Chapter 48
Chapter Forty-Eight
Apollo
My phone rings only a handful of minutes after my wife leaves. Seeing her contact light up my screen, I answer without delay. I always keep my phone close, but especially when she isn’t with me. I need to be available to her, even if it’s for something unimportant.
“Rayna?” I say, putting the phone to my ear. “Did you need me to bring something over to the house?”
Dead silence greets me, not even the sound of her breathing comes over the speaker. I stand up from my seat in an instant, paranoia being my default response. It may not be good for my blood pressure, but it keeps people safe.
“Rayna?” I repeat, already heading for the front door. “Rayna, baby, can you hear me?”
More silence. But then there’s a crash, like shattered glass. It’s faint, but unmistakable. The sound that shouldn’t come from baking fucking cupcakes.
Springing through the front yard, I keep my phone at my ear, turning speaker mode on just to make sure I hear anything else the phone picks up.
“Rayna,” I say again, louder and more desperate. I need her to say something, to say anything.
Still not receiving a response, I run through the back door of the main house, leading into the kitchen. There’s no sign of my wife, nor my sisters.
“Jade!” I call out, running deeper into my childhood home.
“We’re in the living room!”
We.
Please let that ‘we’ include Rayna.
My hopes are tattered the second I step into the space, my wife nowhere to be found. Only Ana, Jade, their husbands, Ivan, and Matteo are gathered.
“Where’s Rayna?” My question comes out harsher than I intend it, but there’s nothing I can do to calm down. Not until I have answers.
“What do you mean?” Ana asks, wrinkling her nose. “Wouldn’t you know better than us? You live with her.”
“Jade called her and she came over here ten minutes ago and now I can’t fucking find her. Her phone is calling me right now, but she’s not responding.”
Again, my voice is too severe to be speaking with my sisters.
Jade shakes her head, face falling. “Apollo, I never called Rayna.”
Fear builds up faster and in an instant, it’s more horrible than I’ve ever experienced, settling into my gut like a cold brick. Refusing to let fear paralyze me, I don’t stay and chat. Needing immediate answers, I storm up the stairs, calling out for my little brother.
“Remo!”
I hear footsteps trailing behind me but don’t slow down. My fist raises up to pound on his door but it swings open before I can.
“What’s wrong?”
“Track Rayna’s phone now, hack it, fucking ping it from local satellites, I don’t care just do it fast.”
“Shit, okay,” he curses, striding back into his room. A wall of computers is already lit up as he slides into his rolling chair, hands flying over the key board.
“Fuck’s going on?” a groggy voice asks, stumbling into the room. Of course Nico would end up in his twin’s room seconds after me.
I give them a clipped rundown of what I know, and pass Remo my phone that’s still on a call with Rayna.
“That makes no sense.”
“Yes, thank you for that brilliant insight, Nico,” I snap.
“Son.” The sound of my father’s voice isn’t comforting, or helpful. I don’t know how long he’s been in the doorway, and I don’t care.
Frustration bubbles over and I lash out with a guttural shout. “I need somebody to tell me where the fuck my wife is right now!”
“I got her,” Remo announces. “She got a text with a location and according to the GPS on the car she took from the garage.”
“Text it to me—”
“Already did,” he says, passing back my phone.
Nico follows me without a word as I begin to storm out. No one stops us, though I hear our father barking orders at guards to follow us.
Every garage door opens up, and I know Remo has done it remotely. I grab the closest SUV as Nico picks up a go bag, filled with guns and ammo. As soon as he’s in the car, I’m flooring it out of the driveway.
“Any idea what we’re walking into?” he asks, loading a magazine in the passenger seat.
“I have no fucking clue,” I bite out. “She told me she was going to bake fucking cupcakes with Jade and Ana.”
“Yikes,” he mumbles, grabbing a couple of knives to stash in his belt.
Thick raindrops start to pour from the sky, pinging off the windshield in a harsh downpour. Light showers were predicted in tonight’s weather report, but somehow, it feels like a bad omen.
Flipping on the wipers, I curse as the road becomes harder to see. Just then, my phone lights up in the center console, and Nico picks it up. “Your call just dropped.”
Fuck. That can’t possibly be good.
