Chapter 39
A night’s drive was exactly what I needed.
At this hour, there was barely anyone else on the road, but it wasn’t quiet.
The engine rumbled and roared as I changed gears, vibrating up my leg with an almost soothing touch.
With the convertible top down, the wind whipped through my hair as I ramped up the speed. The music blared.
All of this, I controlled. I pressed down harder on the accelerator.
A thrill rushed through my blood as the signs sped past. A slight turn of the wheel, and it changed lanes.
A little extra, and it would turn sharply, like a thing of beauty.
No lag. No protest from the car. No debates.
No arguments. It followed what I wanted.
It understood what I meant to achieve. It took my pent-up aggression and put it to good use.
Women, on the other hand…couldn’t control them.
Could barely understand them. Tonight’s ambush had been necessary.
As much as Ainsley had needed to be in that interrogation room with Micah, I needed my revenge.
I’d never have peace until I saw it through, and it was beyond frustrating trying to reason with Ainsley. This wasn’t an act to spurn her.
I was accepting the reality of us because there was no shoving my feelings down anymore. We were so good together. The sexual tension. The discussions. The banter. Our combined strengths, and yet she could be so unreasonable and so…ridiculously unyielding.
I slammed a palm against the steering wheel with a yelled grunt as I veered off the freeway toward a house I owned in Newport Beach.
For seven years in prison, I fought for my place in the social pecking order, only to be thrown over by a woman ten inches shorter than me and weighing a good fifty pounds less in muscle mass.
And yet, I felt myself goddamn wanting to give in because I wanted her happy, and wasn’t that just so fucking enraging, so comically emasculating.
I wanted to see her smile more than I wanted my next adrenaline high.
I wanted her lips on mine. I wanted to be inside her again.
I wanted to share everything with her. I’d hesitated about us when I got out of prison, only because I’d needed a little time to wrap my head around the fact that my feelings for her weren’t wrong or vile.
I understood now. She was made for me. That woman was mine, and denying it would never change that fact.
The tires squealed as I swerved hard in front of the guarded gate, kicking up bits of loose gravel. Slowly, the gate opened with a wave from my guards. I peeled into the driveway, ready for a good night’s sleep.
I stopped abruptly in front of the left side garage and gazed up at the stars.
I couldn’t give up on my revenge. I’d lost seven years all because the Greeks paid off a seventeen-year-old kid to lie in court.
“There you are.” Vinny tapped the hood of my car. He circled to the passenger side. “You’re not answering your phone.”
On the seat beside me lay my phone and my wallet. I threw them there after leaving Ainsley’s hotel, irritated by the lump in my back pocket.
Vinny opened the car door, put them into the cup holder, and sat.
“What the hell you doing?”
“Someone ran Ettore’s crew off the road halfway up to Bakersfield. Both vans.”
“Shit. They alive?”
He typed the coordinates into the GPS. “No casualties. A couple of injuries, but nothing Doc can’t handle. That’s not the issue.”
“The bodies?” I swung the car around and peeled out of the driveway.
“Yeah. They got spread out. Get this: the guys recovered all of them but two. They’ve been combing the area for the last hour. Nothing.”
“Which ones?”
“The one with the mutilated face, a knife stab per Ettore.”
“I remember him. There was something off, didn’t seem Greek.”
I pressed harder on the accelerator, swerving around the few cars on the southbound freeway. The engine roared in response. The sooner we got to the scene, the sooner we could figure out our next step, whether or not this was deliberate sabotage, and why.
“Yeah, well, what’s more bizarre is that out of all the bodies, the only other one missing is a woman.”
“What woman? There was no—” Michaela Dimakos, previously Michaela Giambrone. She’d been there that night in the red dress, but she’d run.
“Her body was picked up on the other side of the room. Must have been caught in the crossfire.”
“What was the woman wearing?”
“What the hell does it matter?” he asked, already dialing a number on his phone, most likely Ettore.
He’d always been like that: multitasking at questioning while following blindly.
He pressed the phone to his ear. “Yeah, tell me what the woman was wearing. Boss wants to know. Great. Thanks. We’ll be there in an hour and a half. ”
He hung up. “A long red gown.”
“Merda! Cazzo! Porca miseria!” Shit! Fuck! Damn it! My fist slammed against the dashboard, pricks of pain shooting up my knuckles. The car momentarily swerved. It was her. I hadn’t accounted for her death. “So eleven dead, nine bodies recovered.”
As if to mock us, a phone call rang across the car speakers, the caller ID displayed: Francesco Giambrone.
“Think of the devil, and he shall appear,” I muttered as I pressed the answer button. “Giambrone, what can I do for you?”
“You killed someone of mine.”
I glanced at Vinny. I guessed we found who stole our bodies. It was interesting, though, that he’d taken the unidentified man too.
“Wasn’t intentional.”
“Still happened. So if you want to avoid a war, here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to divorce the damn woman tomorrow,” he croaked. “Then you’ve got four days to get yourself to Vegas and marry my daughter.”
“Why do I feel like you’re not all that worked up about losing a daughter?”
“Listen to me, you little shit. I don’t care what kind of big shot you think you are. You won’t like what happens if you don’t show. Everything you just got back, I’ll take away. I’ll send you right back where you belonged. Or maybe I’ll take the girl.”
My fists tightened against the steering wheel, my arms shaking from the hold, my knuckles white.
“Try, and I’ll end you.”
I ended the call and made the next possible U-turn, sharp.
“Call Ettore back,” I told Vinny. “He’s not going to find anything, and we’re not wasting our time out there.”
“We staying in Newport for the night?”
I nodded. “I’ll check in on Massimo in Santa Rosa in the morning. We need information sooner rather than later. The sooner we were done with Dimakos, the sooner I could focus on getting Giambrone off my back.”
“You think Francesco’s bluffing?”
“Not sure. What I know is he thinks too highly of himself.”
The sooner I got home, the sooner I could check in with Ainsley. Whether a sham or not, Giambrone’s threat left me feeling uneasy.
“And call Ricco. Make sure Ainsley hasn’t left her hotel room since I left.”