“Why would you give a kid you’re estranged from the bulk of your fortune?”
“Exactly, you wouldn’t,” I agree. “She could’ve swiped the funds from Durante, but that would also mean Serene is lying about her involvement with her daughter.”
“Zachary is Stroker’s baby. Maybe mother and daughter are into the luck of the Irish. Rowan has said more than once that she and Jaid are close.”
We hear the door open, and Amber smiles, holding two large bags. “Jesus, what is that smell?”
“That is Italian food that Ilaria’s grandmother is downstairs making.”
“Holy God, I love you!” I boast.
Cruz blurts, “How bad is Jaid?”
“Worse than me on my worst day, but...” She holds up a finger. “She is remarkably talented at not getting caught. I’ll be honest. I’m good, but she’s borderline psychotic.”
“What do you know?” I take the bags and walk into the kitchen with them hot on my ass.
“She had a very involved relationship with Jack Kerris.”
I stop digging in the bags and pulling out containers to furrow my brow. “... Jack?”
“Jack recruited her and Kaci,” she says what I already know. “And he stayed involved with Jaid until his death. This could all be retribution for you killing Jack.”
“Do you think she could’ve stolen ten mil from Durante?”
Her lips curl as she moves about and blinks. She’s thinking and a little restless just like me. “Not directly. She’s hiding behind her mother. I even believe Jaid had something to do with the church shooting.”
“You did…”
“I didn’t shoot anyone,” she rebukes, standing up for herself. “I was working for Cesario and trying to keep your ass safe from a distance when Serene called me up and put the offer on the table.”
“Did you know Soryn and Cas were involved?”
“Yes,” she quickly says. “It was a huge selling point because I knew Petra Soryn was Jack and Hilda Hanson’s daughter, and Cas was The Maestro and Kate’s daughter.”
“We should warn Hilda and Kate,” Cruz suggests.
“Wait,” she slowly says, stumbling on her thoughts. “What if we’re looking at this all wrong, and Jaid was playing Jack, too?”
Cruz blinks at me. “I’ve never seen this side of Ms. Rosen.”
“Then you don’t know Bamber when she’s clean.”
“I wouldn’t claim clean,” she readily admits. “But I’m not so far down the rabbit hole that I can’t see the darkness looking us dead in the eye.”
“You think whoever Mitch is working for is behind all of it?”
“Could be,” she says. “Because Jack is dead. The Maestro is dead. Two out of four parents are dead.”
“Correction,” I gently interject. “Three of the six parents are dead. Your father, Jerry “Pock” Allen is dead, so we should call your mother too.”
“All of the fathers are dead…call my mother, Sarah Olsman?” Amber blinks from the unfathomable idea of Sarah being her mother like she arrived via stork. “I can’t go there…emotionally.”
Cruz nods. “So we don’t call her.” I drop my hands from the bag and meander to the sliding glass door as their voices mumble together into a vortex of nothingness.
“Sally? What’s going on in the pretty head of yours?”
“You were targeted, Sal.”
“You were targeted, Sal.”
“You were targeted, Sal.”
I stay quiet, staring out the window as the memories rush back from prison and Violet Hendrix’s words to me.
Amber lays her hand on my shoulder and consoles, “Sal? What’s going on?”
“I was targeted.”
“By who?” Cruz questions.
I sprint to grab my phone. I call Navarro and Gabe, neither of which answers. I don’t bother to leave a message. “Goddammit!”
They chase me through the apartment as Cruz asks, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have my wife’s fucking phone number!”
“I can get in touch with her,” Amber whispers. “But if she suspects that I am calling on your behalf, she will shut me down.”
“Did you know Muerte was missing?” Cruz asks. “Dom is texting me.”
“Fuck!” I roar as shit whirls out of control. “It’s happening! And I’m in Europe!”
“What?” Amber persists. “What is going on?”
Squatting low and pulling my hair, “I need to be alone for a minute.”
