Chapter 15 #2
I dial the number, and Silas answers right away.
“Don Cristiano. I promised Rafiel I’d follow up with you after your meeting to see how you’d like to proceed with the Sokoli threat.” His tone is polite and businesslike, as though he’s determined to put any bad blood behind us.
“You tell me. Rafiel threw a punch at me and got dragged to solitary.”
Silence. Then, “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.” The professionalism drops away, replaced by raw frustration. “That stupid, hotheaded—” He lets loose a string of expletives. “One meeting. He needed to have one fucking meeting and keep his shit together.”
I check my face in the rearview mirror, watching my split lip swell. “He didn’t keep it together.”
“What the hell did you two even talk about?”
“Not the Sokolis, I can tell you that much.”
“Unbelievable. Lucania territory is going to fall apart, Dashamir Dervishi took our fucking guns, and I’m going to wind up riddled with Sokoli bullets.”
My mouth quirks in amusement. The Dervishi psychopath stole their weapons? The Lucanias are having a run of bad luck.
“Sounds like you have a problem,” I say mildly. “That’s unfortunate.”
“Listen, Don Cristiano.” Mr. Cross’s voice hardens. “Forget Rafiel Lucania. I’m offering you a chance to protect your own interests before it’s too late.”
“My interests seem fine from where I’m sitting.”
“For now.” Silas’s tone sharpens. “How long do you think you can hold out once we fall? A month? Two? The Sokolis will slaughter every Lucania capo and bookie, and then they’ll keep pushing north. Every casino you own that borders our territory becomes a target the moment we go down.”
I pull out of the parking lot, the prison shrinking in my rearview mirror. “Tell me one thing, Mr. Cross. You’re not a Lucania. Are you one of their capos?”
“I am not,” he replies curtly.
“Then why—”
“I owe Gabriel Lucania a great deal. I’m not from Malus. I can’t go home. Malus is my home.”
I let the silence stretch, wondering if Mr. Cross is going to expand on this.
“That’s all you need to know. Are you going to help me or not?” His patience is wearing thin now. “Because I don’t have time for games, Don Cristiano. Every day we waste talking is another day the Sokolis grow bolder.”
I merge onto the highway, considering. He’s right, of course. If Lucania territory collapses, the Sokolis will be two blocks from my casinos.
More importantly, though I’d never say it out loud, Mina’s apartment is in that direction. If the Sokolis keep pushing north, eventually they’ll be on her street. Near her son. Near everything I actually give a damn about protecting.
I could force her to come home with me for her own protection, but forcing Mina to do anything destroys her.
She went limp in my arms after I let her out of my wardrobe, crying silently like I’d broken her heart.
I grip the steering wheel tighter. As she sat in the passenger seat of her mother’s car after I tied her up with my belt, she stared at me with those hollow, devastated eyes, like I’d all but killed her.
“Tell me what you need,” I say. “You and the Lucanias.”
Silence on the other end. “What?”
“You heard me.”
“Just like that?” Silas’s voice is sharp with suspicion. “Rafiel punches you in the face and you’re still willing to work with me?”
“I’m not doing it for Rafiel or you. I’m doing it for me. The Sokolis already cost me my cousin. He may have been a traitorous idiot, but he was family. I’m not letting them take anything else from me.”
Silas is quiet for a moment. I can practically hear him trying to decide if he believes me or if this is a trap.
“Why should I trust you?” he asks finally.
“Because I’m telling you the truth. I don’t give a shit about the Lucanias. I don’t care about your territory or your pride or the home you can’t return to. But I care about keeping the Sokolis away from what’s mine.”
Silas exhales slowly. “All right. This is what we need from you.”
I listen to his plan in silence.
It’s a solid plan. Good for the Lucanias and even better for me.
“Well?” Silas prompts.
“I’ll do it.”
“Don’t screw us over, Montoni. Without you, the whole operation falls apart.”
“I said I’ll do it.”
I toss the phone onto the passenger seat and flex my jaw, feeling the ache where Rafiel’s fist connected.
I’ll work with these assholes for one reason and one reason only.
Mina.
I can picture her so clearly it’s like she’s beside me.
Dark hair spread across a pillow, her body warm beneath the sheets.
She left the hotel penthouse room four days ago, slipping away rather than sleeping beside me, and the ache of her absence hasn’t dulled even slightly.
If anything, it’s gotten worse. A constant, gnawing hunger.
My hands clench on the steering wheel until my knuckles go white.
