On The Ropes (26 page)

He pressed his lips into a line and pulled out his phone. “For the record, I’m fucking furious at you right now, and I’m only calling about this dumb dog because my girl’s losing her mind and I don’t know what else to do.” He rubbed his jaw. For the first time I could recall, he hadn’t shaved that morning. “Mom, no sign of Carly? No. No, I didn’t think so. Yeah, the note was pretty clear, it just doesn’t make any sense. Look, I need you to look for something for me. Can you try to find a black and white spotted stuffed dog? Check the room you share with Carly first.”

“She can’t miss it, it’s huge. I left it on the fire escape.”

Fox glared at me. “Check the fire escape,” he said, working his jaw. A moment later, he frowned. “It’s there? On the fire escape?” He looked at me and my hands went to fists. “It’s still there.”

I shut my eyes. Dread coiled inside me, making my gut clench. “She didn’t leave on her own.”

“But the note—”

“I don’t care what the goddamn note said, if she left that dog, she didn’t leave on her own,” I shouted, slamming a fist on the birdbath.

The little bluebird snapped off and landed in pieces on the ground.

“I’ll let you know if I hear anything, Mom. Thanks. Bye.”

He stepped right up to me. “I’m going to ask you once to tell me what happened, from the beginning. I don’t want the storybook version, where you tell me this all was because of love. Because if it wasn’t for love, I’ll rip you apart with my bare hands, here and now.” His normally placid blue eyes burned with rage. “She’s my family. If you’re right that she didn’t leave on her own, you’re going to help me how to figure out to get her back.”

I flexed the jaw he’d hammered last night and welcomed the blast of pain. I deserved it, and so much more. “If we don’t get her back, I won’t stop you.”

I
didn’t know
how long I’d been in the darkness. Too long. I was in a room with narrow rectangular windows near the ceiling, making me think I was underground. The light from those windows was almost nonexistent, especially yesterday when November’s gloom had been especially thick.

But today, there was sun.

I blinked and stared up at those windows, wiggling my fingers to get some circulation back into them. My wrists were bound behind the chair I was in, so tightly that my arms kept going to sleep. My ankles were tied together too, and my feet were bare. The frigid concrete beneath them had seeped into my bones, and I’d been shivering all night. It was cold and dank wherever they’d taken me, and I wore only jeans and a thin shirt and sweater.

And I was hungry. So hungry. I hadn’t eaten much the night before this had happened, and now I regretted it. I should’ve chowed down. I didn’t think the kid in my belly could be taking too much of my resources yet, but I didn’t think I’d ever been this desperate for food.

I shuddered. Maybe the plan was just to leave me here alone. To starve me to death.

One of the men had given me water last night. A big glass of it that I’d sucked down. Since then, all had been quiet.

The fear and recriminations that had ridden me hard yesterday had subsided into only the occasional tremor last night. Somehow I’d fallen into an exhausted sleep sitting up, and had awakened from horrible dreams of Marco and men in vans to the milky light of morning. My head still dully ached from where they’d slammed me into the van yesterday, but the pain was manageable.

What wasn’t was the not knowing. Had I been left here to die? Or would they be back to finish me off? And who were
they
, exactly? The logical guess was Marco and Lorenzo and his men. But logical didn’t hold much sway with these people, I’d found. And the bigger question was why. Was I being used as leverage with Gio? Or did this circle back around to the situation my sister had gotten involved in last month? The craziness with the fight, and the threats…

God, my head hurt even more when I tried to line up the pieces.

I must’ve fallen asleep again, because the next time I opened my eyes the sunshine through the narrow windows was even more intense, and a scraping noise indicated a door was being opened. I sat up straighter in my chair and rotated my wrists as best as I could, trying not to panic though my heart was chugging in my ears like a kickdrum.

And now I was getting nauseous too. I hoped like hell that was because I was hungry, because now was
not
the time for the kid to make itself known.

Sharp, staccato footsteps sounded on the concrete, reminding me of all the abandoned warehouses I’d been in for Mia and Fox’s fights. Guess I’d ended up in another one. I sent up a quick prayer to the higher power and tried to make my face into an emotionless mask. I’d be damned if I gave them one moment’s satisfaction from my fear.

“
Baciame
. Finally.” I stiffened as an Italian man crouched in front of me. Dark wavy hair, dark eyes, golden skin. “You’re Carly. You gotta be Carly.”

I blinked at him, unsure what to say. Should I admit who I was?

God, he was pretty. And he wasn’t just pretty, he looked like—

“I’m Dante Costas.”

Yep. I should’ve known the beautiful stick had hit both brothers in equal measure. Some part of me rejoiced, but the rest wasn’t quite willing to throw a ticker tape parade. Slater had said this dude was in the mob too, and wanted for murder. Not attempted either like Giovanni.

