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After making sure I was presentable, I went to hang near Damian and Cade. Damian had to buy a drill too, by the look of it, and it appeared that the old front door’s frame was easily taken out and replaced by the new one. It was a newer house, after all.
I sat at the dining room table, watching them make sure the door was level, and then Cade had to hold the door just right while Damian screwed in the first hinge. “No more breaking down doors, Superman,” Damian quipped. “I don’t know what you think of me, but I ain’t made of money.”
All Cade did was roll his eyes.
By the time they were done installing the door and cleaning up the mess Cade had made by breaking in, it was dark out. Damian’s Serpents weren’t back yet with clothes and whatever else they were supposed to get me, so he called them and told them to bring some food, too. Pizza, because every planning session needed some pizza.
Cade had taken up the chair beside me, while Damian paced the length of the kitchen, saying something about no fucking pineapples better be on any of the pizzas. Putting pineapples on pizza was disrespectful or something.
“How are you holding up?” Cade’s question made me turn my head toward him.
“I’m better than I was earlier,” I said, and that was the God’s honest truth. Miguel thought he could break me before handing me off… wouldn’t he be in for the shock of his life when he saw me again? “I need you to call Luca and Ezekiel for me.”
His fingers tapped the table, and he didn’t say anything right away. That gave Damian enough time to finish his call and stroll over to us. He pulled out the chair opposite me and slumped in it. “Food should be here in an hour, along with some essentials for you, baby girl.”
I was pretty sure I saw a muscle in Cade’s jaw tense when he heard Damian call me that, but I didn’t address it. I repeated what I’d just told Cade: “I need Luca Moretti and Ezekiel here.”
“Luca Moretti? You absolutely sure you can trust that boy?” Damian sounded suspicious.
“No,” I admitted. “I don’t know for sure, but I need him on my side regardless. The more we have backing us up, the more likely we can take Miguel down.” My eyes flicked to Cade. “How badly does your father want on the Hand? If you help me…”
I knew Damian didn’t give a shit about being on the Black Hand, but Cade’s father… I’d never met the man. I’d hate to ask Cade to help me if it meant him going against his father’s wishes.
Hey, they might have a good relationship. I had no idea what that was like, since I had no clue who my real father was until after he was already dead.
Cade ran a hand along his jaw. He was starting to get stubbly, but it wasn’t a bad look. No, I didn’t think Cade could ever look bad. “He wants on, but I don’t think it’s the be-all, end-all for him. With his company and the Guild, our family already juggles a lot.”
“If it comes out that you helped me, it means automatic expulsion from the running.” I looked at Damian. “Same goes for you.”
Damian shrugged. “Ah, I don’t give two shits about this Black Hand stuff. I only came here for you.” Pretty much mimicking what he’d already told me. “Atticus and I, we have an understanding. He didn’t know you were the reason I came here, and he knew me joining their little family of criminals was a far-fetched idea, but—”
It was Cade who interrupted, “I don’t get why Atticus even invited you here.”
“When you’ve made yourself an urban legend, word gets around. He didn’t invite me. He invited Atlas.”
“And you’re here on behalf of Atlas… not because you want on the Black Hand, but because you want Giselle.”
Damian clapped. “Look who’s putting it together. Well, some of it, anyway.” At that, he tossed a wink my way, as if him being Atlas was our little secret. “You want your other boyfriends here? Fine, we’ll get ‘em here. Put ‘em to the test, too. See if they run and tell anyone you’re here and unharmed.”
“Miguel will assume the Serpents tortured and killed me. I’m sure he’s written me off completely already,” I told them. “We’ll use that to our advantage.”
“What about that old bodyguard of yours?” Cade asked, and Damian’s dark eyebrows came together. Both men watched me, as if they both waited for an answer. They each had to know how much I’d grown to care for Zander, but only Damian knew the truth.
I… I still wasn’t totally convinced it was Zander. It’s like half of me knew how logical it was, and that half of me had put all the pieces together: how he’d acted at the hospital, how he’d known I would sneak out of the house and go to the Playground, how he’d told me once he wasn’t a good guy.
And the other half? The other half just didn’t want to believe it. The other half of me had fallen in love with him and wanted to believe the best in him.
Silly for a mafia princess to fall in love… although, since I wasn’t Miguel’s daughter, I supposed I wasn’t a mafia princess after all.
“Let’s get Luca and Ezekiel here first,” I finally spoke. “I’ll deal with Zander later.”
Deal with him could’ve meant a lot of things. Talk to him, see what he had to say, decide whether I believed him or not… kill him. It could mean so much, and the crazy part was, right now I didn’t know which I leaned toward most.
Chapter Four – Luca
My heart fell out of my body when I came back to the suite to find the door open and Giselle gone. She was just… gone. Completely gone. And I didn’t mean gone as if she’d run away or moved out.
No, all of her stuff was still here. Her golden cross, and even that ivory gun.
