by Shandi Boyes
The last image I have of her isn’t close to any of those things. It’s one of pure fret. Like she didn’t believe I could get her out of this in one piece.
If the horrifying thoughts bombarding me now are anything to go by, she had reason to fret. The mattress is covered in blood. It isn’t formed how you’d expect from someone being fatally wounded by a knife or gun. There’s an outline of a body—a slim, you-wouldn’t-know-she’s-eight-months-along-if-you-were-looking-at-her-from-behind outline.
I snap my eyes shut, hopeful it will suffocate my wish to kill Clover when he announces, “Preacher did a quick swab of the mattress. Amniotic fluid was present.”
Confident I’m hearing him wrong, I shake my head before reopening my eyes. “She isn’t due for another four weeks. It’s too early—”
“Scalpel was also found…” He scrubs at his jaw before he pushes out, “And fetal matter.”
“Fetal matter? What the fuck do you mean fetal matter?” As my eyes bounce between his, horrifying notion after horrifying notion smack into me. “My daughter…” The rest of my question lodges in my throat when despair darts through Clover’s eyes. He doesn’t show emotion, not ever, but there’s no denying the sympathy in his eyes now.
Those fuckers didn’t just kidnap my wife.
They’ve taken my daughter.
Before he knows what’s hit him, I pin Clover to the entryway door of my suite, then press my gun against his temple. He’s almost three inches taller than me and nearly double my width, but that doesn’t mean shit since my fury is fueled by blackened hate.
“You killed her. You fucking killed her!” The spit off my roar sizzles on his cheeks. “If you had followed the plan, they would have let Audrey go, and my daughter would be safe.”
Some of my anger turns to vengeance when Clover shakes his head. “The fluid was almost dry to touch. This shit ain’t on me. Rimi has you played.”
The confidence in his tone should lower my agitation.
It doesn’t.
I’m seconds from ending his life as he had tried to do mine years earlier.
Arabian oil tycoons weren’t happy when they didn’t get what they paid for from my father. I’ve been making it up to them ever since.
Don’t feel sorry for me. They’re the reason all my bank accounts are in the eight-figure range. Whores, crack, guns, and unlimited entertainment are readily available in Bahrain, but you don’t enjoy it as much with your family breathing down your neck.
Rich dignitaries from the twenty-two Arab nations are invited into my home to discuss oil exchanges, money laundering, and weaponry distribution all ‘families’ are associated with. The above-mentioned is the icing on the cake, and the only reason I’m not fish food.
Only a fool would turn down a proposal worth eighty-three million dollars a year.
Clover isn’t one of them.
With that in mind, I suck in a big breath before lowering my gun. Killing Clover won’t get my wife and daughter back. If anything, it will delay their return.
“What was on the USB drive?” Rimi’s men wouldn’t have given this to Clover for no reason. His family’s legacy is as bad as my mine, but instead of rising it above the ashes, he’s tainting it with more controversy.
My lips purse when Clover mutters, “Sick, twisted shit.” He has an ironclad stomach, nothing ruffles him, so for him to say the video is fucked up, it most certainly is. “I wouldn’t recommend watching—”
I cut off his words with a slice of my hand. My relationship with Audrey isn’t close to traditional. She fell pregnant within weeks of us hooking up, we got married to ensure she could stay in the country to birth my child, and we have more things out of common than agreed upon, but she’s my wife and the mother of my child.
Our daughter makes her my family, and family comes first of all.
My heart thumps against my ribs when I crack open my laptop. Details of the ransom drop are still displayed on the screen. A team of cyber specialists have been working on it since it was received. They’ve yet to find a single snip of evidence to identify where it was sent from. For all we know, Audrey may not even be in the country.
“Cazzo…” I push out with a growl when the video commences playing on a woman being held down on the stained mattress. I can only see the lower half of her body, but her strength is undeniable. Even with four goons pinning her to the filthy bedding, she thrashes and kicks, her will to live seen without a single word being spoken.
