Chapter 32 Cassian
CASSIAN
Iscrub my face, barely able to keep my eyes open. I haven’t slept a full night in too long.
I’m headed back home after seeing Seth and speaking with his doctors and the security team.
Seth is in the ICU and it’s not looking good.
He tumbled down the main staircase. They don’t know what he was doing up.
How he was out of his room. The security cameras happened to have stopped working right around the time of his fall.
The last thing they captured was a black SUV with opaque windows pulling into the lot, two men in black, hoods pulled over their heads climbing out, then nothing.
“Shit!”
How could Malek get to him? How could he know about Seth at all? The men working security didn’t know shit. There was no mass outage, nothing natural to cause the security cameras to shut off.
It can all be arranged easily enough. Men can be bought easily enough. I know that myself, don’t I?
I need to call Vivi. I don’t want to do it, but I need to. I’d already moved her from the safe house in Hawaii to another location, this one in California, but she’s still a flight away and she needs to get back. I push the button and the phone starts to ring.
“Cassian?” she finally answers just before the call should have gone to voicemail.
“Did I wake you up?” I know I did.
“What’s happened?” she asks, she must have just looked at the clock. She must know I wouldn’t call unless it couldn’t be avoided.
“It’s Seth, Vivi. You need to get back.”
I hear her intake of breath and can imagine her covering her mouth so as not to wake Gage.
“What’s happened?” she asks.
“He had a fall. A bad one.”
“How bad?” Comes the question I don’t want to answer.
“I don’t think he’s going to make it.” The moment I say the words, I know they’re true. I know it without a doubt. A sadness settles in deep and profound and beside it, a tiny thing, relief. Relief for him. For me. That relief, I know it makes me a monster.
Vivi stifles a sob. “I’ll be on the next flight out,” she says after a moment. “Are you at the hospital?”
“I just left. Go straight there. I’ve upped security. I’ll arrange for you to stay—”
“I’m going home, Cassian. I’m going home after…”
I nod, but don’t say anything. I can’t. I draw a tight breath in.
“It’s not your fault, you know that, right?” she asks me.
She doesn’t know that this probably wasn’t an accident. He was most likely pushed. My throat closes up at the thought.
“Do not go anywhere without the guard, you hear me? You can go home after, when this is all done, but you do not go anywhere without a guard. Say you understand. Tell me you understand.”
“Okay. Okay. I understand.” There’s a long pause. “I’ll see you soon, Cassian.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
I disconnect. As I drive back home, I think.
There are two scenarios, two possible roads that led to the attack on Seth.
Either my uncle told Malek he was still alive.
Told him where he was. Or he arranged the attack.
Either way, when Seth dies, his death will be on Angelo’s hands.
Either way, I want to hear him say it. I want to hear him confess his betrayal because to attack me is one thing.
To attack a hospitalized man who has no idea who the fuck he even is? That is something else entirely.
I slam my fist into the steering wheel.
I’m going to kill him. I’m going to fucking kill Angelo and Malek and every fucking soldier loyal to them.
I pull through the gates of my house, one SUV behind me. The rest of the soldiers will remain behind with Seth. I stop the car and climb out oblivious to the rain that’s falling. I walk into the house.
“Where’s Allegra?” I ask the first man I see.
“Asleep, sir.”
“Good. Enzo?”
They look at each other. “Not sure,” one of them says.
I push a hand through my hair. Fuck. I’m so fucking tired. “Find him. Tell him to meet me in the crypt.”
My footsteps echo off the walls of this great church where I still pick up the residue of incense. The scent of devotion. Of hope. Didn’t they know how dangerous a thing hope is?
I open the door to the crypt and hear Jet’s low voice. I head down. He has Angelo out of his cell and chained to the wall. Angelo’s face is beaten, but he’s conscious. Jet knows how to hurt a man without knocking him out. What’s the point if they’re unconscious?
Jet’s got his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the tie of earlier is long gone, the top buttons undone. His hair is hanging into his eyes and sweat dots his forehead. Blood splatters decorate his shirt.
“Did you fucking tell Malek about Seth, you fucking bastard?” I ask, immediately coming to my uncle, pulling him upright by his hair. When he only stares at me, panting, I land a punch to his gut. He doubles over, or he would if I didn’t have that handful of hair. “Did you? You fucking traitor!”
Angelo groans and drops as low as the chains allow when I abruptly release him.
“How is Seth?” Jet asks.
I shake my head.
Jet mutters a curse.
“What a fucking shit show,” I say. I draw my arm back to hit Angelo again, but Jet stops me.
“He’s not going to last much longer if we keep this up.” I pull free, but Jet gets between me and Angelo. “You don’t want to kill him yet.”
I want to though. Fuck how I want to. But he’s right. I need answers. I walk away, slamming my fist into the stone crypt and cursing loudly as pain reverberates through my arm.
“I didn’t tell anyone about Seth. I wouldn’t,” Angelo mutters.
“So you arranged the hit then?”
He looks appalled I’d even suggest it. “I love you boys. Like my own sons.”
“I used to believe that,” I say, looking back at him. This man I trusted. This man I loved. This man whom I thought loved me and my brother.
He meets my eyes. He’s almost unrecognizable right now.
Angelo’s forehead creases and tears well in his swollen eyes. “Seth. Is he…”
“He’s not going to make it, Uncle.” God. Fuck! “He’s not going to fucking make it. Where the fuck is Malek? You tell me and you tell me now or I swear, I will kill you so fucking slowly you will scream for hours before I finally allow you to die.”
He shakes his head, mumbling something I don’t understand.
A soldier hurries down the stairs, his boots loud on the stone. I turn to him and from the look on his face, it’s bad.
“Sir, he’s not here.” It takes me a minute to process. “Enzo, sir. He’s not here.”
I blink. “What? Where the hell would he be?”
“We’ve checked his house too. He’s gone.”
“But—”
“And…” He hesitates, swallows. “Allegra’s gone too.”
My brain rattles, blood roaring in my ears. I reach out to set a steadying hand on the wall.
“What?” I hear myself ask in an unrecognizable voice, events of the last few weeks replaying in my head, words spoken, distrust sowed.
I rush past him, flying up the stairs. Soldiers are gathering inside the house. They know something is coming. They know.
A soldier jumps out of my way as I shove into my bedroom where the lights are on, bathroom and closet doors open.
Even the room to the adjoining door stands open.
The bed is still made although it’s messy.
There’s a box on top. A small shoe box filled with photographs.
I pick up a few. They’re of Allegra’s mother.
Apart from that, there’s nothing.
She’s not here.
I take out my phone and dial her number, stupidly glad I gave her her phone back because for a single ridiculous moment, I think she’ll answer. I think she’ll pick up the goddamned phone. She doesn’t though. Of course she doesn’t. Because she can’t.
“Lock this place down. Now. Search the grounds. Every inch of the house and the property. Find her. Find him. Now!”