Chapter Nine
It was all coming together. The morbid pieces of my mother’s death slipped into place section by section. Piece by piece. There were so many years of my life I had let slip by, never wondering about her death or the mysterious appearance of my “father.” I questioned none of it as a child, and even as I grew, I simply accepted the life fate handed me.
Until Matthias pulled the wool back from my eyes.
Well, Mark did, but I would never have had the opportunity if Matthias hadn’t bought me.
Semantics.
My teeth dug into my lower lip hard enough to bleed as the scene came together. The pictures strewn cohesively on the floor made up my mother’s dead body as it had been found the day of her murder. Crouching down, I inspected every inch of every photo until I found what I was looking for. A bruise, just barely visible on her cheek due to the poor lighting of the photo.
A bruise in the shape of a cross.
Libby had written that the silver cross man had sent a woman after Elias’s obsession years ago and then ranted about how he came back with her spawn.
He was talking about my mother and me.
So the man we hadn’t identified yet didn’t know at the time my mother was murdered that she had a child. How did Elias find out? And who was the woman he sent to kill her? The presence of the bruise shaped like a cross told me that it was someone in the upper echelon of whatever secret society Madam Therese and the McDonough doppelg?nger were a part of.
Another player we needed to identify.
“This,” I pointed out the weird bruise to Aine. “I didn’t see this documented on the autopsy report.”
Aine shook her head. “No,” she confirmed. “There were several anomalies with not only the autopsy but also the crime scene itself.”
Liam frowned. “What do you mean anomalies?”
“Well,” Aine started. “Besides the cross-shaped bruise, both the detective on the case and the coroner left out that it was a woman who committed these crimes. Not a man.”
“A woman did all that?” Vas waved a hand at the photos of my mother. Aine nodded.
“Whatever she was hit with was long and cylindrical,” she informed us. “Something covered in a black lacquered paint and metal.”
“Like a cane.” She didn’t need to confirm what I already knew.
“Like a cane,” Aine confirmed. “Then, there was this.” The Irish woman pulled out her cell phone and pressed play. The footage was old and grainy, but there was no mistaking the size and height of the figure getting out of the car and walking up to our door. “This is an Irish neighborhood, and there are cameras everywhere. The police got this off the house across the street, but it never saw the light of day. It wasn’t even documented as being in evidence.”
“Why does she look so familiar?” I wondered. The black and white footage made it difficult to determine hair color or car color, and the distance and angle of the camera didn’t help in identifying any traits that might stand out.
“There’s a license plate, but we haven’t been able to link it back to anything yet.” Sully sighed. “Your hacker might have better luck.”
I nodded, but my mind was completely on the woman in the video. There was a tugging at the back of my mind that spoke to familiarization. Like I had somehow met her but had never seen her. A face in a crowd of hundreds you think you see again a few days later. Déjà vu was another word for it.
“Was Jonny Morelli the only officer on this case?” I turned to Aine. “You said he was dead.”
“Yeah, fucker committed suicide a few years ago,” she said. “IA found him working for some Italian Mafia type here in the city. Caruso.”
Vas snarled. “Fucking Cosa Nostra,” he spat. “Leon’s been working on getting info from the Seattle Don, but it’s been slow going, even for him.”
I turned to my Sovietnik. “Why do you say, even for him?” I asked suspiciously.
“Well,” Vas rubbed the back of his head, looking a bit uncomfortable, “you know that Leon is Italian…”
“Yeah? So? I thought maybe he used to work for Dante.”
Vas flinched.
“No.” He sighed heavily. “Leon’s last name is La Rosa.”
And you could hear a pin drop.
That was how quiet the room became as everyone around me stared at Vas with utter shock painted across their faces.
And there I stood, like a fucking idiot trying to figure out what the fuck was going on.
“Who are the—” I didn’t get a chance to finish my sentence.
“La Rosa?” My father’s eyes were wide with disbelief. “Your Obshchak is Leon La Rosa? Son of Augustu La Rosa? Don of the West Coast Cosa Nostra? The butcher? The—”
“We get the point, Dad.” I’m not sure which part startled him more. Leon’s family tree or my calling him Dad.
Either way, he was left speechless for a few minutes while his mouth hung open like a guppy fish.
“Is that where he’s been this whole time?” I questioned Vas. “Is Dima with him? Or is he out visiting his own family with prominent mafia roots as well? Who’s his father? Putin?”
Vas didn’t find me amusing.
Whatever. It was a good line.
“Don’t worry about Dima,” he scolded. “He is fine, and yes, that is where Leon has been. We discovered some ties between your grandfather and the Portland Cosa Nostra. Leon thought he could gain some insight and maybe even an alliance, but he’s having a hard time of it.”
“Why?”
“His father is only willing to help if he gains from it.”
“What does he want?”
“An alliance.”
“With us?” I asked. “I have no problem with that.”
“A marriage alliance.”
Nope. Nada. Wasn’t happening.
“I’m taken.”
“You’re widowed.”
“And not into a man who came out of the womb wearing a suit.”
“Could be worse.” Vas shrugged with a smile. “Augustu could have wanted you to marry him instead.”
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
“I’ll pass.”
Vas chuckled.
“It’s okay.” He shrugged playfully. “You were never on the table, anyway.”
I blew out my lips. “Whatever,” I huffed. “I’m a great catch. Tell him about how many crazy psychos I have after me. He’ll change his mind about me being a hot commodity.”
