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“I can’t do that, Mel would—”
“Mel is not fucking here, Adriana, and you work for us, for this family,” I hissed through clenched teeth, trying not to draw too much attention. “Now, I need you to tell me anything that Mel has failed to inform us about.”
“She has fifteen million, and a loft in Cagliari, and a private house in Varna, Bulgaria. And… she has private homes no one even knows about all around Italy. I don’t know them all; it’s her safety net. The only record of that shit is in her head. Those are the only two—”
“It’s fine. We will keep looking, okay, Adriana? But right now, I need you to keep calm and breathe. You need to get out of here. You look like you just shanked an old woman. Go home.” First Antonio, now Mel. I was surprised she wasn’t rocking back and forth in the corner.
“I’m supposed to watch her back, especially when she can’t. That’s my job. That’s my only real job. Everything I do and everything I’ve done is because I wanted to help her. I would do anything to help her.”
I knew that. I doubted anyone would say differently. “Go home, Adriana,” I repeated as I pulled out my phone. I hoped to God Liam was right and that Mel was trying to contact us.
THIRTY-FOUR
“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”
—Naguib Mahfouz
LIAM
As I watched them I could feel my blood boil, but what else could I do? Olivia held Ethan, and fed him some shit in a bottle, that only disgusted me more. But he had to eat, and his mother wasn’t here. Pinching my nose, I tried to balance myself. I couldn't even close my eyes, that only made me think of her. How tired she must have been. How well could she fight if she was hungry and tired?
Aviela does not want to kill her.
I tried to convince myself of that fact.
“Mr. Callahan.” I turned to find The Little Engine That Could, standing in the midst of the chaos that was now the NICU, watching me and my family through the glass.
“Officer Scooter.”
“Mr. Callahan, I gotta ask you a few questions. In cases like this…”
“They send a rookie cop to find my wife?” And they wondered why I didn’t trust them.
He sighed, taking a step forward. “You know, I was handpicked to join the FBI right outta the academy! I may not look like much, but I’m damn good at my job. In forty-eight hours, your bodyguard was shot. The same type of shot, with the same type of the round used to assassinate the president. Now your wife was kidnapped out of one of the most highly protected hospitals in the country. There is a connection here, I can feel it. So help me, sir. Help me find your wife. Now everything you say is important.”
There was no getting rid of the man. He reminded me of an annoying superintendent I used to know.
“Why didn’t you join the FBI?”
“Because this is my city. I’m not abandoning it or the people.” Exactly like a superintendent I used to know.
He was going to be a problem. “Before all of this happened, my wife told me she had a strange encounter with you at the station, Officer. So take your morality and get me a real officer. Not one trying to blame my family.”
“Mr. Callahan…”
“No. Don’t bother. Tell the superintendent I only want the real FBI looking for my wife, nothing less. So respectfully, get the hell out of my face.” Grabbing the door handle, I left the blond-headed idiot alone.
Stepping into the NICU, I didn’t even bother to speak to my father or mother. Taking Ethan out Olivia’s arms, she stood up, hand still on the bottle, waiting for me to sit down in the white rocking chair.
“Liam.” My father sighed and I knew that he had seen the officer and me speaking, but I couldn’t deal with him right now. I just needed to hold my son. He gave me the hope I needed at the moment.
“I don’t understand. How did she know when to get her?” Evelyn whispered, kneeling right in front of me.
The same way she knew everything else…her mole. The only way I would find her was to find that rat. But the only person who could have given her so much inside information had to be close. The only people who were that close were family. So as they huddled around me, my father, my mother, Olivia…I pulled back. Who the fuck was betraying me? The only person I could fully trust was the little person in my hands.
Once I knew who it was, I wouldn’t hold back.
MELODY
I hated being drugged. It always left a bad taste in my mouth. My father used to drug me in an attempt to make me stronger, immune. Now I felt as though he knew my mother was a sicko bitch and had been trying to prepare me for her. But I doubted anything could have prepared me for being pulled from my hospital bed, while recovering from major surgery, to now being chained to the seat of a private fucking jet. She sat in her seat, her auburn hair tucked behind her small ears with a wrinkled copy of Wicked in her hands and dark framed glasses on her face.
“Would you like wine, Ma’am?”
I should have fucking known.
I glanced up at the pale, familiar hand of Nelson something or the other… my fucking flight attendant. He poured my favorite red wine into a glass for the woman before me. She said nothing as she held up her wine glass for him.
“You’re the rat on my ship.”
“Really, Mel Bear? You think I couldn’t get closer than your flight attendant?” The woman who gave birth to me sighed before flipping the page.
“Do not call me ‘Mel Bear,’ you insane bitch. As for you, rat, I will skin you while you beg for my forgiveness, but not before I make you watch me kill your meth-head sister in the most painful way possible.” I pulled against the chain, but all it did was cause me pain. I could feel the stitches pull at my skin, and even though it was painful, it made me think of Ethan.
“Nelson, get her something to eat.”
“Give me anything and I will embed it in your skull,” I hissed. My skin was hot, my emotions were raw, and all I wanted was to be free.
“Suit yourself then, you were always temperamental as a child.” She said snidely, again flipping the damn page.
“Maybe it was because I knew my mother was a weak, conniving whore that would one day shoot me like a dog after poisoning my father. In the end, he didn’t suffer and I was there. He was happy so you fucking…” the heat that radiated off the back of her hand when it connected with the side of my face only made me smile.
Her glasses were off, her hair falling out of place and her back was bone straight as she glared into me, nostrils flaring and eyes wide.
“Did you slap me because I called you a whore? Or because you didn’t get to kill Orlando?”
“Leave us,” she hissed and every one of the men on her plane went towards the back. It wasn’t that far; I couldn’t even see why she bothered.
“Are you gonna tell me a secret, Mommy? Are you going—”
“Enough,” she said. “You don’t understand the shit I’ve done for you. How hard it was to leave you with that fucking monster, to protect you from Satan himself. You know nothing.”
“You poisoned my father for years. You shot me down. You killed my guard and now you’ve separated me from my husband and child. So fuck you and your life story, bitch. I know enough to say at the end of this, you will die, and I will feel nothing.” I wanted to kill her now. I just kept eyeing the wine on the table wishing for two more inches of chain so I could smash it against her skull.
