40. Chapter 40
Chapter forty
Dax
Ikissed Lucy on the cheek before clearing my way across the linoleum floors of the hospital. I’d spent the past hour with her in Ricky’s recovery room, where he’d been for almost a week. He was expected to get released in the next few days, and I could tell he was starting to get antsy.
“The first thing I’m doing when I get out of here is heading straight to the nail salon,” he said, wriggling his fingers with a tragic look on his face. “These hands are not ready to shake cocktails in public.”
I could tell he was joking, but his words sent a pang through my chest. When he got out of there, it wouldn’t be the bar at Bellissima he’d be mixing drinks at.
I’d decided to pay my staff a stipend because they’d all lost their place of work, but I wasn’t sure what the future of my restauranter career looked like.
Whatever came of it would take time, and I didn’t want them to be out of a paycheck while they found new jobs.
I’d spent enough time dwelling on the past, and that was something I knew I needed to break away from.
It was why I was leaving the hospital early while Lucy and Ricky set up a game of gin rummy with the deck of cards Bianca had left behind for him.
As much as I wanted to watch her kick his ass, there was something I needed to take care of.
Clay was already waiting for me at my house, a monitor set up on a video call with Emile, who was still in New York.
Phoebe was healing steadily, and they’d be headed back to the West Coast soon.
I still didn’t understand the reasons why he wanted to stay behind, but I didn’t want to ask any questions at the moment.
Now, he was perched inside the video screen, sipping on a martini from his penthouse in Manhattan.
“The recording is set to go live on Wrangler’s platform tonight. The team’s already taken down the old videos, and we’ve posted a message inviting the subscribers to a showing tonight,” he said. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
I nodded. “This is what Lucy wants. We need to send a message to these bastards.”
And we would. When Wrangler’s subscribers logged onto their favorite demented website tonight, they were in for the shock of their lives.
When the livestream abruptly ended a few nights ago, the platform was flooded with messages and questions.
Tonight they would get their answers, and at the same time CIPHER would hack into their personal devices to get any information on the people who funded Lucy’s torture the other night.
She didn’t know this part, but I was gonna kill each and every one of them.
Lucy was, however, aware of what we would be airing on the platform.
She knew about it, because she constructed it.
I’d seen a lot of dark, twisted shit in my years, but what happened that night would remain seared into my memory forever.
It had been documented for the world to see if they looked in the right place—somewhere innocent people would never find.
When she told me what Deana said, that she’d killed my father, and she was the spawn of my mother’s murderer, I saw red.
For all these years, I thought he killed himself because of heartbreak and loneliness.
I was wrong; he was murdered because of what I did in vengeance.
In a way, it was like losing him all over again.
Except this time, I knew he hadn’t given up.
He was tortured and forced into selling the deli, then murdered to prove a point to me.
As fucked up as it was, part of me was relieved by it. Not that he’d had a terrible, painful death, but that he hadn’t given up. Not on himself, nor on me. The letters he wrote to my dead mother were now in my possession, and while I wasn’t ready to read them yet, I would someday.
Despite all that, I held my promise to Lucy.
It was up to her what happened to Deana, and if she’d wanted to let her go with nothing more than an eyeball lost I would have allowed it.
Anything Lucy wanted, I would give to her.
It was only to my twisted delight when she asked me if I thought they’d kept any old items from the deli that I realized how devious she really was under that angelic exterior.
I had to hand it to her, she was pretty fucking creative.
Diabolical, even. It only made me love her more.
Considering everything she’d done, Deana’s demise was fitting, to say the least.
I just hadn’t expected it to come at the blade of my dad’s old meat slicer.
It was admittedly a lot messier than anything I’d have planned, but hey, it got the job done, and I’d be lying if I said it was anything less than delightful to watch.
Now, it was up to me to take the rest of them down, which was why I’d called this meeting with Clay and Emile. My eyes locked on Clay, who sat in a leather chair across from me with stiff arms. He raised an eyebrow at me, obviously wondering why I asked him to come.
I glanced at Emile on the screen before I spoke again.
“Getting to all these sick fucks is gonna take a lot of time and manpower. As much as I’d like to try, I can’t do it on my own.
I want to rebuild the restaurant and give Lucy as normal of a life as I can, and I won’t do anything that will sacrifice that.
But all of this has reminded me of what we started in the first place, and why CIPHER needs to exist. Thank you both for keeping it alive while I figured my shit out, but I think I’m ready now. ”
I heard Clay exhale a long, drawn-out breath from the other side of the room.
“Are you saying what I think you are?” Emile deadpanned on the screen.
“There has to be ground rules and conditions, but yes. I’m reinstating myself in CIPHER.” Words I never thought I’d hear coming from my own mouth. Even though it took more time than it should have, I knew I was doing the right thing.
Relief sagged in Clay’s shoulders, and Emile saluted me with his glass. “Per la luce, porto il fardello,” he said, and my mind rushed back to the night Tony and I asked them to join our forces. The night CIPHER became something.
“So we slaughter predators and make millions along the way? What are we calling ourselves?” Clay asked from the ratty couch in our crappy house near NYU.
Tony and I exchanged a glance. We hadn’t gotten that far yet.
“Does there even need to be a name? All that matters is what we do, and it’s more than that. We’re a cyber intel providence hunting evil for retribution.”
Emile snapped a rubber band around his finger. “Then that’s it. CIPHER.”
“Seriously?” Clay snorted.
“Yeah,” Emile said. “It works. But it needs a tagline, or a catchphrase…something.”
“A catch phrase?” Tony glared with obvious distaste. I didn’t particularly like the sound of that either, this deserved something more tactical.
Another idea occurred to me. “I don’t think a catch phrase is appropriate, but if we’re doing this then we’re committing to something bigger than us and more important than the cash. We should have an oath, and anyone who joins us needs to take it too.” This felt like the right thing to do.
“Okay, agreed. What is it?” Emile asked.
Something clicked together inside of me. There before I even needed to think about it.
“Per la luce, porto il fardello,” I heard Clay’s baritone from across the room where he sat now in my living room. He and Emile were looking directly at me.
My chest tightened and then released.
I thought about Lucy, her beautiful lips and those soft caramel eyes that I melted into every time she walked in the room. I would spend the rest of my life protecting her, worshipping her, loving every single minute detail of her soul—as long as she wanted me to.
This was what I was always meant to do, and I knew it now. That didn’t mean I wasn’t meant to do other things too, but this was embedded into my life’s purpose. Just like it was in Clay’s and Emile’s. It was our oath. Our promise.
“Per la luce, porto il fardello,” I repeated.
For the light, I bear the burden.