The Cardinal (The Holy Trinity Duet Book 2)

by M. E. Clayton

  “Could that be because she’d just seen someone get their brains blown out and was, oh, I don’t know, not in her right mind?” he sarcastically shot back.

  “That’s where you were Friday night, wasn’t it?” Luca reiterated for Leo’s sake. “You stayed the night with her to make sure she was okay.”

  “Well, goddamn,” Leo mumbled before making his way to the bar and pouring a drink.

  “It’s only ten in the morning, Leo,” I pointed out.

  “Yeah, well, I need alcohol to deal with you two fuckers,” he grumbled back.

  I shot Luca a look. “We’re going to have to AA him one day.”

  “No doubt,” Luca replied easily.

  After taking a healthy swallow of whatever Leo had poured himself, he said, “And she’s onboard with being a Benetti and all the fucked-up shit that comes with it?”

  “Because Sienna was?” I deadpanned. “I don’t seem to recall you letting her reluctance stop you.”

  “I’m the goddamn accountant,” he countered. “I don’t clean up murder scenes for a living or butcher people in my spare time.”

  “You’re still a goddamn killer, Leo,” I pointed out. “Just because I’ve got more blood on my hands than you do, doesn’t mean shit.”

  Leo chuckled. “Dude, you have more blood on your hands than the entire organization combined.”

  “What can I say? I’m good at my job.” I winked at the asshole.

  “So, she’s the one,” Luca surmised.

  I looked over at my older brother. “She is.”

  “And the sister?”

  “Forced rehab,” I answered. “They got into an ugly fight Saturday, and even without the drug dependency, the girl’s got an ugly jealousy streak in her.”

  Luca’s black eyes regarded me. “Sal, if you end up having to kill the girl, there’s a great concern there. I cannot see Ms. Turner taking kindly to that.”

  “And unlike everyone else, Blake has a good relationship with her mother,” Leo added. “How is her mother going to feel about Blake becoming a Benetti? And if her son-in-law ends up being responsible for the death of one of her daughters? I see Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas as rather strained occasions.”

  I shrugged. “If I have to keep her in rehab indefinitely, I will.”

  Luca gave me a terse nod. “And does she know she’ll have to quit her job and rearrange her entire life once she becomes your wife?”

  “We haven’t gotten that far,” I admitted. “But I’m sure the girls can find something for her to do. While her job isn’t glamorous, she’s a self-supporter.” I shot Leo a look. “Bet you she comes around before Leo’s wife.”

  Leo flipped me off.

  “What are the odds that we’d find the only women in the state who don’t want to just sit back and be pampered?” Leo grumbled, putting the liquor away, finally.

  “We’re lucky we did,” Luca replied. “Francesca would have had no patience for high-maintenance wives.” He shook his head. “Talk about strained holidays.”

  “No shit,” Leo agreed.

  “And the mother?” Luca asked. “What are your feelings on Mrs. Logan?” I wasn’t surprised that Luca remembered that Blake’s mother was remarried and remembered the man’s name.

  “I don’t think she’ll be a problem,” I told him. “She’s from Morgan City, she knows who we are.”

  “Okay.” Luca glanced at his watch before looked back over at me. “My main concern is the sister. We can’t have her putting Ms. Turner in harm’s way, nor can we have her trying to use our name as connections. She’s a loose cannon and I’d rather you ship her off to rehab before your nuptials.”

  “We can make it possible for Blake’s mom to attend but Luca’s right where the sister is concerned,” Leo added. “Any hint that she’s not on our side and there’ll be no holding Frankie back, and you know it, Sal.”

  Whatever I felt about Francesca Mancini-Fiore, she was just as dedicated to this family as we were. Any threat to us was one she took seriously, and Frankie wouldn’t hesitate to go after Caitlin Turner if she posed a threat to us.

  “I agree.”

  Luca nodded. “Also, pull up more details on Mrs. Logan and her husband, Charles. With different last names, the connection to Ms. Turner might go unnoticed, but we can’t chance it. Depending on what you find, if we need to move them to a more secured home, we will.”

