Queen of Thorns: A Dark Mafia Romance: War of Roses Universe (Mice and Men Book 2)

by Lana Sky

  And they might not.

  Time is ticking. Who knows how far she’s gotten by now. Or what state she’s in…

  “Yes, sir,” one of the men replies, drawing up to my side. Fairly young, he’s a new recruit, and I spot his hands fidgeting with the sleeve of his gray uniform jacket. I know how he feels, but just months into the job, he hasn’t gotten it yet—our most important work is done in these quiet moments, far from gunfire.

  Even if it feels as useless as twiddling thumbs.

  “Tell me what you’ve deduced so far,” I command, facing him directly.

  He clears his throat. “She’s not on the property. Left alone, it seems. No signs of forced entry,” he adds. “If you plan on sending out another team, I’m ready.”

  I ignore the suggestion, though I’m just as anxious to get moving. Do something.

  Damn, Willow. She’s not like the other coddled heiresses I’ve dealt with. A beautiful girl with a wealth of secrets behind her silence. What in the hell would make her run?

  There’s always the possibility that someone breached the manor and took her—but I secured the premises myself. Two teams of ten patrol at all times, covering every inch of the property, not to mention the state-of-the-art surveillance. I’m fairly confident that God himself couldn’t break into this manor.

  But a certain sheltered heiress could find a way to sneak out, if she were so determined.

  Before I know it, I’m questioning yet another tenet of my tried and true creed. What use is loyalty to a family wrought with secrets? How can I protect what I can’t even begin to understand?

  I know the answer—my intuition hasn’t failed me yet, and it’s telling me that this has everything to do with one man and one man only.

  Donatello Vanici.

  What is his tie to the Stepanovs beyond the obvious? Mischa rarely gives in to impulse, but he drew first blood against Vanici without even waiting for better intel. Only God knows what can of worms he might have opened as a result.

  And I’m the fool left to wrangle the mess with no clue as to the nature of it.

  “Sir?” the man beside me questions.

  I wave him off. “Give me a moment.”

  Setting aside any suspicion, I refocus on the room itself. There has to be something here. A clue. Anything. I start with the bed. It’s been left fully made, the sheets undisturbed. The only means of exit, other than the door, are the windows, both closed. I test the latch of one, finding it locked. Not to mention it’s too high from this floor to climb down unseen.

  “She didn’t leave from here,” I state out loud.

  Which makes one possibility all the more likely—though I have enough tact not to say as much. Not until I’ve left the rookie behind and retraced my steps throughout the house, finally entering a study on the first floor.

  Sympathy is an emotion I tend to shun, but if any man deserves it, it’s Mischa Stepanov.

  I don’t think he’s slept for days. Seated behind his desk, he could be mistaken for a ghost. Pale skin and windswept blond hair only add to the effect, and I wouldn’t put it past him to have patrolled the outskirts of the property himself on foot.

  All night.

  One look at him, and I feel compelled to bend those boundaries I’ve steadfastly maintained.

  “Mischa…” On second thought, I suppress the urge in favor of doing the one useful thing I can.

  Stay professional.

  “Sir,” I say instead, pausing near the threshold of the room. Spacious, with a view of the west lawn, it’s a prime position to spot any traffic in or out of the manor. I can’t resist scanning the expanse of road, hoping to see a mafiya van on the horizon, Willow in tow.

  All I find are the gray sky, fields, and the trees beyond.

  “You’ve rechecked the property as I asked?” Mischa asks without looking up from his clasped hands. The muted response is a world apart from his initial reaction hours earlier—a fact that would terrify anyone who knew the man personally.

  His anger may be legendary, but he’s at his most dangerous when calm.

  “Yes, sir,” I say in answer to his question. “There is no sign of forced entry. I have my men in two teams out looking, but Vanici’s residences have been cleared out. There’s been no sign that he’s left the city, and—”

  “She couldn’t have gotten far on foot,” Mischa interjects, turning to stare from one of the windows.

