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“You think you can leave me, tesorino.” Cesare spat the endearment as if it were poison as he struggled with Matty’s car seat, a duplicate of the one I’d bought back in New York. He never had bothered to learn how the straps did up. “You think you can shack up with another man? Don’t worry, I’ll be back for him, but not until you’re out of the way.”
Brooke seemed to be in shock, but Addy scrambled out of the car, followed by Cricket. Vega was barking and snarling in the trunk, but the mesh dog barrier meant he couldn’t do anything to help.
“You can’t just take her,” Addy shrieked. “What are you? A pair of psychos?”
Yes, they absolutely were.
“It’s okay,” I told her because the last thing I wanted was for Alonzo to decide she was disposable. “It’s fine.”
“The hell it is.”
Alonzo aimed his gun at her face. “Shut up and get back in the car. This doesn’t concern you.”
Addy fell silent, but she didn’t get back in the car. Instead, she glared at him, and if looks could kill, he’d have keeled right over. Alonzo backed away, pulling me with him, and Cesare was shouting at Matty to be quiet, as if that would help. We’d been so damn close to safety. So damn close, and now I was probably dead.
But at least Brooke and Addy would live.
Or so I thought.
Cricket chose that moment to sink his teeth into Alonzo’s ankle, and now he was yelling too. Worse, he fired at my sweet little dog, but thankfully, Cricket ran under the car because although Cesare called him a dumb mutt, he really was quite clever.
Then Addy crumpled to the ground.
I caught sight of the blood blossoming on her shirt as Alonzo bundled me into the back of the SUV and slammed the door, heard Brooke’s cry as the meathead behind the wheel gunned the engine.
And there was nothing I could do but put my seat belt on and pray.
39
NICO
“I should be able to get this finished in a week if the rain holds off.” Deck stacked the last of the lumber next to the pool, dusted off his work gloves, and looked up at the sky. The black clouds didn’t look hopeful. “Might be two weeks if we get those thunderstorms they were talking about on the news last night.”
“There’s no hurry as long as the temporary fence can stay in place in the meantime.”
“Sure, I can work around it.”
“While you’re here, could you quote to build a playhouse? We got one from a store, but it’s too small.” The box said “deluxe,” but there was only one room. How was that deluxe? “It would be good to run power out to it as well.”
“You planning to have the kid move in there?”
“I just don’t want the inside to be gloomy.”
“Show me where you want it. Are we talking a cosy cottage or a full-on mansion?”
“How about something in between?”
Nico was holding the end of the tape measure and wondering whether two storeys with running water would be excessive when his phone rang. Emmy Black. One of the few people whose calls he answered rather than forwarding to his assistant.
“Is this a social call?” he asked, already knowing that it wasn’t. Emmy Black didn’t have time to waste on pleasantries.
“Might be something, might be nothing. Cesare Cavallaro’s gone quiet. Last week, he was running around, trying to track down Kaylin’s former colleagues from the events company—he even tried to hire Blackwood to help, the poor dumb fuck—but this week? Nada.”
“It’s not nothing. Where is he?”
“Not in the usual places. His cell phone’s in his apartment, but he isn’t. Alonzo went to visit Vito in the hospital on Saturday, but now he’s missing too. It’s possible they’ve headed somewhere to do the usual Mafia shit, but…”
“But?”