  “I’ll dig deeper,” I assured him.

  “Good. Now, I have to go.” And with that, Luca walked out, always a busy motherfucker.

  “I don’t think the man sleeps,” Leo remarked as the door closed behind Luca’s retreating back.

  “I don’t think he does, either,” I agreed. “The fucker never stops.”

  Leo looked my way. “You think kids will slow him down?”

  I snorted. “Are you kidding? Kids will just give him a mini-army to train to be just like him. You see the way he is with Vincent and Mattia. Vincent will probably be learning to clean a gun at the same time he’s learning his ABCs.”

  Leo nodded. “I can see that.”

  I cocked my head. “This shit is…weird.”

  My brother chuckled. “It is,” he agreed. “You go your entire life doing the most intimate thing you can do with another person, but not connecting at all, and then, one day, you’re hit with a pair of eyes that damn near bring you to your knees and you have no fucking idea why. Why her out of all the women on the planet? Why her?”

  “It’s crazy how it instantly changes you.” I wasn’t one for touchy-feeling conversations, but I was still feeling a bit thunderstruck, and I imagined I’d feel better once we were married.

  “I got news for your, big brother,” Leo drawled out. “It gets worse after you’re married.

  Okay, so much for that theory.

  “How so?”

  “Because she’s yours,” he replied. “She’s yours in every way and you become responsible for another human being in a way you never were before. Blood ties parents to their children and vice versa. If there’s a falling out in the family, whether you like it or not, you’re still related by blood. You’re still kin, no matter what your heart, mind, or soul might insist otherwise. But your spouse? If you don’t take care of that person to the best of your ability, they have the option to walk and never look back.”

  “No Benetti wife has the option to walk and never look back,” I pointed out.

  Leo eyed me. “True,” he agreed. “But it’s gotta be a special kind of torture to love someone who doesn’t love you back and is only with you because she doesn’t want to die.”

  “I never saw myself getting married for any other reason than because it was expected,” I admitted. “And now that I’m getting married for love, or whatever it is Blake makes me feel, I finally see why you guys are off your nut when it comes to the girls.”

  Leo grinned. “Makes you appreciate Phoenix’s resilience even more, huh?”

  “I would never have been able to do it.”

  “Me, either.”

  “And I don’t ever plan on having to test that theory, either.”

  Chapter 18

  Blake~

  It was Monday afternoon, and thank God I worked sitting down most of the day because my body hurt like a sonofabitch. After the couch, Sal had been considerate enough to take it easy on me the rest of the night, but Sunday had been spent speed packing, because the crazy man had been serious about moving me into his place. It had been a long Sunday, with me taking whatever furniture I had wanted to keep, and the rest being donated to a woman’s shelter on the edge of town.

  And the movers? Yeah, they’d been men in suits, and they had moved my stuff wearing those damn suits. The entire thing had been intimidating as hell, but not nearly as intimidating as when I had first stepped into Salvatore’s condo. I knew the man had money, but it had still been a shock to see an example of just how much.

  Sunday night had been spent breaking in his bed and it had been both swe
et and demanding, and I imagined it would probably always be like that.

  We had also discussed how I was going to have a guard on me from now on, he just had to make sure to pick the right guy. He wanted to give me his guard Carlo, but he didn’t want me feeling uncomfortable, so thought it best if I chose from a selected few. He had also pointed out that I might want to talk to my mom sooner, rather than later, about our relationship, so that it explained why a man in a suit was following me around all the time.

  There was also my car situation. Sal had told me I’d be driven everywhere once I chose my guard and there’d be no exceptions unless I was with Sal. It seemed kind of extreme, but considering who he was, I knew I had to be careful. He probably had more enemies than friends, and once word got out that I lived with him, I knew I could potentially become a target.

  Sal had dropped me off at work this morning but said he would send a car for me when I got off work. We agreed his driver would pick me up around back as so not to bring too much attention to my status just yet. But I guess I should have been more specific, because walking through the back employee parking lot, I didn’t see anyone.

