for himself.
For them.
For the woman who brought warmth into our home.
For the little girl who called him Uncle Steffy, like the name had always belonged to him.
His fingers twitch against the blanket, reaching for me.
I step back to the bed and take his hand carefully.
“Fratello.”
His grip is almost nothing.
A ghost of the strength I know is there.
“Bring them home,” he rasps.
“I will.”
“No.” His eyes sharpen with the little strength he has left. “Listen to me.”
My throat tightens.
“I’m listening.”
A tear slips from the corner of his eye and disappears into his hair.
“I love them,” he whispers. “I love them so much it hurts my soul knowing they’re out there somewhere scared.”
My chest cracks open.
Stefano swallows hard, pain flashing across his face.
“Mia is yours,” he says. “Olivia is yours. But they’re mine too. They’re my family. Our family.”
I bow my head.
For one second, I can’t look at him.
Because if I do, I may break in a way I don’t have time to survive.
His fingers tighten around mine.
“Please,” he breathes. “Bring our family home.”
I lift my eyes to his.
My brother.
My twin.
The softer half of us who has bled and nearly died trying to protect the people I love.
The people we love.
I bend and press my forehead to his.
“I will,” I whisper. “I swear it on everything I am.”
His breath shudders.
“And Mav?”
I pull back just enough to see him.
His eyes are closing again, but he forces them open.
“Make him pay.”
A cold kind of certainty settles inside me.
“Yes,” I promise. “You have my word.”
Then I walk out of my brother’s hospital room and toward the war I should have been fighting all along.