AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I do the only thing that makes sense as I race down to the car, Ricky hitting the elevator call button over and over again.
I call my mother.
She’s not at Cascade, and nobody from the lowest crew member to my trusted lieutenants have seen her around the neighborhood.
Gio’s men have a few reports of her being seen downtown, near a subway entrance, but none of them are close enough to have seen her clearly, and the CCTV footage he gets from the station shows her heading in the opposite direction to where he’s searching. I grind my teeth, waiting on Newbury Street where my mother told me to meet her.
She arrives, in a green slick pea-coat made of some shiny material that sheds water.
Before I have a chance to open my mouth, she hushes me.
"I will handle Dani," she says, "and you will mend fences with her once she apologizes properly. There’s a way we do things, and that’s not how it is." She takes my hand, her small fingers curling around mine. "But that can wait. For now, let’s focus on the task at hand."
"What, finding Ashley before the Viper snatches her up?" My mother pats me on the hand.
"She’ll be here," she murmurs, and looks down the street. "Ah, Crecha. There it is. Come." I follow her, feeling anxious and lost, powerless which is the last thing a man in my position ever likes to feel. I’m not in it a lot. "Normally I would have preferred the ring and wedding to come first, but it wasn’t that way with you either so," she shrugs and I give her a bewildered look.
"This is not the time to find out that I was born a bastard," I growl.
"You were not," she says, and taps me lightly on the face. "But it was a close thing. Come. Inside." We step up to what looks like a maternity store, and my stomach drops.
"She’s not going to be here, Ma--"
She opens the door anyway, and inside I’m forced to eat my words, because standing by the maternity racks is an anxious looking Ash, fingering the sleeve of some frilly looking dress. She turns as I inhale, the sound of it alerting her that it’s me.
"Luca," she says, and my heart breaks and is fixed all in the same moment. I cross the room and pull her into my arms.
"Why did you run?" I ask her. "God I am sorry Dani was being such a bitch--"
"Luca, language," my mother’s sharp words have me shooting her a glare.
"She was."
"She was looking out for you, that’s a difference. Now, Ashley, dear, what do you think about this? You’d look good in a nice mint green." I roll my eyes and go back to embracing Ashley. She’s trembling.
"You set off the fire alarm?" I murmur into her hair.
"I thought she was going to shoot me," she grumbled, and when I look down at her, her eyes are wet with tears. I am going to absolutely pound Dani. If my mother lets me. And if not, I’m not talking to her for six months. She can go through Gio. "And, Luca, the test--"
"We’ll get another one," I promise, "and then you’ll come home, and we’ll figure out where we go from here."
"What do you think about looking at strollers?" My mom calls to us, as she heads toward the back of the store. "Too soon?"
"I already know where I’m going. Home. My old place," Ashley says, pulling back from me, and wiping her eyes. "She’s right. I’m a trap, it all makes sense now. That much money, to plant a key-logger, he wanted me at the club for weeks, months, I think he wanted to dangle me in front of you, but I don’t know why, to make us..."
She looks disgusted.
"To make you want me? I have no idea. I honestly--" Her lower lip trembles and she looks destroyed.
"What a happy family reunion." The voice cuts through the moment, and a chill runs down my spine. Ashley’s face pales, her cheeks turning white. I’ve heard that voice before, but the accent isn’t quite right. I turn, following Ashley’s line of sight, my whole body going cold.
A handsome face. A scar. I know that face, that voice. From so, so long ago...
"He remembers," the man says quietly. It’s the Viper, I know, the man who killed my father, my uncles, terrified Ashley.
The man I’m about to plant a bullet in.
He takes a step toward us, his arm, curled against him, finally visible. There’s a gun in his hand, aimed at Ashley. She goes very still, not even breathing.