“Come on, Deacon,” Amber says. “Let’s give him a minute and get a cup of coffee in the café. You can meet Ilaria’s grandmother while I call Iris.”
Laying his hand on my arm, Cruz asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’ll be fine.”
Taking Amber’s hand, he nods. “Be okay. Not fine.”
After they leave, I lock the door and rummage through my packed bag for Dubai to find the phone from Pharm. I take a deep breath and dial the number.
“I will always answer.”
“It didn’t take as long as I thought it would,” he cackles. “What can I help you with, Mr. Raniero?”
“When I got out of prison, I met with a Dr. Harry Looper. He and his wife, Connie, were shot, execution-style, shortly after I began his high-tech treatment of prescriptions. Before his death, he mentioned treating Tim Abbott.”
“The Canary.”
With exasperation, I say, “I later went on to interview Violet, who said Canary disappeared with the start of Entropy.”
“Are you asking if Canary is dead?”
“Yes,” I mumble.
“I suggest calling KV.”
Kary Vega.
Struck by his willingness to be so forthcoming, I push harder, “How do you know Vega?”
“I will tell you everything I know,” he replies. “But you must promise never to speak a word of what I say, and I will do the same for you.”
My mind ticks back to the svelte man in the eccentric purple suit and fedora wrapped with a leopard print band. He’s atypical for military, black ops, or even law enforcement. He’s what we tend to think of as an encroacher, a pestilence, a menace, not a hero. The knowledge of which speaks doesn’t complement the packaging, causing a deep rift in my system.
“Consider it done,” I say, grabbing my notebook and flipping back a few pages to the intricate grids I drew on CAE. “I’ll take it to the grave because, for over a decade, I’ve been looking for someone willing to tell me the truth.”
“I’ll tell you the truth,” he assures. “But it’s not willing; it’s brave.”
“Say it.”
“Vega tried to convince me to go in witness protection after what happened at the Swiss chalet in 97. He could’ve persuaded Canary to go in, or they got him.”
“Who is they?” I inquire. “Atticus?”
“Atticus was only a neuroscientist,” he says. “And the tip of the iceberg. People give The Spider way too much cred.”
“… You were there,” I state, knowing my gut instinct is spot on. “Admit it.”
The dead silence causes chill bumps on my arms. “We took in a team of twelve during the middle of the night. What we saw, what we witnessed, nobody ever should. We endured the torture of that poor girl for hours, getting fried, doped up, and abused for her “final treatment.” We had no idea that they wanted to replicate what happened or that we’d be held hostage for the rest of our lives and bound to silence.”
“You saw Hennessy Bindel’s experiment.”
“I did,” he remorsefully whispers. “And then I watched when she woke up and killed her parents.”
“She wants revenge for the murders she committed.”
“What Henney wants, she may never get,” he informs. “Frederick and Agnes Bindel expanded upon the idea, just like Philippe and Desirée Tolan, but none of them started the fire. It was a collective, a society started with one bad idea and expanded into a behemoth that no one could control.”
“Stop worrying about who foots the bill,” he encourages. “That’s where you’re going wrong. I’ll tell you who—many people tossed coins in that cookie jar. You’re never going to get all of them. You won’t find a military or a government organization or anyone in a position of power who hasn’t tried to fine-tune a human into the ultimate weapon.”
“You’re in hiding.”
“I don’t have a choice. We aren’t dying off by natural causes; the soldiers are being silenced. Unless Canary is in protection, I’m the only one left. I stay low in the swamps, stealth in the gloomy fog, and guarded by Morpheus’ army. If you want to talk to someone, call Mierne Risen because she knows far more about the backend than me.”
Miemie.
“What does she have to do with any of it?”
“She profiled all of the Entropy after Henney,” he says. “And I only know that because of Bertrand; she was the Honeybee.”
“Guarded by The Beekeeper, Cas Hope.”
“More or less,” he says. “But Cas had no clue what she was dealing with, and Kaci pulled Bertrand out of service. She knew they were eliminating the v1.0, calling them obsolete after successfully implementing and reintegrating v1.5. The eight in Entropy are the only ones remaining.”
