Okay, the fact is, Uncle Frank may be a self-centered jerkoff at times but he’s still my family. He’d never hurt us.
Right?
Ugh, I hate that these seeds of doubt keep sprouting up about everyone.
Last night, I thought Massimo was a spy, for heaven’s sake.
I need to talk to James Borelli again.
All signs are pointing to the Aziz Shishani and the Chechen mafia.
They have to be the missing link.
I’m directing so much suspicion toward the wrong people. The people who are more than likely causing this terror are the ones who are getting closer to another attack, one I might not be able to thwart a second time around.
Massimo is here to help with that, but he doesn’t even know this situation exists.
I have to tell him.
I have to trust him.
And that scares me to death.
Because deep down, even though I have never been more obsessed with a man, there’s still a shadow of suspicion that clouds his handsome, chiseled face, one that precludes me from opening up completely.
But he’s smart and in the know and obviously someone who can navigate around thug assholes.
Good Lord, if I was in school right now, the topics du jour would be cell and molecular biology and immunology, not shooting an AK-47 and uncovering evidence of espionage and embezzlement.
I’m immersed in a much different type of curriculum as head of the Ivankov family.
I get up about ten minutes later, still clueless about whatever dirty secrets are being kept in this room. I sure as hell can’t find any of them, not that I know what I’m even looking for. Maybe a financial analyst would be able to interpret those business documents, but that’s not exactly my specialty.
I drag my finger over the spines of the well-worn books adorning the shelf space around the perimeter of the room. The leather bindings are cracked and creased from being read so many times. A tiny smile plays at my lips. I remember crawling into my father’s lap when I was little. He’d be reading one of the books and I always begged him to read to me.
And he always would.
I’d listen to his pronunciation of the Russian words, not understanding a bit of it, but smiling giddily like it was the most fascinating story I’d ever heard.
Just because I was in my father’s arms and happy as a clam.
Those days.
My God, they seem like a lifetime ago.
For a while after our blowout, I hadn’t been able to recall those memories. A blood-red haze suddenly clouded the past, and all of the good times we’d shared faded to the far recesses of my mind, unable to be retrieved.
I couldn’t draw them out no matter how hard I tried. That night was a dark stain on our relationship, muting all of the good and highlighting all of the bad.
But now that he’s gone, I can finally remember.
The darkness eclipsing my memory has finally lifted.
I’d been so ready to let the anger go but I never got the chance.
And now it still festers deep in my gut, mixed with regret and remorse that time will never again have the chance to heal.
That was my choice.
I wander out of the office, stopping next to the baby grand piano set up in the center of the conservatory. It gleams in the early morning sunlight streaming through the sheer gauzy curtains drawn over the windows.
I was tempted to slap garbage bags over them after what happened last night.
I scrub my hands down the front of my face to muffle the yell that slips from my lips.
It’s time for my first order of business.
I may not have the answers I need right here but I know they exist someplace.
Fire and Ice.
And I need to find the answers before anyone else, especially my uncle.
I take a few steps toward the basement stairs, Massimo’s gruff voice giving me pause.
“…lying sack of shit…broke…will hurt them…we need to stop him.”
I take a step backward, stumbling into the edge of the railing and slamming my funny bone straight into it. I curse the air, shaking my fist because the pain is so intense. I cover my throbbing elbow and jog into the kitchen, pretending I didn’t hear a single word of his terse conversation. I turn on the kitchen faucet for good measure.
Who could he have been talking about? His job is watching over me, so who’s the lying sack of shit?
Savio?
Probably.
But it doesn’t sound like something an employee would gripe about when he’s off doing a job for said lying sack.
It occurs to me that I know next to nothing about Massimo — his family, his work, his life. Hell, does he have his own place? He’s been here with us since I hired him.
Does he live with Savio?
A shiver ripples through me and I grab onto a glass that I almost knock to the floor when I whirl around to meet his hard gaze.
“What’s up?” I ask, trying to sound nonchalant when I feel anything but that.
“We need to get into the city as soon as possible.” His jaw tightens, violence swirling in his deep-set gaze. “Something has happened, and if I don’t handle it fast, I won’t be the only one staring into the barrel of a gun.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
MASSIMO
“What the hell are you talking about?” Kristina’s face pales. “Does this have something to do with the break-in? Or the texter?”
The toxic words dance around on the tip of my tongue, all of the dirty secrets and lies that have plagued me since I met her, the ones that have slung themselves around my throat like a noose that just keeps pulling tighter and tighter.
Ire bubbles in my throat. “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth.
“So why would we run right into the line of fire, Massimo? That doesn’t sound like the smartest move, does it?”
“Nobody can save you, Kristi,” I choke out. “Unless the threats are eliminated.”
“But we don’t know what the threats even are!” she screams, tugging at her hair. “How do we eliminate them? What are we going to find in the city?”
“I know where to find him,” I say tightly.
“Him who?”
“You just need to trust me.” That choice of word tastes like pure vinegar on my lips.
Fucking liars.
We’re all liars!
I pace the length of the kitchen, bringing a hand to the back of my neck where a stress knot takes up so much space, it should be paying goddamn rent to my spine.
“Who were you talking to just before?” she asks, narrowing her eyes at me. “Was it Savio?”
“Yes,” I grunt.
“Who’s the lying sack of shit?”
“Why were you eavesdropping on my call?” I stomp toward her, the vein in my neck throbbing as anger courses through me.
“It was a little hard to ignore since you weren’t exactly whispering. I happened to be walking past the basement stairs. Besides, this is my fucking house. I have a right to be anywhere I want.”
This day started out fucking phenomenally.
I’d hoped we could ride the post-coital high at least through the morning, maybe get in a few sessions before Quinn got back here with the girls after school.
And then that fuckhead Savio called and threw my world into upheaval.
I can’t very well tell Kristina that Eddie Lugo is the lying sack of shit.