  Like me, I suspect he’s merely going through the motions, voicing the expected questions when the answer is painfully obvious.

  “Yes, sir,” I reply anyway.

  “She left on her own, didn’t she?” There is no despair in his voice. No anguish.

  I’ve never seen a man so drained of everything but pure exhaustion.

  Standing at attention, I don’t mince words. “My guess is that she left on her own but impulsively.” I can’t disguise the irritation in my voice.

  Willow could be calm and reserved well beyond her nineteen years—but at her core, she’s still nineteen. A child.

  Mingled among the reports from her detail overseas in Vienna would be anecdotes of her sternly exposing a professor who insulted her or reprimanding anyone who dared to treat her any differently due to her disability.

  “She’s strong,” I say finally.

  “She’s impulsive,” Mischa snaps. “She’s stubborn.”

  He’s right—and she has no fucking clue as to the way things really are, or how far some men might go to gain leverage over her father.

  Mischa’s worked hard to keep his family safe. In the process, he’s also kept them sheltered from the reality of their status. Willow never understood one truth. She isn’t a normal woman—she’s a pawn in a game of power.

  “Fuck, I should have known better than to leave her alone,” Mischa snarls, curling his hands into fists. “Hell, I should have locked her in her room and thrown away the key. I knew she couldn’t leave him—” He breaks off, but I can suspect what he doesn’t say. Who.

  So I voice it for him. “You mean Donatello Vanici.”

  He says nothing, but the look he sends my way is a clear warning to tread carefully.

  Well, I’m tired of tiptoeing. “If she went after him, I need to know why. What happened between them?”

  Still nothing.

  “Sir, it’s only a matter of time before he retaliates if he isn’t already planning an attack,” I point out. “We need to stay on guard. Track his allies. Maybe he’s contacted someone in the famiglia. We need to—”

  “Enough.” Mischa swipes a hand through the blond stubble speckling his chin. From this position, I have a glimpse of paperwork stacked haphazardly before him. What could be so important he’d pick now of all times to read it? As if aware of my attention, he shoves the stack aside, further from view. “I will handle Vanici.”

  “Alone?” I raise an eyebrow. “Sir, maybe if I didn’t let you go after Vanici alone, we might have been able to avoid—”

  “Are you challenging me, Evgeni?” His eyes cut in my direction as his raised voice echoes throughout the room.

  “I’m just asking a question, sir,” I say softly. Though I couldn’t disguise the annoyance from my tone if I tried. Mischa went and kicked the proverbial hornet’s nest, attacking Vanici’s nephew. And for what? All on shitty intel and a reckless whim.

  But I know the man. In six years, I’ve never seen him act without an ironclad cause.

  Unless it’s personal. Emotional. Only then can his instincts sometimes tend toward…irrational.

  “Vanici’s left his villa,” I add, voicing what little intel I’ve managed to gather in the aftermath. “His associate, Fabio Botelli, has gone underground. There is no word on the status of his nephew, though we’ve assumed the worst. Finding Vanici should be our top priority.”

  Not playing hide and seek with a girl we both know is long gone. And yet, Mischa inclines his head to glower at the grayish sky, stubbornly silent.

  It’s been a game we�
�ve played since Mischa had the man removed from his daughter’s ball. A verbal round of tag in which I ask more potent questions about Vanici and his history with the Stepanovs, and Mischa avoids answering every single one.

  I can’t fathom why. Mischa certainly isn’t known for being demure—neither am I—and now isn’t the time for coyness when Willow’s life may be on the line.

  So damn tact. “Can I ask why, sir?” It’s a question loaded with a million others left unasked. “Why attack Vanici with little more than hearsay to go off of? Why was Willow found in his home after her first disappearance?”

  The questions get more unsavory from there, but I’m not stupid enough to voice them now.

  Why is she drawn to him?

  Why has Mischa eschewed his usual tact and restraint where Vanici is concerned?

  Why is he playing so coy with the answers?

  And why is he hampering the efforts to find his own daughter by keeping me in the dark?

