“Yes, that’s exactly what I am. So, call off your hounds and stay the fuck away or we’ll leak that recording to the feds. Not only will you and your family lose everything, you’ll spend the rest of your life behind bars for killing a cop.”
This fucker has me exactly where he wants.
“You have until midday to give me the all clear, I’ll call back then. After that, the video leaks.”
Miguel hangs up and the fucker in front of me smiles.
“That was the message ese, now you need the warning to stay the fuck away,” he says pulling an envelope from his pocket.
I take it and he gets in the truck and drives away.
I look in the envelope and my stomach lurches when I see a finger inside with a wedding band.
Dropping the envelope, I know straightaway who the finger belongs to. It’s Kirk’s. And, that can only mean he’s dead.
The guy is nearly out the gate, but the time I look ahead. I want to kill his ass, but what the fuck would that achieve.
Things just took a turn for the worse so I do the only thing I can and call Vincent.
He answers on the first ring.
“We have a problem,” I say.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Lilly
My head… it feels like it might fall off. It’s so light and painful. I have it back when I try to move it forward I wince from the sharp pain that spikes through my forehead.
Opening my eyes I look around and see I’m in some sort of storage room. the high ceilings suggest that it’s maybe a warehouse.
I look to the door when footsteps sound against the floor and my pulse skitters when Miguel walks in.
I jump, startled by his presence but I can’t go anywhere because I’m tied to a chair. Bound with my hands tied behind my back and my feet tied together. All I can do is rivet my gaze to his. He sits on the stacks of crates before me with his fingers templed. He straightens up and gives me that smile from last night.
“Awww wife, is that anyway to greet me? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he says with a smirk.
“You’re supposed to be dead, what happened?” I throw back.
“Wow, I guess you didn’t miss me then. There was a situation I had to take off and being dead was the only way I could handle it. I fake my death. It’s easy to do when you have certain friends. My enemy has now been eliminated. So I came back from the dead. But I came back only to find I had no family left. Wife and baby gone.”
My God… I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Let me go,” I say. “Let me go please. I don’t want to be with you.”
“No, you want to fuck around with mobsters,” he says with a laugh. “I’m not sure how to feel about that. Or if I should just add it to the long list of things I’m mad as fuck at you for. I was pissed to find out you’d left Columbia with my daughter, since I killed Juan for helping you that tied things over. But then I was mad as fuck that you changed your name back to St. James, and my daughter’s as well. Do you know how I felt when I found out you did that?” He stands and eyes me dangerously. “I was as fuck when my men couldn’t find you, thankfully I have the best. It took us awhile to locate you and we had to make sure it was you. I was mad as fuck when I discovered my wife was dancing at a sex club and her body was up for sale to the highest bidder. Fucking whore, you’re going to pay for that.”
“I was—” I don’t get to say anything. Miguel strikes me with the back of his hand and I see stars and tears pour from my eyes as an immediate reaction to the pain.
“How fucking dare you embarrass me like that! Fucking whore. Then you went and got yourself shacked up with a mobster. My do you ever like the bad boys.”
Another strike lands across my cheek and I start to cry harder.
He laughs, walks out of the room and when he comes back he’s got Rosie.
“How did you get her!” I wail and think of Vera.
“Relax, I didn’t kill the maid. I simply snatched her while she was playing in the park. The old woman was busy knitting and never saw a damn thing. To our credit though we moved fast. Didn’t want any blood spilled yet.”
I look at Rosie and she’s receded into her shell again, sensing the man holding her is the most dangerous of them all.
Miguel looks at her. “My little Rosita, look at you, how big you’ve grown in just one year.”
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Well, what I want has no changed. I wanted you back. I wanted you and Rosie back. Now I don’t. I don’t want a filthy whore in my home or raising my child. So I’m taking her and I’ll dispose of you accordingly.”
“No, please don’t do this. Rosie needs me,” I answer. The thought of him taking Rosie pains me more than the pain in my face.
“I don’t think she needs someone like you.”
He walks out with Rosie and I call after him.
“Please, Miguel bring her back!” I cry. “Bring her back to me. Bring my baby back!”
The only sound is the echo of my voice in the room.
He’s taken her and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
He’s going to kill me.
There’s no one to save me.
Not Christian or anybody.
It’s over between me and Christian anyway.
I don’t want the hurt of knowing he’s not coming.
I have no one.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Christian
Vincent sits across from me looking enraged.
We’re gathered in my sitting room once again, except it’s meeting style. Everyone in the line of defense is here, with the addition of Georgiou. Gibbs is upstairs with one of the guys on his team.
Everyone looks like they don’t know what to do. we’re not men who entertain threats, and we aren’t men who stay the fuck away either.
This is possibly the biggest threat we’ve had to tear us down because if that video leaks and the feds get it and see me shooting a cop, I’m done for.
The thing about it though is this… if it were just me, I wouldn’t care.
I wouldn’t care what happened to me. But Vincent’s involved too and if he goes down then I don’t know what would happen. He has a family to take care of.
Feds have wanted him for years and they’d pin everything on him they’ve ever wanted to send his way. That would open the floor for a whole investigation on the business. All they’d need to do is find the shipment list for the guns and that would shut Giordanos Inc down, drag in people like Angelo and many other. it would be the end of the world for us and everything many have worked so hard to build.
The end of the empire. I can’t help but blame myself because once again this tracks back to me.
I was with Lilly, and her undead husband was watching me because of it.
“What’s it gonna be Vince?” Salvatore asks.
Nick and Gabe exchange worried glances.
“We need something if we’re going to continue,” Nick says and glances over at me. He’s the most similar to me with the dislike of control, but even he would be backed into a corner of shit in this situation.