The highway stretches out ahead of me, lights blurring past, and all I can think about is the distance between us.
The agonizing distance I maintain because getting too close breaks her.
Staying away from the woman I love is slowly killing me.
Rafiel Lucania is rotting in a prison cell, loving a woman he’ll never have, and I taunted him about it, because for a few fucking minutes, it was a relief to see another man in as much pain as I am.
I fumble for my phone and open the secret camera feed I put in Mina’s apartment. I can see only the back of the picture frame, and her apartment is silent. She must be at work.
I sigh and put my phone away. Tonight, I’ll go home alone to a mansion full of ghosts, and I’ll dream about a woman who left me bleeding in a driveway five years ago.
Soon, I’ll start a war to keep them safe.
The following day, I find Mrs. Santoro crying in the kitchen.
She’s standing at the sink with her back to me, shoulders shaking, trying to muffle the sound with a dish towel pressed to her mouth. She doesn’t hear me come in.
I should leave and give her privacy. Whatever’s upset her is none of my business.
But I hesitate on the threshold, because there’s a chance that this might have something to do with Mina. The way she’s sobbing, I hope it doesn’t. But I have to know.
“Mrs. Santoro?”
She whirls around, eyes red, cheeks wet. “Mr. Montoni. I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize you were there.” She swipes at her face with the dish towel, trying to compose herself. “Is there something you need? Are you hungry?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
“Mrs. Santoro.” I keep my voice gentle. “Please tell me. Is it Mina?”
Her face crumples. The dish towel falls to her side, and she looks at me with such raw anguish that my chest tightens.
“It’s my grandson,” she whispers.
The floor shifts beneath my feet. “Leon? What’s happened to Leon?”
“He got sick. Mina thought it was just a cold, but it got worse and worse, and now—” Her voice breaks. “What if he doesn’t get better?”
Leon. Mina’s son. Her happiness. The little boy who ran to greet me at the park with such innocent trust.
Mrs. Santoro presses the dish towel to her eyes. “I should be there at the hospital with her right now. She’s all alone in that place.”
That place sounds ominous. “Where is he? Which hospital?”
Mrs. Santoro hesitates. Her eyes dart away from mine, and I see the conflict playing across her face. She’s loyal to her daughter. She knows Mina wouldn’t want me involved.
“Mrs. Santoro. Please tell me.”
An echo of the way she looked at me when I was nineteen flickers in her eyes. “I don’t think Mina would like that.”
“I know.” I keep my voice soft and unthreatening. The German shepherd lying down with his head between his paws, trying not to be perceived as a threat. “I know she wouldn’t want me there. But she’s alone, isn’t she? She’s been alone this whole time.”
Mrs. Santoro’s face crumples. “She’s exhausted. She tries to be strong, but she’s falling apart. And Leon.” Her voice breaks. “He’s so little. He doesn’t understand why he’s so sick.”
My chest aches.
“Let me help,” I say. “Even if she sends me away, at least let me try. I’ll go now, and you follow with clothes and personal belongings for her and Leon. She must need things. How does that sound?”
“I…”
I want to seize Mrs. Santoro and demand she tells me this instant where I can find Mina, but I stop myself before I turn into the monster they all know I am.
Mrs. Santoro studies my face for a long moment. I don’t know what she sees there, but her resistance fades. “North Malus Hospital.”
I’m already moving, already pulling out my phone to look up the address. My heart is pounding in a way it hasn’t since I was nineteen years old, watching Mina being taken away from me with tears streaming down her face.
She’s been at that hospital for days, alone, without me, watching her son suffer. And I’ve been here doing business. Eating meals in the dining room and sleeping in a comfortable bed.
I should have been there. I should have known. She should have called me.
The thought spirals, and I grip the steering wheel harder.
I pull up to the hospital twenty minutes later.
I wasn’t expecting much from the area, but North Malus Hospital is worse than I imagined.
The building is old, crumbling at the edges, with letters missing from the building name.
There are people loitering at the entrance and in the foyer.
Inside, the fluorescent lights flicker and hum.
The linoleum floor is scuffed and dirty.
A man in a hospital gown wanders past us, trailing an IV pole, and no one stops him to ask if he needs help.
The smell hits me next. Antiseptic layered over illness and despair.
This is where Mina has been for four days while Leon is fighting for his life, and I didn’t know.
After checking in with security, I find the pediatric ward on the third floor. The elevator is broken, so I take the stairs two at a time, my shoes clicking rapidly against concrete steps.