“Try to call her back.”
Before he can follow my order, my phone vibrates in his hand.
“Why the fuck is Abramo calling you?”
“Who the hell cares, ignore it and call Rayna.”
“What if he has her?” I don’t have a second to argue with him before he accepts the call and barks into the speaker phone. “What?”
“Hello, spawn of Satan.” Abramo huffs. “Tell your brother that his wife is fine. She almost got herself killed, but she’s fine.”
“You have her?” I snarl, unsure whether to be relieved or horrified.
“I do,” he confirms in a drawl. “Federico’s brother called her earlier, he led her away under the guise of having Yordan held captive. She was told he would be killed if she alerted you, and that she needed to come alone for him to remain alive.”
“Are you fucking serious? Yordan is with my brother, he’s fine—”
“Yes, it was quickly made apparent to her that this was a ruse to get her alone. Luis made it seem like he was going to extort you for money for her safety, but he swiftly made a move to kill her when she arrived.”
My heart stalls in my chest, and I push the throttle down harder.
“And you just happened to be in the area?” Nico asks doubtfully.
“I’ve been suspicious of Luis for weeks, I had him followed. I assumed he was trying to gain more allies. When he and his merry little band of cousins made their move out of state, I trailed them. Had I known about his goal in seeking revenge on your wife, I would have informed you.”
Nico growls. “You need better intel.”
“Not all of us are born with hacker twins,” Abramo snarks. “I take it by the sound of the engine, you’re already on your way?”
“A minute out.”
“I’ll be waiting.”
The call drops and I hit the steering wheel, fucking pissed at everything that’s just been said. How could she fall for this?
She lied to me again, only this time, she put her life in danger in the process. She put our baby’s life in danger, too.
I want to feel relieved that she’s safe, and I am, but I’m so fucking mad that I can’t focus on anything else.
“Breathe, Apollo,” Nico says, almost softly. Softer than he’s ever spoken to me directly. “You’ll give yourself an aneurysm.”
“I’m so fucking mad, it could kill me, Nico.”
“I know.” He nods slowly, and I catch it in the corner of my eye. “But she’s safe, and we’re going to get her home. Just focus on that until it’s over.”
I exhale long and slow, and then I see it. An abandoned building and cars, the one my wife took from the garage flashing from my headlights hitting it.
Abramo is smoking a cigarette, standing over six dead bodies when I finally pull in and get out of the SUV. Six of his own men, still bleeding even as their hearts have ceased beating. And just a few feet to the side of him, my wife sits atop his car’s hood, wrapped in a small blanket.
She looks tiny, smaller than she’s ever looked, as she caves in on herself, shoulders hunched and head hung low. I can’t digest the hit of empathy at her appearance, there’s too much anger still. Too much fucking rage at the scene surrounding us.
Too much fury for Rayna’s careless action. Driving off into the middle of the night, alerting no one to her whereabouts. Stupid, unreasonably stupid actions taken by an utterly unstupid woman.
How could she be so thoughtless? So blinded by such an obvious plot to endanger her life. To endanger the life of our child she carries?
My stomach burns with acid and emotion, so much so that I feel like I could be sick.
“Get in the car,” I say, barely concealing my bubbling temper.
I want to yell. I want to snap at her so fucking badly. And if she wasn’t my wife, if I couldn’t see the rain falling from the sky mixing with already shed tears on her face, I doubt I could control myself.
Without saying another word, I watch from the corner of my vision as Rayna obeys. She keeps her head down, shuffling to the passenger side door where Nico once occupied.
“Are there more?” I ask, approaching Abramo with a clipped tone and stiff shoulders.
“Not currently,” he reports shortly. “Could have been worse, would have been worse if I wasn’t watching these fuckers.” He nudges the nearest dead body with his boot, sneering down at it. “You got a bullet in your car’s windshield, but that’s as close as they got to her.”
The glass breaking that I heard over the phone, no doubt.
I want to be mad at him for being here where I couldn’t or for alerting me too slowly.
But I can’t. He called me as soon as he realized what his traitorous soldiers were plotting.
And if he had found out twenty minutes sooner, Rayna would have never left the house. She would have never had the chance to.