  “I need you at the hospital,” he says tiredly. “I want you stationed near my wife. Only you.”

  I nod, smothering my irritation. For now. The concern in his tone takes precedence, and I know he wouldn’t ask this lightly. “Any improvement in her condition?”

  He winces. “Eli is stabilized enough to possibly come home tomorrow,” he says, referring to his son. “The baby could be released in a week.”

  But as for his wife? His silence says for him what he can’t. Her condition is unknown, so tenuous the prognosis changes daily.

  “Go,” he demands, turning his back to me. “Vanici could attack the hospital next.”

  I nod, starting for the door. As I toe the threshold, however, I hesitate.

  “What about Willow?” I ask. “I have my men searching Vanici’s known properties as we speak. But if I knew more of their history… Even more about what happened after the debutante ball—”

  “I will handle Vanici,” Mischa growls.

  But what could happen in the meantime?

  Especially if the man has Willow. I have no delusions about what he might do to her. I’ve known men like him. Hell, I’ve worked for them. Be him a mercenary or a crime lord, the breed is the same. If he doesn’t kill her—or worse—then he’ll attempt to make contact soon, if only to sell her.

  “Sir, time is of the essence,” I insist.

  “Evgeni…” When I look over my shoulder, his gaze meets mine with an intensity that would make the rookie upstairs piss himself. “Are you refusing a direct order?”

  “No,” I say—which should end the conversation. My feet twitch against the floor, but I don’t move.

  Despite my better judgment, I can’t let this go. Sending me to the hospital now would be the equivalent of shoving me to the sidelines.

  Why?

  “I think I could be of more use to you here—”

  “Ellen is the one who has use of you.” He whirls around, bringing both hands hard over the surface of his desk. The resulting thud resonates through the room like a gunshot. A warning.

  “I meant no disrespect—”

  “Go,” he commands, dismissing me with a wave of his hand. “That wasn’t a request.”

  “Sir.” I nod, finally reentering the hall, clenching my jaw against another retort.

  Or an accusation—is this really the time to withhold information? Especially whatever might prove vital to anticipating Vanici’s next move. Though a part of me sneers that the real question is a different one entirely.

  How much is Mischa willing to pay for his daughter’s life?

  I’m sure that will become clear soon enough.

  4

  Don

  West Helm Lumber. An unimpressive facility with an even less impressive name—and by design. No one would ever suspect the seat of the famiglia’s power rested in this sprawling, nondescript complex in the hills surrounding Hell’s Gambit.

  Which is the point.

  Giovanni loved the juxtaposition of, instead of the casino or the restaurant, the true heart of his establishment residing someplace far different. In a Podunk hellhole, as he liked to joke. The man could be poetic when he felt like it.

  It’s been seven years since I’ve made this drive, but it still looks the same. Sort of. Leading off the highway, the asphalt road switches to beaten dirt, as old and worn as the day I came here as an eighteen-year-old kid, over four years into my career.

  I’d been blindfolded that very first time, herded into the back of a van by the men more senior to me. It was tradition to make a big fucking deal of it all, if only to drill in the importance of what coming here meant—you were trusted. In the fold.

  Part of the family…and how did I repay that trust?

  By turning my back on the organization entirely—a mortal sin in our world. You don’t just leave the famiglia and come back.

  Still, I can’t help but taunt myself with that fucking cliché at the sight of the battered sign appearing up ahead, pointing the way forward.

  Home sweet home.

  It even smells the same, a stench that seeps into the body of the car, despite the windows being rolled up. My nostrils flare to inhale it all. Damp wood, dirt, and musk.

  Up ahead, the gate’s entrance looms, a simple twisted wire fence outfitted with more security cameras than some military bases. Whoever is manning them has seen me coming for a mile now—but, oddly enough, they haven’t mustered the cavalry to meet me.

  Yet.

  A battered metal speaker is affixed to a pole, easily reached from the driver’s seat, and I wrench the window down, craning my neck.