Her stomach is gleaming from how far it’s extended, but its redness tapers when a scalpel is dragged across a section of skin usually hidden by a panty line. Although the video has no sound, I can imagine how blood-curdling her screams are. They’re removing her child from her stomach without anesthetics, acting like ruthless barbarians with callous rules.
My skyrocketing blood pressure gets a boost when one of the goons moves to the right of the frame, exposing the tiniest birthmark on the lower left side of the victim's stomach. It’s the shape of a mulberry leaf and unearths the victim’s identity in an instant.
“It’s Audrey,” I mutter out while dragging a hand over my almost black hair. “It’s my fucking wife.”
While Clover commences putting actions into place to respond to Rimi’s break of the rules, I continue watching the video. The footage is horrifying, but I have no choice but to watch every sickening second. The simplest thing in the background could be the only clue to Audrey’s whereabouts. I can’t miss seeing it because my stomach is twisted up in knots.
On instinct, my thumb caresses the screen of my laptop when a bloody and white film-coated baby is pulled from Audrey’s stomach. Aware I’m most likely watching, a man concealing his face with a balaclava holds my daughter by her feet like he’s showcasing a prize-winning catch before he shifts to face the camera.
I freeze the image when the cuff of his sleeve rises half an inch. His tattoo is the typical flame design most bottom-dwellers have. I stare at it until it's burned into my retina before hitting the play button. He just signed his death certificate, and I’m the Grim Reaper coming to collect his soul.
When the body of my child is dangled an inch from the camera, my eyes whizz over every inch of her upside-down face and grubby body, seeking any signs that she’s breathing. Her chest is as flat as mine, her nostrils un-flaring. She’s as still as a statue, her legs as frozen as her mother’s in the background.
“Come on, Fien,” I beg under my breath after taking in an identical mulberry leaf birthmark on her stomach. “Fight like your mother did when choosing your name.” I didn’t hate the name Audrey had picked, but I wasn’t a fan of it either. I wanted our daughter to have a traditional Italian name. Fien is of Dutch heritage, just like her mother. It’s short for Jozefien which is Audrey’s mother’s name. Fien’s grandmother.
My eyes shoot to the left of the screen when a pair of tiny hands enter the frame. This person’s wrists are slimmer than the man’s clutching my daughter’s feet and nowhere near as hairy, making me confident she’s female.
Just as the unseen woman removes Fien from the goon’s clutch, a white sheet is draped over Aubrey’s lifeless form, then the video ends. As I struggle to keep a rational head, I wring the screen of my laptop as if it’s Rimi Castro’s neck. I would wholly destroy it if the USB stick would come out of the carnage unharmed.
That horrifying video is the only proof I have that I have a daughter. No one knew she existed. No one knows she exists, but if I have it my way, those who now know will die to ensure my revenge lives.
Famiglia prima di tutto.
Vengeance is a very close second.
Chapter One
Dimitri
Nine long months later…
Ignoring India’s concerning glance, I scream for the driver to stop. It’s pissing down rain, and we’re running late to a function with a mafioso seeking a new realm in a town he isn’t wanted, but the redhead standing under the awning of a Publix supermarket has too many similaritie
s with Audrey to ignore. Same svelte frame, fiery red hair, and enticing curves I’m certain won’t alter no matter how many kids she rears.
“Dimitri… it isn’t her—” I lodge the remainder of India’s words into the back of her throat with a stern glare. She may very well be Audrey’s neighbor/friend, but she has no right to speak to me in such a manner.
Until Audrey and Fien are found, my search won’t end. I thought India understood this. If she doesn’t, she should leave now, because my belief that she understood my quest is the sole reason I’ve kept her around this long. She has a face that encourages visitors to our side of the pond, but her beauty is a dime a dozen—easily replaceable.
It will do her best to remember that.
While raking a shaky hand through my hair, I growl out, “I’ll never stop looking for her.”
“I know that.”