“I owe you a debt.”
“You do,” he agrees. He’s too smart to be polite and deny it. This wasn’t a simple favor between friends. This was the kind of action that can only be repaid in an equally significant action.
“Or we could just kill you and pin it on the dead ones,” Nico drawls, approaching me from the back. He and Abramo share a lethal glare.
“Nico,” I warn. “Keep out of it.”
Abramo lets a cruel smirk paint his lips, staring down my brother. “Yeah, pretty boy, listen to your Capo.”
“Call me that again,” Nico dares, voice smooth with threat. He doesn’t correct the title Abramo assigns me, and neither do I. Right now, I may as well be the Capo. I’m fucking acting like it.
“Touched a nerve, have I?”
“Come here and I’ll show you.”
“Enough,” I demand.
Abramo nods easily, and turns his attention back to me. “I can’t say I envy you right now.”
“You have something already then?”
“I want my father dead, and I want you to help me do it.”
Fucking hell.
“Oh? Is that all?” I’m surprised I’m able to pull off the dry sarcasm, even as anger is still rushing through my veins. “Just a borderline suicidal task is all you need from me?”
He sighs, putting out his smoke with the sole of his boot. “It’ll be risky, but I believe I’ve planned the perfect scenario. Tonight.”
“Count me in,” Nico quips darkly.
“Yeah, absolutely not,” Abramo replies, barking out a deep laugh. “This is going to require discretion, and subtlety, not your violent brand of havoc and gore. You’ll get us caught in ten minutes.”
“I assure you, I can keep a low profile.”
“I don’t trust you.”
‘The feeling is painfully mutual,” Nico returns, lifting a brow.
“Either I go with you, or I go on my own and fuck your little plan up. Apollo may be my future Capo, but right now, even our father couldn’t stop me from coming along.
You saved Rayna, that doesn’t mean I trust you to bring the fucking heir to The Outfit into your territory alone. ”
“Fine,” Abramo relents. “Bring your crazed guard dog along, but keep him in line. I don’t want a single soul to suspect me when this is done. I need him out of power, and I know you need it too. Rayna doesn’t want Sienna cooped up in a safe house forever.”
Don’t remind me.
“Let me get her home,” I say, nodding back to my car. “Tell me where to meet you after, and we’ll be there.”
“Deal.”
A dangerous, reckless deal.
I tell Nico to get the car my wife drove here, and we’ll leave together at the house. When I get into my vehicle with Rayna, I can still feel my heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Apollo, I’m so—”
“Don’t,” I cut her off sharply. “Not now. If you start prattling off excuses now, I’m going to crash the fucking car. Buckle up, we’ll discuss this at home.”
Instead of arguing with me, she swallows her words, silently crying the whole ride back.
Her tears make me want to combust. I’m so mad at her, so consumed with betrayal.
But seeing her cry? It makes me feel something even worse.
Something so painful I want to claw my way out of my body just to make it stop.
As soon as the car is parked, I’m out of it, slamming the door shut behind me. Rayna gets out too, and she rushes around to get to me.
“I thought he had Yordan,” she starts, voice trembling.
“I had Yordan, Rayna,” I snap, hands thrown up. “He was with Elio and Javi in the fucking woods behind the house. We have cameras out there, I had eyes on him all night.”
“I h-heard him on the phone.”
“It was probably a recording!”
“I’m s-sorry, okay? I didn’t think—”
“Clearly.”
“Apollo, please…”
“I never let anyone in,” I seethe, staring down at her. “I let you in, I loved you, and you lied to my face, again, Rayna!”
Her face drops. “Loved? Past tense?”
My jaw clenches, head shaking slowly. “Get in the fucking house and don’t you dare leave it. I have to go clean up your mess.”
“Wait, when will you be back?” Her bottom lip trembles, and God, I want to wrap her in my arms and refuse to let go.
But I can’t let this rage die down yet. I’m going to need it.
“I don’t know,” I answer tiredly. “I have to go to fucking Chicago, so I’ll be awhile. Stay at the main house or ours if Elio comes over.”
She hesitates.
“Go, Yordan is probably back and waiting for you.”
“I’m really sorry,” she sniffles.
“I know you are.”