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Sal knows better than to associate with Kira, especially while she’s in Boston.
Sal throws his head back against the headrest. “Yes.”
Alarm bells ring in my head, and I turn to face him as I stop at a red light. “Did you spend the night with her, Sal?”
His face tells me everything I need to know.
I don’t have to say anything. Sal knows he shouldn’t have done it. It’s bad enough that Kira stubbornly refuses to live anywhere except for Boston, but we’ve been careful about associating with her.
“She was scared, okay?” Sal says, throwing his hands up. “She’s so self-sufficient that everyone just forgets how vulnerable she can be. She’s all alone and terrified.”
“Addy lived with Kira, Sal. You know as well as I do that the Mob would have eyes on Kira the moment Addy was proclaimed dead.”
“I know. I fucked up, alright? The crazy thing is I knew I was fucking up with every single second I stayed with her. But I just couldn’t leave her, you know?”
I know.
I urge him to calm down, but I can’t even stop the dread that coils in my stomach. Kira is intelligent and extremely capable despite her disability. But she’s still vulnerable because of that.
She wouldn’t know if she was being followed.
She wouldn’t see or recognize, let alone stop anyone who tried to hurt her.
She can’t run.
My mind conjures a million other ways she is at more risk, and I desperately push the disturbing thoughts away.
“We’ll go to Boston tonight, if need be,” I say, my voice steady despite the turmoil inside. “Might as well get a head start since we’re invading in a few days.”
“Sound plan, Dante.” Sal nods, his face flooding with relief, betraying just how much he cares for his ‘friend.’
“See if you can find her current location first, so we’re not just wandering around enemy territory,” I say.
“That’s the problem. I’ll need to hack into hundreds of street cameras at once. It’s doable within a day. But with an airport involved . . .”
“She could be outside Boston.”
“Exactly, which means we’d need fifty people hacking into cameras in each state to determine which one she’s in. There’s only one person who can cast a net that wide . . .” Sal’s voice trails off when I shoot him a murderous look.
My knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. Cade Quinn. Sophie’s brother. I want to kill the smug bastard so bad I can taste it. It’s too fucking bad we share the same sister.
“Alright then,” Sal murmurs. “Kira had better still be in Boston then.”
The Fortress’ silhouette offers no comfort tonight. As we enter, Falzone greets us, his usually impassive ruddy face tight and pale with concern.
“Don Vitelli wants to see you both now, Signore.”
My plan was to go straight to Addy and then debrief with Nico later, but I make my way to the conference room, Sal following closely. Each step increases the weight of foreboding pressing down on my chest. I push open the heavy oak door, and the scene before me stops me.
Nico perches on the table’s edge, his posture rigid with fury. But his eyes . . . they’re not only angry, they’re devastated. He looks betrayed, an expression I don’t see very often.
Sophie stands beside him, a soothing hand on his arm. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her usual poise cracked.
And then there’s the real kicker: Aydin, crumpled at Nico’s feet, her sobs muffled against his shoes. The sight is so incongruous, so wrong, that for a moment, I can’t process it.
When Nico finally raises his gaze to meet mine, time seems to stop. I know, with a certainty that chills me to my core, that my worst fears have been realized.
“Kira?” I ask. As awful as it sounds, I hope this is about Kira going missing because my brain can’t process the other scenario.