There’s some semantics for you. Rationalize much?

“Okay, don’t talk to me. That’s fine. I’m going to get you out of here and bring you back to my brother.” He reached behind me to fumble with the ropes on my wrists and I stiffened. “Don’t worry.” He shot me a devastating grin.
Giovanni’s
grin. “I prefer Italian women. You’re not my type.”

“How do you know I’m not Italian?”

“Ahh, she speaks.” He brushed a finger over my cheek. “With this fair Irish skin? Doubtful. This bruise must hurt,” he added, touching my temple. I grimaced and he nodded. “We’ll get some ice for it. First—” He broke off and cursed under his breath as he pivoted on his expensive shoes to scan the warehouse. “That’ll teach me to make small talk. They’re coming back.”

“Who?” My heartbeat kicked up again. “Who’s coming back?”

“Sit tight.” He returned to working on my wrists, loosening the ropes. “You can get out of this if you need to, but don’t do it unless you have to. Pretend you’re still tied up.”

“I
am
still tied up,” I gritted out, inclining my chin toward my bound ankles.

“Sorry. I got distracted by the big blue eyes.” He shot me a grin and moved away quickly, melting into the rows of boxes stacked behind me.

There was a ton of shit back there, but no matter how I craned my neck, I couldn’t get a good look at what kind of stuff it was so I’d be able to identify where I’d been hidden. But at least he’d freed my wrists. I wiggled my fingers a little as that scraping noise echoed across the space again, like a garage door being opened. Maybe this used to be a car warehouse? Then the sound of a pair of deep male voices.

“Donny, go. I have this covered.” A bunch of Italian followed that I didn’t understand.

Donny wasn’t a name I recognized. There was a quick assent, then more footsteps, slow and measured, the exact opposite of Dante’s impatient step. I rotated my right wrist slowly, carefully, trying to barely move my arm. I wanted to be ready, just in case. Dante was hidden in the shadows somewhere, but he could be a foe disguised as a friend. Right now, I trusted no one other than myself.

The footsteps stopped a short distance away, and I turned my head, trying to see. The chair was bolted to the damn floor, so I couldn’t move it.

A man started to laugh at my struggle, and the sound made me curl my frozen toes into the ground. I couldn’t get away from it, and it seemed to echo off the walls. It wasn’t Marco’s laugh. This was lower, raspier, a smoker who was running out of breath.

I could only hope.

“
Marone e mia
, that was fun to watch. You’re like a frog being boiled in a pan. You know how that happens, don’t you? They put the frog in the water, then raise the temperature slowly, degree by degree, so that the frog doesn’t know it’s being boiled. By the time it figures it out, it’s just about dead.”

I pressed my lips together and stared straight ahead. I would give these bastards nothing.

“I have to say, I was rather impressed by the arsenal in your purse. Pepper spray, throwing stars, a Swiss Army contraption with several interesting items on it. For a dumb blonde—or is it redhead—you were well-armed.”

I didn’t even blink.

“My men said you didn’t put up much of a fight. They surprised you well and good, didn’t they? I figured my boy’s truck would make you let down your guard, and I was right.”

My boy
. Jesus. It took every bit of control I had not to move an eyelash.

I sucked in a shuddery breath. God, I just wanted this to be over. Surely someone was looking for me by now? I hadn’t gone to work at the Salad Hut, so they’d be calling—

Your cell phone, in your purse. The purse they took away from you.

Jenna was supposed to dance for me last night, so the club wouldn’t even look for me. Gio might’ve, if he’d come to pick me up after. Hopefully Jenna had done okay, and gotten home without incident. I needed something to have gone right, just once.

“With that letter you so considerately had in your things, you even bought us some time. Thanks to that, no one will even be looking for you, since we popped that little beauty right in the mail. So I guess I should take it back.” He chuckled. “You are a dumb blonde. Or redhead. Hard to tell with that mop of yours. Girls today, they like to dye their hair. In my day, women stuck to the color God gave them. But today it’s all about whoring around. My son, he’s always had a weakness for those kind of women.”

My mind spun. What letter?

Reality descended, sickeningly. Damn it all. That letter I’d written for insurance in case I felt like Marco and his men were getting too close. My escape valve.
I can get away anytime.

Instead I’d helped the enemy. One of them anyway. They were coming from all sides these days.

“My son is such a disappointment to me. To be honest, both of my sons are.”

Inwardly I groaned. Dante could hear his father’s little declaration with no trouble, and I was pretty sure he wouldn’t enjoy story hour if the way it had started was any indication.