  “You know who I am,” I say into it as a weak smattering of raindrops pelts my head. “Either let me in or put a bullet in my head now. I don’t fucking care.”

  I mean it, and I close my eyes in grim anticipation of a response. If fate would have it that my story end here, then so be it. What a pathetic finale, but at least I’d have some ounce of peace. I might even see Olivia again on my way to hell…

  It isn’t long before an answer comes—not a gunshot. Rattling metal and the telltale whine of turning gears cut the silence instead. I open my eyes, resigned to the sight I find.

  The gates slowly drift apart, clearing the way—but it’s not the greeting one would expect in the old days. No men appear to line the road, and no warning comes from the speaker. Both signs don’t bode well at all. Either the famiglia has become more welcoming to visitors, or I’m heading straight into a trap.

  Though, hell, it’s not like I have any other options. Sighing, I grip the wheel and drive.

  It could be the fact that I’m viewing everything through a cracked windshield smeared with mud, but the landscape doesn’t look quite how I remember it after all. Gone are the meticulously maintained fields and hints of regular patrols. Nature’s returned with a vengeance, swallowing every inch of available land in thick weeds, and I don’t see a guard or van in sight. Not only that, but the fact that I’ve made it this close without being met with gunfire speaks for itself.

  Trap or not, one thing is apparent. Antonio let the place go to shit.

  The overall layout still resembles a large rectangle with the main headquarters residing in the center, three outbuildings on the perimeter, and a lumberyard in between. A layer of grime shrouds the landscape, and if I didn’t know better, I’d assume the property was abandoned. Most of the equipment appears rusted with disuse, and the piles of lumber stacked out in the open look suspiciously as though they’ve been there since the days of Giovanni.

  The old man is turning over in his grave. Maintaining the sawmill was one chore he always insisted on, no matter how much money his empire amassed. Everyone, including him, worked at least some part of the business. In his words. You forget the upkeep; you might as well forget your freedom. All the power in the world can’t buy you a good cover.

  Because the sawmill is just a front. Beneath the property is where the real business lies—an underground warehouse with direct access to the river.


  Though who knows what state the enterprise is in now.

  With every inch I gain on the winding road leading to the main building, Antonio’s influence becomes more obvious—primarily in the row of luxury vehicles parked amid a yard of overgrown weeds and sparse gravel. Apparently, he and his cohorts have taken the money for themselves rather than use it to maintain the façade.

  And it shows.

  Only five men stand on the steps of the building up ahead, weapons drawn—a fraction of the men Giovanni kept around at a given time. They look trained enough, despite wearing a mismatched array of jeans and casual shirts, another breach of protocol that would catch Giovanni’s ire.

  None of them move as I park and climb out. They just stare. As I spot my reflection in the glossy black paint job of Fabio’s car, I realize why.

  I look like hell. My hair is a fucking rat’s nest, my clothes rumpled, drenched in booze, and lighter fluid.

  Or maybe it’s the blood that has their attention? Reddish smears streak my hands. My wrists. My chin. My clothing is stiff with it, like armor against the judgment of anyone watching. I start to tug on my collar, only to let my hand fall. Instead, I jerk my chin without adjusting a damn thing.

  Let them stare. I may look like an animal, but they’re no different.

  “Keep your hands where I can see them.” The man in the center of the pack steps forward, keeping his pistol trained over my chest. A formality, I suspect, given he had every chance to stop me at the gate. I recognize his face. Luciano. Hours earlier, he watched me stroll out of Antonio Salvatore’s mansion.

  “You have some nerve coming here,” he says. His tone gives me nothing to go off of, his expression blank. I’m impressed despite myself—as far as poker faces go, he’s damn good.

  Which is a bad sign if I intend to navigate this meeting peacefully. Looking at him, it’s impossible to guess his motive—mainly why he let me go in the first place. Not to mention why he hasn’t shot me now. I could always go the intimidation route to gain answers, but as I spy the blood on my shirt, I lose the urge.