  There were three different entrances and exits from the back employee parking lot, so he was probably waiting at one of the other two. Heading towards the second entrance, I rounded one of the pillars and saw a sleek, black SUV and knew that had to be him.

  Only I didn’t get that far.

  A pair of strong arms grabbed me from behind, and though I fought for my life, I was no match for the white rag over my mouth. Hopelessness was all I felt as my body gave way to the toxicity of the white rag. However, fear was my final emotion before everything faded to black.

  I had no concept of time when I finally came to, but my head hurt like a sonofabitch and my mind felt this throbbing sluggishness.

  Struggling to understand what was happening, it took me a few minutes for the memories to resurface, and soon, panic snapped me awake. As soon as it did, I realized I was tied to a chair and that panic turned into absolute dread.

  “And she awakens.”

  I turned my head, feeling sick to my stomach, and that’s when everything started to come into focus.

  Holy shit.

  I didn’t know his name, but I’ve seen him before. As a matter of fact, I’ve seen both of them before, and once recognition came into play, it was easier to piece together what was happening.

  “Do you remember us?” the second guy asked. “Because we remember you, sweetheart.”

  I tried not to vomit as I let out an unsteady breath. “VIP,” I muttered, my throat feeling a little raw.

  “That’s right,” the other man said. “The Eagle’s VIP room.”

  “What…what am I doing here?”

  The older man answered with a slap across my face. My chair toppled over, and my head bounced off the floor, rattling my teeth. I could only lay there, tied to the chair, unable to move. But when the other man grabbed me by the shoulders to right me again, nausea threatened to erupt from my throat. I also felt the sticky mess of blood drip from my lip and side of my head.

  The older man crouched in front of me and screamed, “You got my son killed!” I was too dazed to comment. “Because of you, my son is dead, and my business is ruined!”

  “I…w…I…” Nothing seemed to be working.

  The man stood up but didn’t step away. Snarling down at me, he said, “Hector might have been illegitimate, but he was still my son and you got him killed.”

  Oh, Jesus.

  “Alonso-”

  “Shut up, Micha!” he yelled. “I am ruined and all because of this stupid whore!”

  “I’m just saying, you might not want to kill her too soon,” Micha said. “What good is she to us dead? If you want Benetti to pay, she needs to suffer undoubtedly.”

  I felt a hard grip on my jaw, and it felt like he was going to pop it out of place. “Oh, you’re going to suffer, you whore,” he seethed. “I might even let you live. See if Benetti still wants you after I’ve let all my men use you.”

  I focused on the man’s face and he didn’t look as evil as he was, but then neither did Sal. Brown hair, brown eyes, and lifelines around his eyes, he seemed pleasant-looking if he wasn’t currently glowering down at me, threatening to have me gangraped.

  “He…he’s…goin…gon kill you,” I told him, knowing there was no way Sal wouldn’t.

  “He’ll have to catch me first,” he sneered. “And even if he does, he will still be left with damaged goods.”

  “How…” How could they know I meant anything to Sal?

  His sneer turned into the ugliest grin I’ve ever seen. “Your sister is just a fountain of information, Ms. Turner.”

  Though not surprised, my heart still broke at that. Knowing my sister was so lost to me that she would sell me out for…whatever it was they had promised her was breaking my heart. Caitlin served me up on a silver platter to be used by these men as revenge and the ripple effect was going to be monumental. As hard as I had tried to keep our mother from knowing the truth, I knew I couldn’t keep this from her. I was going to have to tell her the truth about her eldest daughter and it was going to crush her. She was going to beat herself up wondering what she had done for Caitlin to turn down this destructive path.

  And then there was Sal to contend with. There was no way he was going to let my sister get away with this. Or, maybe, he’d think I wasn’t worth the trouble I was bringing to his door and be done with me. No matter what he decided, this wasn’t going to go unpunished.

  “What the fuck was that?” Alonso whispered.

  “I…I don’t know,” Micha answered in a hushed tone.