“Giovanni’s also an embarrassment. First, he decided to show everyone he wasn’t a man by choosing to play pansy at that damn floral shop. Got that from his mother, God rest her soul. Then he took up with that whore Andretti, and flaunted that he didn’t care about loyalty. He could do what he wanted. He brought shame to my family’s name, and for that, I will never stand.” He walked in front of me, toward the windows, and I wiggled my fingers again. The rope holding my wrists was barely looped. One sharp jerk and I’d be free. My hands, at least.

“
He
was supposed to be dead that day, not Emilia.”

My hands went slack. I stared at Giovanni’s father’s back, my eyes smarting not for me, but for Gio. For what I’d just learned.

How could a father want to kill his own son?

“Killing Emilia was more trouble than she was worth. The Andrettis have wanted my head ever since. And Giovanni, that damn fool, walked away that day and right into their lair. Does he think they are so stupid not to know what he’s up to? He’s the stupid one, trying to outmaneuver those with decades of experience.” He paced along the length of the windows, hands linked behind his back. “And Dante…Dante thinks one day I’ll leave him in command, when we both know he’s not fit to lead. He’s not as soft as Giovanni, but he’s not much better. The first time he killed a man, he cried.
Merda
, such pussies. How did I end up with them?”

I tried to make sense of what I was hearing. His father had wanted Gio dead, but Emilia had gotten in the way somehow. And Gio had gone to the Andrettis for what? He’d tried to outmaneuver them, maybe thinking it was the Andrettis who’d had Emilia killed?

Anything had to be better than imagining your own father wanted you dead, right? So maybe he’d wanted revenge. Perhaps his supposed allegiance to them had all been part of an elaborate plot.

Maybe he’d never truly been in league with them, after all.

I sucked in another breath. If that was true, he
wasn’t
like them. Thank God. I wasn’t crazy to think he was a good person—no saint, definitely not, but better than them. Better than this evil piece of shit standing before me.

“At least Dante stayed on the side of right. Giovanni is as good as dead. Worst of all, the fool never even figured out who had truly tried to take him out. Disloyalty is bad enough, but willful stupidity? His mother was no better.”

Though I ached to tell this bastard to go to hell, to defend Gio and his mother’s honor, I didn’t make a sound. I wanted him to keep talking.

I’d taken a class in deviant sociology once, one of those electives people take in high school just to pad the schedule. But I remember my teacher saying that criminals almost always wanted to go to confession. Many of them didn’t get nearly the same satisfaction if they couldn’t tell someone what they’d done.

Well, I was happy to be his confessor. And hopefully, if luck was on my side, I’d get to be his judge, jury and executioner too, though I wasn’t yet sure how.

“Anna, bless her, she never stopped nagging me. I don’t even know how I got it up enough to make those two boys, and then when I had, she grew ten times worse. Had to protect her precious babies from me, their own father. I listened to her for years. I even tried, gently, to get her to change her mind. I didn’t want to have to take the next step. In my family, marriage is forever. The only way out is in a casket.” He sighed. “She didn’t leave me much choice.”

Horror wound through me, cold and numbing. I couldn’t stop the sound that escaped me, and he turned toward me, seemingly just realizing I was still there.

His resemblance to Giovanni—and Dante—was chilling. He had more silver in his hair, and his eyes were pure black without the streaks of blue to lighten them like Gio’s. But the coloring, the bone structure, the bearing…everything matched the man I loved.

Whom I loved even more, after understanding he’d been through hell and had still come out the other side as the wonderful, sweet man I’d fallen for. Fucked up, for sure, but still, so very good.

“What, you don’t like that? That offends your delicate sensibilities?” He rolled his eyes.

“Bleeding hearts, all of you.”

I didn’t say a word.

He stepped closer to me, his eyes so dark that I couldn’t tell where his pupils ended and his irises began. “It’s only fitting your heart will bleed for real. I’ve decided I would enjoy making Giovanni suffer more than giving him the honor of a quick death.” He bent down to my level and rubbed his thumb over my cheek. “He has brought me no honor, so it would be please me immeasurably to cause him pain. You, lovely one, may be the one who finally ends him.”

I didn’t think, simply reacted. I swung up with my loosened arm, shocked that it could even move with all the pins and needles firing in it. My hand connected with his cheek and he jerked back slightly, more surprised than anything that I was free. I grabbed the dagger around my throat and jabbed with it, shocked to feel the dagger’s sheath snapping away to reveal a blade. I kept jabbing, screaming as he grabbed my arm and twisted it until pain blared through my head.

Then came the sound of a single gunshot, the explosion so loud I would’ve covered my ears if my hand had been free. The pressure in my arm eased immediately, and Giovanni’s father dropped at my feet, blood gushing from the wound in his chest.

He’d been hit in the heart.

Nausea swarmed my belly, and quickly, I turned my face away. I was never good with blood under the best of circumstances. When I was still shaky with fear and adrenaline—oh yeah, and pregnant—it definitely wasn’t a good mix.