I shouldn’t be shocked. He doesn’t give a fuck if it will riddle me with guilt for eternity. If he wants it, he’s there with bells on—no matter the consequence. He’s the sole reason I sought solace outside of my compound last night. If I didn’t do something to calm the beast, he would have had me taking my anger out on Roxanne.
Although she’s deserving of the wrath, for some fucked-up reason, I can’t hurt her any more than she’s already been hurt. I couldn’t even pop a bullet between her mother’s brows, for fuck’s sake. Her eyes are too similar to Roxanne’s. They seared through me until my fried brain had me confusing her for Roxanne. It’s lucky in a way. If she hadn’t issued her mercy, I doubt anything I could have said would have brought Roxanne out of her panic attack last night. She was drowning in filth years in the making, being suffocated by the very people who should have kept her safe.
She was Fien twenty years from now.
Ignoring the begs of my throbbing head, I raise to a half-seated position. I’m stunned when my awakening occurs without the grumbles of a needy redhead who accepts money for the privilege of occupying my bed, though it has nothing on my surprise when the familiarity of the room smacks into me. I’m not at a seedy strip club hidden away, so townies won’t get busted by their preacher attending a show, nor am I at my New York compound. I’m home, in my bed, and the faintest trickle of a shower is heard in the distance.
“Smith…” My voice is swallowed by a husky cough. I’m so fucking dry you wouldn’t think there’s an IV line inserted in my arm.
What the fuck?
“Smith.”
My eyes shoot to the side when Smith’s grumbly tone booms through my ears. “I heard you the first time. There’s no need to shout.” Instead of his voice projecting from the speakers implanted throughout every room of my house, it comes from the reading nook in the corner of the large space. From his setup, anyone would swear he works out of the office in my room instead of his computerized hub.
After shutting his laptop screen, he paces around his desk. Worry is seen all over his face when he whispers, “I’ll tell him.”
Confident his words aren’t for me, I wait for him to join me at my beside before asking the obvious. “What happened?”
“You—”
“If you’re about to say I overdosed, you need to go back to the fucking drawing board and start again. I snorted a few lines of coke and drunk a little too much whiskey, but that’s nowhere near enough to make me pass out for hours on end.”
“Days.” He angles his watch so I can see the date stamped on the top. If he isn’t messing with my head, which would be very unlike him, I’ve been out cold for three days—three whole motherfucking days. “Although Ollie believes part of your condition was from exhaustion, blood work-ups showed you had GHB in your system. The high reading indicated whoever slipped it in your drink didn’t do it to maim. They wanted you dead.”
With my blood hot and my wish to kill the highest it’s ever been, I rip out the IV tubing from my arm and stand from my bed. I’m mortified when I realize the tubing in my arm isn’t the only one attached to my body. There’s another one near my cock. Mercifully, it’s taped over my manhood instead of being shoved inside of it.
After ripping off the second tubing more gently than I did the IV, I snatch a pair of gray sweatpants from the floor next to my bed, then shove my feet inside of them. “I’m going to kill the fucker who messed with me, and I’m going to do it slowly.”
I stop considering the many ways I can kill a man when Smith says, “You’re too late. Most of the culprits are already dead.” He tosses a manilla folder onto my bed. When it bounces off the springy mattress, several glossy photographs fall out. They show Frosty Kinks was burned to the ground. Not even its trademark red Louboutin billboard remains. It’s as black as ash.
My eyes float up to Smith’s when he says, “When Rocco found you passed out, he asked me to trace your movements. Frosty’s surveillance was shit, but I worked it for all its worth.” He shuffles through the still images until he finds one of a man with a round stomach and a bald head. Although my head is still a little hazy, I think he’s the bartender who served me most of the night. “That’s Jake Warsaw, co-owner of Frosty’s. He has no priors and isn’t up to his ears in debt like most people in his field, leading us to believe this wasn’t the first time he’s done something like this.” His groan is as loud as mine. “Clover and Rocco worked him over good, but he didn’t give up any juice.”
His smirk tells me he would have unearthed his mark even without the force Rocco and Clover love to utilize. I do too, but that’s a story for when I’m not stunned like a mullet.
“Who paid him?”
The crunch of my teeth is heard over my growl when he tosses a second photograph onto the stack. Even with us only meeting once, I know this man very well. He wanted Roxanne so badly, he was willing to pay more than triple what his competitors were offering. He also called on the hour every hour for the twelve hours following her auction, demanding to be updated on when bids would be finalized.
“I went through reams of footage obtained since the auction. Dr. Bates spent more time in his car outside the compound than he did his hotel room the days following Roxie’s auction.” Smith locks his eyes with mine. For a guy who’s usually as cool as ice, he looks extremely worked up. “He only left when he followed you to Frosty’s.”
Although jealousy is a perfect motive, I feel there’s something more at play here than a man being pipped at the post. I’m just praying Rocco and Smith felt the same vibe as me, or I’ll be left with more questions than answers.
After working my throat through a stern swallow, I ask, “Is Bates dead?”
For the first time in a long time, I feel lucky when Smith shakes his head. It grows tenfold when he adds words to his confirmation. “Roxie asked us to hold back on his punishment. She wants to discuss an idea with you before bringing him before the courts.”
“Roxanne?” I could add to my query, but I don’t need to. Smith can see my shock. He doesn’t need it voiced.
“She’s been running things around here.” His smile is way too fucking blinding for my thumping skull. “With guidance from Rocco and me, of course.”
He walks to my desk to gather up his laptop. Once he has it fired up, he shows me the many angles they’ve been working the past three days. The reports are so impressive, they have me worried I’ve been out a lot longer. Not only is Dr. Bates’s office wired to the hilt with state-of-the-art equipment, he has a month’s worth of work on display.
“For now, Roxie’s grandparents’ estate is a dead end. There were a handful of biochemicals there, but it was mainly placentas, fetal matter, and the occasional soiled mattress. No bodies were located.” He sounds as disappointed as I feel. “Some good came from the search, though. We unearthed a set of records in the rubble. They date back years before Audrey was taken. I’m not sure of their significance yet, but I’m working a few angles.” He waits for me to jerk up my chin before he hits me with the motherlode. “We also found Roberto.”
“Dead or alive?” I don’t know why I asked my question. If he’s not dead, he will soon be wishing he was. I had barely gotten over Ophelia’s death when he disappeared, and his vanishing act sliced my siblings from four to nothing in an instant.
I take a step back when Smith says, “Alive.” When he clicks on the keyboard of his laptop two times, an image of a much older and rounder Roberto fills the screen. If you exclude the dirty apron stretched across his midsection and his unnoteworthy strut, his identity could never be discounted. The Petretti genes are strong.