“Iris…” I close my eyes. “What did Mierne have to do with any of it?”
“She stumbled on the Henney case by accident when she had first started doing contract work for Sibyl. She ran profiles on potential candidates and quit when she realized they were discarding the experiments gone awry. They were killing the kids.”
“There is a gap between when they started with Henney and me...”
“Not really,” he says. “You just don’t have all the pieces. Entropy handled the orientation the best, but there were at least four times as many, out of thousands of applicants. Mierne declined almost all. The questionable ones ended up being experimented on, and if they didn’t like the results, they offed them like Brittney Gennaro.”
“Brittney died by my father, Cesario.”
“You can call an ostrich a flamingo; it doesn’t make it so. Brittney died because she started leaking source files.”
I scribble notes on the page, one-word triggers. “What does that mean?”
“She started recovering her memory of what all happened in the lab,” he informs. “And once that happened with v1.0’s, they were to be eliminated. Same with Janna Hahn, but she was one of the better-formed ones. No one expected her death.”
Nick killed her the night Old Poppa died on her orders…
“Fuck.”
“With the success of v1.5, they narrowed v2.0 down to only two.”
“I remember all of it,” I confess. “There are only five v1.0 remaining: Jaid, Gabe, Mitch, Bertie, and Henney.”
“There are only eight units still alive,” he points out. You are a v2.0, fully equipped to handle memory.”
Says who?
“The slopes tell stories, man,” I confess, acknowledging my problems with addiction. “I’ve had issues.”
“I get that, which is why acceptance became harder to obtain when you came along. The funding or pedigree had to warrant it, like Iris and you. With your marriage already arranged, they longed to build the perfect killing pair.”
If we do not destroy one another.
“Why didn’t they eliminate Mierne when she quit?”
“You pay their bills; they call off their hounds.”
I mutter, “Anna is paying for Mierne’s protection.”
And Noah Cruz’s experimentation.
There are nine active CAE units.
“Pretty much.”
“Who is paying for me?”
With a foreboding rumble, he whispers, “Daddy’s got your back well covered, Boston.”
90
Silent Baptism
The Master
Four hours before I get on the plane to Dubai, a card arrives under the door.
“Bring your luggage, Boston. Oscurità now.”
“I will meet you at the airport,” I say to my roommates. “Wear the red dress hanging in the closet, Amber.” Cruz eyes me—you bought your mistress a dress?—and grins as I tell him, “I’m working on being a better man.”
“Yes, Sir,” Amber gleefully remarks. “I’ll be ready.”
“Did Iris ever call back?”
“No,” she says, looking down. “I’ll keep trying.”
“Where am I going?” Cruz asks as they follow me into the bedroom. “You want me to finish packing this place?”
“Brazil,” I say, tossing my toiletries in the bag. “First class ticket is already purchased and waiting for you at the airport in Rome.”
Stroking his chin, he imparts a scrutinizing stare. “And the purpose of the mission?”
“Get my wife the fuck out of the hot zone.”
“Where am I taking her?”
“Home,” I reply, gathering up the last of my things. “Swain, Mock, Naby, Kevyn, Moses…they’re all in Texas now.”
“You managed to move everyone.”
“I haven’t slept in weeks,” I reply, knowing we are running out of time. “I’ve got a security team on Sarah Olsman, you may not want to acknowledge her as your mother right now, but at some point, you might, and I can’t risk it. I also called Kate and Hilda.”
At the door, I kiss Amber, and she whispers, “What if Rowan shows up again?”
“She won’t,” I reply. “I gave her what she wanted, and I’ve been talking to Niamh nonstop. As soon as the crate arrives, she is on it.”
“Like she wants to be on your dick,” Cruz ribs.
With a grin, Amber asks, “How many dick pics did that cost ya?”