“I thought you said you’d pass.”
“Well, I mean, yeah.” I shrugged. “But I don’t like not being considered. That’s just rude.”
“Okay.” He drew the word out, sarcasm leaking from every syllable. “I’ll write him a formal rejection letter for you.”
“Much obliged.” I grinned up at him, forgetting that there were other people watching our banter.
“It’s good to see you two work well together.” Sully smirked. “There were many of us who wondered how having a woman as a Bratva leader would affect the pyramid of power.”
“Women can lead just as well as men,” I pointed out. “Even better if you pay attention to the history books.”
“Hey now.” Sully held up his hands. “That wasn’t what I was saying. Just that you are the first female to hold the title of Pakhan in Bratva history. Not surprising, though. Your mother was set to inherit the Boston Irish from her father. Leadership runs in your blood.”
Now I was confused.
“I thought she was going to be here with you.” I turned to my father. “Weren’t you set to inherit the Seattle Irish?”
“There was no Seattle Irish, Ava,” he said. “I built it up after your mother disappeared.”
“But you said you inherited it from your father.”
“I did.” He stared at me. “Your grandfather, my father, was Seamus’s top lieutenant. I begged Seamus to bring me men, but he wouldn’t have any of it. In hindsight, I should have read more into that. Seamus loved your mother. Doted on her. So did your grandmother. But I was drowning in pain and sorrow.”
“And booze,” O’Malley muttered. There was a story there I would get my father to tell me later.
“That, too,” he admitted shamefully. “I missed them. All those fucking signs being waved in front of my face. I missed every single one. When he refused to send aid, my father defected and took more than half of McDonough’s army with him.”
“Half?” Pride and warmth bubbled in my chest. “That had to be more than a hundred people.” My father and brothers now had more than five hundred loyal soldiers.
“More like two.”
“But why?”
“Because your mother was a beacon, Ava.” Sully spoke up. “It wasn’t just information your mother gave to my father. Your mother was pure Irish Mafia. Straight from the homeland. Your family, the McDonoughs, have led the Boston Irish since its inception.”
“So? How did that make her a beacon?”
“Because she wanted change,” my father answered for him. “Genuine change. More opportunity for Irish immigrants. She wanted to make us legit. All of us, across the country, making legitimate livings.”
“No more drive-bys,” Sully listed somberly. “No more being knifed in a dark alley or shot at while delivering dope. No more prison sentences. We would still work in the shadows, but instead of running guns and drugs, we would build casinos. Launder money.”
“So not quite legit,” I deadpanned. But it didn’t bother me. You can domesticate a lion, but the savage beast would always lurk just beneath the surface.
“More legit than we’ve ever been.”
“Even more motive than before.” Aine pondered a thought, her finger tapping against her chin thoughtfully. “Did the file contain the names of everyone at the north precinct who worked on her mother’s case?”
Sully nodded. “Yep,” he confirmed. “Some of them are dead. Tragic accidents, according to my father. But the coroner, the chief of detectives, and the evidence officer are still alive and thriving. In fact, they lead some pretty cushy lives now.”
“How cushy?” my father asked suspiciously.
“Chief of detectives is now the chief of police. The coroner is now the chief medical examiner, and the evidence officer owns a security company here in the city.”
Vas perked up at that.
“Which one?”
“Platinum Security.”
Vas’s smile dripped with malicious intent, his eyes flashing dangerously.
“Excellent,” he crowed. “I’ve been needing a reason to take them down.”
“Would you like to fill me in?”
Vas’s smile dropped.
“Well…”
Liam barked a laugh. “You didn’t tell her, did you?”
“Tell me what?” Why the hell did I always feel like I was out of the loop on everything?
“Um…”
“Start talking, you hippie haired Russian,” I snarled.
“Platinum Security is our firm’s greatest rival in the security industry.”
“Our firm?”
“Yeah…” Vas hesitated. “Arctic Security and Associates.”
“I thought that company was just a cover?”
“In a way it is.” He winced.
Liam snorted. “It’s a multi-billion-dollar cyber and protective security agency with contracts in over fifty countries. The associate part is the law firm they run as well.”
“What the hell, Vas?” I screeched at him. “When were you going to tell me I inherited a billion-dollar company?”
“Multi-billion…” Liam smirked at Vas, who glared at him like he could shoot laser beams from his eyes and melt him into a pile of goo.
“Tomas wanted me to wait,” Vas explained, his eyes still narrowed at my father. “He didn’t want to overwhelm you with too many responsibilities. Being Pakhan was more important first. Maksim and Nikolai have been running Arctic behind the scenes for a while. Before you even married Matthias.”
“Oh.”
When he put it that way, I could see how letting me adjust to one role before taking on another would be wise. I was barely keeping up with being Pakhan, and adding public CEO to my list would only make things harder for me. Especially since we were in the middle of a war.
“Well,” I beamed at him and slapped him on the back. Vas turned to me bewildered, “now that we have all this settled. Let’s go torture some people and make them pay.”
“After we get answers, of course,” my father, the killjoy, reminded me.
“Yeah.” I shot him a “duh” look. “Torture them…that’s what I said.”
“Torture is never highly effective for getting answers,” he educated me. “But—” He shrugged, ignoring my icy glare. “Okay.”
“And I thought our family was messed up,” Aine grunted, amused. Sully laughed as we all made our way out of the house.
“Oh, kid.” He shook his head. “You have no idea.”