India scoots closer to my side of the bench seat. We’ve put bells and whistles on tonight’s festivities. A stretch limousine, whores by the bucketloads, and a woman who will never eye him as she forever eyes me. In a way, India should consider herself lucky Audrey classed her as a friend, or her unwanted sideways glances the past nine months would have caused her demise. She’s trying to profit from her friend’s downfall, or worse, use me as part of her grief process.
If I were to believe rumors, India’s husband has been presumed dead as long as Audrey has been missing. Although I feel sorry for India, I will not tolerate her suggestion that two broken hearts can meld into one.
Alas, I have to keep my cards close to my chest until it’s my turn to show my hand.
“But I also know the redhead isn’t her, Dimitri. Audrey only cut her hair the week she…” my tightened jaw slackens when tears well in India’s eyes, “… went missing.”
Just like me, she refuses to say Audrey is dead. Her legs were as still as Fien’s when she was torn from her stomach, but that doesn’t mean anything. I’m granted confirmation on the third of every month that my daughter is alive, so who’s to say Audrey didn’t find the same strength?
Despite having the weaponry and capital for a century-long war, and a crew of blood-thirsty men, Rimi has yet to man up. Although it frustrates me to no end, I can’t say I don’t understand his tactic. Why risk a net profit of 1.8 million dollars annually when all they have to do is provide proof my daughter is alive?
My grandfather would roll in his grave if he knew how cartels were being run these days. In his era, it was about infrastructure, drugs, and weapons. Now nothing but profit is on the mind, and innocents like my daughter get caught up in the bullshit.
Although pissed, I’ll find Fien, and when I do, there will be hell to pay.
The old saying, ‘Before you embark on revenge, you should dig two graves.’ I’ll need more than two. At last count, the Castros were sitting at eighty-nine men. That will take my quota to over ninety because despite what my father says, the Castros aren’t acting alone. Rimi isn’t smart enough to pull off a stunt like this without help. His family has only been in this industry for the past twenty years. Exploits like this require decades of experience. If it were simple, my father would have dabbled in it years ago.
He learned nothing from our family’s downfall and is forever looking for a way to make a quick profit. I could challenge his leadership, however my bend of the rules wouldn’t have the same outcome my father achieved. He didn’t kill the leader of the allied crew. If he had, he would have been dead no matter what.
After laboring my jaw side to side, I get back to the task at hand. “I’m not saying she’s Audrey, but there’s no harm in checking.”
Before India can issue a single worry I see in her eyes, I snatch up an umbrella from the storage in the door, then slide out the back seat of the limousine. With rain making it seem as if winter arrived early, I tug up the collar of my coat, hiding both my neck tattoos and goosebumps that have nothing to do with the winds whipping in from the east.
Nothing says gangbanger like a set of neck tattoos.
“Audrey…” I won’t lie, my heart stops beating when the redhead commences pivoting my way. India is right, her hair is a little longer than Audrey’s, and more an orange-red than a sapphire coloring, but their similarities are uncanny.
“Dimitri, hi,” greets a woman I swear I’ve seen before.
It takes me a few seconds to click on to who she is, but when I do, I am shocked. I’m not just chasing ghosts of my past anymore. I’ve caught up to them. “Justine.” She appears stunned I remember who she is. I don’t know why. We were born in the same hospital and attended the same school. I’ve just had my head up my ass too long for immediate recognition. “What are you doing out this way? I didn’t think the Walsh’s would ever leave Ravenshoe.”
When she smiles, I discover how well she grew into her buck teeth. She’s always been beautiful, but her legs were miles too long for her body, and her front teeth seemed to have a mind of their own. I can’t say I fared much better during the awkward preteen years, but my family name stopped it from being mentioned—as did my fists.
I stop smirking about times bygone when Justine discloses, “They still live in Ravenshoe. I’m heading home for Thanksgiving weekend. Thought I better grab some supplies first. As my mother always says, an empty hand is an unwelcoming one.”
“Do you live around here?” Shock echoes in my tone. Justine has four brothers. That’s the equivalent of living in a convent when you’re both the youngest and the only girl in your family. Why do you think it took me so long to realize she’s grown into her rabbit teeth? I wasn’t sure getting through her brothers would be worth the effort. Despite the heavy knot in my stomach advising me differently, I’m slapping myself up the back of the head right now.