“You two are terrible!” I roll my eyes and shake my head. “And more than I care to think about. But I’ve got Niamh’s attention, and she’ll play.”
“You’re so bad,” Cruz laughs, hugging me. “Everything is going to be okay. Knock them out like dominoes. Burn the pages one by one. Don’t overclock.”
“I know,” I declare with conviction. “We’ve got this.”
“To the end, brother.”
“More than words,” I whisper, whiffing his skin once more before I leave. As if it’s not enough that I smell like him from last night. I hung up the phone with Pharm, and Cruz provided the ground. He always does. “Be careful.”
“You too, Master Nero the Black.”
With a smirk, I wink, “Nevah!”
After I pay the driver, I march into Oscurità like I own the joint. I set my bags in the changing room and head downstairs in my Henley and jeans.
Fuck the damn frock.
I am who I am.
Two high-back chairs are surrounded by four torches as Dom, in dress slacks and shirt, smirks. “You hurried. Good boy!”
“You took a risk in leaving Sugargrove.”
“I left as soon as you got off the phone with Pharm. You need me. Sit.” He waves his hand to the chair opposite his. “Let’s have a chat.”
“Okay,” I cautiously say. “I hate the sound of this.”
He grins. “People have said I was a rabid wolf concerning Iris, but they don’t know the lethal venom in my fangs when it comes to my boys—you—specifically.”
I sit down, spread my thighs like I don’t got shit to prove, and light a smoke. “Why is that?”
“I see myself in you.”
“I fucking adore you,” I admit, exhaling. “If you plan to kill me, I am not going to fight back.”
With his distinctive, rarely heard, laugh, he shakes his head. “Like I would kill one of the best things I ever did. I have children that I am raising, but you, Deacon, and Iris, you are my mafia brats.”
“I like that,” I whisper, flicking my ashes. “You helped in the deal with Pharm.”
“I did,” he concedes. “Morpheus is a beast at keeping his people safe.”
“Is he mad about Durante?”
&nb
sp; “Fuck no,” he says as I stare at him. Almost fifty, he doesn’t look a day over thirty. I’m starting to worry I will be wrinkled and gray before he is. “He didn’t know that kid. His sister, Yara, is upset, but I’ve promised her a spot at Juliet.”
“Which, of course, the Grand Dame will allow based on Morpheus’ influence.”
“Because Anna loves me,” he gloats with a devilish grin. I get the sides of Dom that few ever see. “We’re family, ya know?”
I hear the essence of our Italian connection.
“Ya, I gotcha,” I snicker. “Little tidbits you’ve been dropping like bombs for years.”
“It’s time to graduate from Nero and…me,” he somberly says as I flinch. “I have to let your hand go for reasons which have no bearing on the game board that you and I reside upon.”
Concerned, I ask, “Are you leaving me?”
“Like hell, shit is just getting good,” he brags with a chuckle. “I won’t ever abandon you or your dirty cohort or the damsel you keep.”
“Which one?” I laugh. “Amber, Hannah, Iris, or the Cajun Queen?”
“All of the—damsels,” he chuckles, correcting himself. “Oki is pregnant with our baby—Megan’s and mine. Megan and I are getting married. You’re moving splendidly on your own, and I have to—resign my position.”
“You are leaving,” I mutter, heartbroken. “When I need you the most…”
“Not true,” he calmly says, like disarming a suicide vest. “You’re about to be a father. Deacon has a child. I will be at my house, working your numbers for the rest of my days, but I can no longer actively guide the flames, day in and day out. I’ve trained you, and you need to do it on your own.”
I accept his decision with a nod. “If I need you?”
“You know where I am,” he offers with a subtle smile. “Have you figured it all out yet?”
“I have an idea,” I say as we play a masterful chess match. “Shall I begin, Sir?”
“Hit me, Boston. Knock my fucking socks off,” he says as his hands move when he speaks. Italian. “I’ll try and fill in some pieces where I can, but I don’t have all of the puzzle either.”
A Dark Place (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 5) Page 71
