I was out for blood and vengeance. I wanted his head on a stake for killing Claire.
Ethan promised me help to bring him down if I helped with this mission to find the blueprints.
I was supposed to be dead too like my other teammates that were blown up after Balthazar killed Claire.
I’d been a dead man walking all these years looking for vengeance and this gig made me see that I couldn’t keep on like I was for the rest of my life.
I couldn’t keep looking and hoping I’d kill the asshole then get that redemption I’d wanted so I could face Claire’s father, Jack.
There was so much to all of this mess.
Too much.
Right now everything was such a fucked up mess.
No wonder my head was ready to explode.
Wes gave me a firm nod and I left him.
I hurried back to Jia, hoping she was still asleep. I’d been away a little longer than I’d hoped to be.
The minute I stepped into my apartment something felt off. The presence felt off, as in non-existent.
When I got to my bedroom I realized why.
It was because she’d left.
I would have left well enough alone if I knew she was okay. But that was the thing. I didn’t know. She wasn’t answering her phone and that just panicked me more.
Last night we didn’t really go into too much specifics. Giovanni took her car so I guessed either Frankie who was placed to watch her had given her a lift to my place or she’d gotten a taxi.
I thought she would have done the same to leave.
I just wished she hadn’t left.
Frankie was outside her house in his truck. When I parked I could see him watching something on the little screen in front of him. Looked like a game.
Getting closer I saw it was football. I’d forgotten it was the height of the football season. He was watching a rerun and eating popcorn.
He saw me the second I walked up to the truck and rolled his window down.
“Hey man, what’s up?” he asked.
“Did Jia come back here?”
“Yeah. Less than an hour ago.”
“Cool,” I answered and made a move to go but he jumped out of his truck and stopped me.
“Xander…” He looked at me and blinked several times.
I focused on him and tried to cool down. Realistically I just wanted to go see Jia and make sure she was okay. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else.
“Yes.”
“Look, kid,” he began, and paused to look me over.
“What?” I knew he was about to launch into a lecture. Although he’d never lectured me before.
“Kid…” He called Vinny kid too, although he was only a year younger than him. It was because he was the oldest of the knights at forty-six. That made him my senior by ten years so him calling me kid was something I couldn’t dispute, especially since I was kind of acting like a boy obsessing over a girl.
“I gotta admit at first you got under my skin because I didn’t understand why the boss made you skip the hoops we jumped through, but you’re down to earth and we get on. If we didn’t there’s no way in fuck I’d put my damn neck on the line for you two. But there’s a line. There’s a limit. She told me what’s going on and I have to reign it in and tell you to watch your ass.”
“I just want to talk to her,” I replied.
“I know, and I can see you’re real sweet on her, and truthfully she needs that, but this is a whole other territory. You have to be careful because he will kill you. When it comes down to it Giovanni will always go for what suits him best, he’ll sacrifice his best people to make sure that happens. What suits him best is always what’s best for her. He won’t give a shit how good you are. He won’t care. It’s the way of la famiglia, and the way of La Cosa Nostra. The way of the mafia. So watch your back. Do whatever you need to do and get back to your job.”
It was funny, three people had spoken to me in the space of hours about her and he was the person who reached me the most.
“Thank you. I will.”
I turned and continued my pursuit into the house.
The last time I came here I knocked on the door because I figured it was more civilized and polite. I’d seen the way the guys just walked in and out of her home and I didn’t like it. Most women wouldn’t have liked that one bit.
Today though I used the key Giovanni gave me and went in.
It wasn’t even four a.m. and if she’d come back an hour ago she could be asleep.
The last thing I wanted to do was ring the bell or knock on her door and wake her.
If she was sleeping I’d just look in on her and leave.
If she was awake I’d just ask her if she was okay then leave and figure things out.
The door to her room was ajar and the light beamed full force from the crevice, signaling that she was awake.
The next thing that told me she was awake were the little sobs that filtered through the door. I pushed the door open and she jumped off the edge of her bed.
I didn’t think it was possible but she looked worse than when she came to me earlier. She looked like something more had happened.
“Jia.” I rushed to her but she placed her hand up to stop me, shaking her head vigorously.
“No… don’t come near me. Don’t. I don’t know you! I don’t know you.”
I narrowed my gaze at her, wondering what the hell she was saying and what could have happened in the time since we’d last seen each other.
“What are you saying to me? Did something happen?”
I took one step forward and she dashed over to her chest of drawers, opened the top drawer and pulled a gun on me.
Needless to say shock flew through me.
This was the woman I couldn’t kill. But she was holding a gun on me, looking like she was ready to kill me. Her eyes blazed with fury I’d never seen on her before. Not in the short time I’d known her had I seen her look like this.
Like her father. A killer.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jia
The gun was in my hands.
Cold, hard, steel…cold…
It felt like death.
Very symbolic of death. Ironic because it could take life.
Guns were tools designed to kill.
The coldness reminded me of how my mother felt when I’d watched her die. As I’d watched the life leave her body.
My mother…
As she lay on the ground in a pool of blood and I held her, watching the life drain from her, that was the first thing I noticed. How quickly she became so cold. So cold. Unnaturally cold.
Of course it would be, death wasn’t natural to me and at sixteen years old, it was the first time my eyes were opened to the truth of my life and the darkness of my world. Hard truth had hit me with a slap to the face.
It slapped me into a state of awareness, reminding me I was the daughter of Giovanni Marchesi.
All the while I’d been aware that our family was quite unlike all my friends, and we belonged to the mafia, I’d never really took note until that day.
In that one event I knew to always expect the unexpected.
Expect a life where you have to stay on your feet and be ready. Just be ready for anything, even if you don’t know what you’re prepping for.