Chapter 5
Chapter Five
ENZO
No sane person would do this. But then again, sanity isn’t my strong suit.
For an hour straight, I pore over the images, one after another, suppressing the nauseating churn in my stomach. Dory’s search didn’t uncover any more pictures of my sister, Trinity, which is the good news.
The bad news is that she stumbled upon ten more of Kennedy. All nude. All underage. And all of them death warrants for the man—or men—who did this.
When I hunt down the scum responsible for this, I won’t rush. I’ll relish every moment as I strip them of their sight and crush every single one of their 206 bones.
It’s not Kennedy’s image that captures my attention as much as the backdrop behind her. The scenes, familiar rooms from the dance studio Kennedy teaches at, are unmistakable.
And since Clive Weston, former owner of said dance studio, has been my guest in a soundproof torture chamber just outside of Chicago, I’ll be wringing his body of more information as soon as I return.
I blow out a breath and send a text to Striker.
Me
Keep that bastard alive.
Striker
Which one?
Annoyed, I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Me
Andre’s banker.
Striker
Yes, sir.
I have a defibrillator on standby.
“Good,” I mutter, a twisted smile dancing across my lips as I snatch a cigar from the humidor. There’s a mountain of business Clive and I still need to hash out. Which is why my instructions are clear: do what you want to the eyes, teeth, and ears. But for the love of God, save the tongue for last.
I light the cigar, drawing in a deep drag, fighting the urge to incinerate the damning photos in my hand.
The Scotsman decides to haunt me some more. “ They’re evidence ,” his whisper in my mind, drawing out the subtle, rolling r that’s his trademark.
“I. Am. Not. A. Cop,” I growl through clenched teeth, loud enough to reverberate across the empty room .
“You’ll never take down Andre without those ,” his ghostly whisper taunts, firing me up on all cylinders.
I shoot from my seat, words spilling out in a fierce snarl. “What the fuck does that mean?” I snap, frustrated.
“So, we’ve finally cracked,” Dante interjects, his sudden presence whipping me around to face him.
I can’t gauge how long he’s been lurking there, witnessing me unraveling like a defective burrito, but I swiftly shove the images back into the folder and draw a sharp puff from my cigar. “I lost it ages ago, Dante,” I retort, my voice tight. I narrow my eyes. “Is there something you want?”
“I want to know what’s in the folder. Dory wouldn’t say a word.”
“That’s because she values her life.”
He strides across the room, yanking open the heavy silk drapes. “It’s freakin’ gorgeous out on the Italian shores. Why the hell are all the curtains closed?”
I suppress the urge to snap at him, my head throbbing like a jackhammer and sunlight feeling like a barrage of thumbtacks pelting the backs of my eyes. “I need to concentrate,” I grind out, the words strained and unconvincing.
“You need a swift kick in the ass if you think you’re gonna take on Uncle Andre solo,” he retorts, nodding towards the file on the desk. “Whatever that is, you can’t keep it under wraps forever.”
“I can try,” I mutter dryly.
His hand brushes his chin thoughtfully. “Knowing you, that pain in the base of your neck is agony by now—like an ice pick being slowly driven in. Probably, because you’re tiptoeing towards the edge of the worst decision of your life. ”
“And what decision is that?” I ask, attempting to push past the pain he’s so astutely highlighted.
“You’re either going after Andre or something equally as idiotic. We don’t need a war,” Dante reminds me.
“That’s the thing about wars, Dante,” I counter. “No one ever needs them. They have them because if they take another ounce of shit, their back will break.” My phone pings. I glance at it and shake my head. “Speaking of shit.”
Dante simply raises a brow, then exhales a heavy sigh. “I know you came here with a girl. I know said girl is at the heart of some major issue between you and Andre. And I know that without my help, you’re gonna get yourself killed.”
I’m sleep-deprived, near exhausted, fueled by nothing but adrenaline and rage. I lack the strength to combat the relentless nagging of a D’Angelo brother hell-bent on the truth—Dante being the grandmaster of sniffing out skeletons.
He takes a step closer. “It stays between us, I swear.”
At this point, I’m in too much pain to keep sparring with my brother. He’s right. I need his help. So, I make the reckless decision to show him my phone.
He stares at the text from an unknown number, confused. “Six?”
“It’s the number of days I have left with said girl before I have to return her to Uncle Andre.”
“Why?” Dante’s brow furrows in confusion.
“Her worthless son of a bitch of a stepfather owes him, and vanished. So now she owes him,” I explain, preemptively raising a hand to ward off what he’s about to ask.
“So buy her debt.”
“You think I haven’t tried? ”
“Why does she mean so much to you?” Dante probes.
“Because she does,” I reply flatly.
After a minute of scrutinizing me, he nods in agreement. “Okay. Then she means so much to me too,” he concedes, reaching for the folder of images. My fist slams down on the file and against the desk with such force, we both hear a crack of the fine wood. He takes a step back. “What?”
“She’s nude in these,” I confess, the words heavy and forced. It causes physical pain, saying what I’m about to say. “And too young to consent to them.”
“Then you’re too close to this to be objective,” Dante asserts with enough common sense, I stand down.
I’ve been going cross-eyed, staring at the photos as if the pieces of a ten-thousand-piece puzzle will miraculously come together. I’m missing something. Something that’s right in front of my fucking face.
“Trust your gut, lad. And trust your brother. All the clues are there.”
For fuck’s sake, not you too. It’s bad enough that the Scotsman I murdered has haunted my thoughts since I was fifteen. Now he’s siding with my brother?
Dante pauses, as if he can tell, I’m already swimming in the deep end of insanity, then takes another step, reaching out a hand in a gesture of reassurance. “Just...cover her private parts up with a ton of sticky notes and let me take a look.”