Locks of red lava fall onto Justine’s shoulders when she notches her chin to our right. “I’m a sophomore at Eastwood State. It’s—”
“An easy hour drive to Ravenshoe,” I interrupt, unsurprised. Her brothers would never let her lead get too long.
Justine smiles again like she heard my inner monologue. “Yeah.” After a nervy swallow, she asks, “How about you? Last I heard, you were in New York.”
Is she keeping tabs on me? If so, I don’t mind. Our unexpected reunion has the first rays of sunshine breaking through the murky cloud that’s been hanging above my head the past nine months. I even feel capable of sucking in an entire breath. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this way.
When Justine coughs, prompting me that I’ve failed to answer her question, I say, “I’ve been floating in and out of states. I’m about to head home for a couple of days this weekend as well.” Her unique aquamarine-colored eyes widen when I unexpectedly add, “We should catch up?”
“Umm… sure. That’s sounds good.”
She doesn’t sound eager, but I pretend not to notice. “Do you have your phone on you?” Nodding, she pulls her cell out of her clutch purse before handing it to me. I’m not surprised to discover she doesn’t have a lock code. She’s lived a sheltered, naïve life.
When she drinks in my tattooed hand as I punch my details in her contacts, I gabble out, “My nonna warned me to keep my body art to an area only the privileged get to see.” With a hidden smirk, I mutter, “It’s the only region on my body not inked.” The way I say ‘it’s’ leaves no doubt about what I’m referencing. Excluding my cock, I have tattoos from my ankles to my jawline.
Like all teens craving a rebellion, I did the opposite of what I was told. I didn’t keep my mutiny to a tiny bicep tattoo on my eighteenth, I had my entire back done. My artwork has grown substantially since then.
I wait for Justine’s cheeks to flame to their full potential before muttering, “Do they bother you?” I’m not surprised when she shakes her head. Even hundreds of miles from my hometown, I heard rumors she was getting around with a tattoo artist during summer break. “Do you have any?”
Her nod switches to a shake. “I’ve not yet built the courage. I’m not a fan of needles
.” Her cheeks whiten as a tiny shudder racks through her body. “Or blood. Brax tells me I have nothing to worry about, but how can I be sure he isn’t giving me the line he gives all his clients?”
That’s the name I’ve heard thrown around with the rumor—Brax.
“Is Brax your boyfriend?” That came out way more possessive than intended, and I’m not the only one noticing.
While accepting her phone, Justine does a nervous twist on the spot. “No. It’s not like that.” She sounds like she’s trying to convince herself more than me. “We’re… friends.”
My lips furl at the way she stammers out friends. With how low her tone dipped, she should have said fuck buddies.
Although I have no intention of calling her out on her ‘arrangement’ with Brax, I can’t help but move forward with a plan that suddenly popped into my head. Knowing she isn’t as innocent as her brothers make out will progress things along nicely.
After popping open the umbrella I grabbed to act chivalrous, I commence guiding Justine to the car I’m certain is hers. It’s the only decent one in a lot full of shit boxes, and even then, it would be an effort to fetch a few thousand for it at auction.
My intuition is proven spot on when Justine stuffs a wonky key into an outdated lock a few seconds later. Once the latch pops up, I open her door for her. She’s surprised by my chivalry but also pleased about it.
I wait for her to place her bag of groceries onto the passenger side seat before saying, “We should do dinner.”
“Dinner?” She swallows her spit before she chokes on it, then wrings her sweater with her hands, torn on if she should act excited or play hard to get. We’re doing dinner either way, so she can act however she likes. “Umm…”
“Come on, J. A girl has got to eat.” Her brother’s infamous nickname will get me over the line long before my wolfish grin. Maddox is the only one who calls her J, and he’s the apple of her eye. Reminding her that we are ‘friends’ will do me more good than harm. “I heard the Petrettis signature dish is still to die for.”