  I strained my ears to hear what they were talking about and that’s when I heard it.

  Footsteps.

  “You said this place was empty. Abandoned,” Alonso whisper-yelled.

  “I thought it was,” Micha hissed back. “My cousin, Mario, vouched that it was.”

  “Shit, shit, shit,” Alonso muttered, pacing back and forth.

  “Let’s go,” Micha said. “We can finish this up later. It’s not like we don’t know how to get her again.”

  “This was not the plan,” Alonso seethed. When he looked back down at me, that’s when I saw the absence of any kind of humanity.

  I shivered.

  “Fuck it,” he snarled right before his fists started raining down on my body and Micha joined him in my defenseless assault.

  When consciousness found me again, it was to sounds of someone asking me questions I couldn’t answer.

  When consciousness found me a second time, it was to the sickening feeling of motion knocking my body around.

  When consciousness found me a third time, it was with a light shining in my eyes, voices nothing but a garbled mess to my ears.

  When consciousness found me a fourth time, it was to someone asking me for my next of kin. And though my mother’s name was the first one to pop into my head, that’s not the name I gave them.

  “Sa…Salva…”

  “What, honey?” came a sweet, soft voice. “Salvation? Sally?”

  “Sal…Salvat…tore,” I managed. “Sal…vatore Ben…Benetti.”

  “Oh, Sweet Jesus,” was the last thing I heard.

  Chapter 19

  Salvatore~

  I’ve never known panic before. Even when I was a child, I’d never succumbed to the quicksand of panicked fears. Gio had raised us to fear nothing.

  I was panicked now, though.

  When Marcelo had called me to tell me that Blake had never met him in the parking lot of Sil-Med, I had immediately called her.

  And called her.

  And called her.

  And fucking called her.

  When I had finally tracked her phone, I had found it in her purse which had been dumped in one of the huge trash receptacles in the parking lot of her workplace.

  I had immediately called Luca and he had sent out a priority alert. Every Benetti soldier availa
ble had been sent out to find Blake. And as per protocol when something like this went down, Frankie, Robby, Remy, and Sienna had been placed on lockdown at Kratos, while me, Leo, Luca, Phoenix, and Ciro joined the search.

  And because it was obvious that Blake had been taken, we didn’t call the police or check hospitals. Blake being abducted was for a purpose, and besides, we took care of our own shit.

  When my phone rang, I answered on the first ring, seeing that it was Ciro. “Yeah?”

  “Lawrence Medical Center on Riggs Avenue,” he said. “A woman was taken in and when they asked her to name her next of kin, she said Salvatore Benetti.” My entire body ran cold, but I was already running a stop light to make an illegal U-turn towards Riggs. “Someone from the hospital knew to call The Diamond and ask for me. We’re on our way there now.”

  “We need-”

  “I called Luca first, Sal,” he said, pissing me off. “Because I know where your head is right now, I called him first, so he could make shit happen before we get there.”

  I rubbed my forehead, the sense of déjà vu was hitting me hard. “I’ll see you there,” I said before hanging up.

  When I got to Lawrence Medical Center, I pulled into the physician’s parking area knowing my car wouldn’t be towed or fucked with. And as soon as I entered the building, a nurse approached me as if she’d been waiting on me and maybe she was. Lord knows Luca took this shit seriously, so I had no doubt the man had worked the miracles that only a Benetti could.

  “Mr. Benetti, right this way,” she said, no nonsense-like. I followed her, and when we got to room 17-A, she turned the doorknob and opened the door, moving back to allow me entrance.

  Blake looking beaten all the fuck was the first thing I saw. The second was my brother and the man did not look happy. But then he rarely did.

  “I’m getting really tired of this,” he said. “Apparently, we haven’t made our positions clear enough on how we feel about women. Roberta, Sienna, and now Blake.” Luca shook his head. “This is…becoming troublesome.”

  I nodded. “Did the doctor tell you anything?” Luca deadpanned me. Of course, the doctor told him what was going on. “What did he say?”