Slowly, my father approached, his feet falling heavy on the floor.“Did you have to bring her here?”he asked Nico, sounding tired.
No.That wasn’t right.He should have run to me, thrown himself at my feet, and worked to slit the tape holding me in place.He should have screamed at Nico, threatened him, something, anything other than standing in the center of the great room, staring at me, revealing no feelings.No surprise, no fear for me.
“Dad?”I whispered as fresh tears spilled onto my cheeks.
He slowly shook his head, the candlelight revealing what might have been a mournful look in his eyes but was probably more like disapproval.Regret.“I told you.You didn’t know what you were talking about, and it wasn’t for you to get involved in.Why did you have to do it?”
His words gradually sank in, digging through the chaotic, tangled mess my mind had become.“Daddy,” I whispered.“Daddy, help me.”
“I tried,” he muttered.“But some people just can’t be helped.”
19
VAUGHN
The drive to Primm normally took around an hour.We made it in forty minutes.
We’d taken my car.I didn’t want to raise red flags, driving through a reportedly abandoned housing development in a car which didn’t belong to me.Let them think I’d come alone.
“Your earpiece working?”Grayson held a pair of binoculars to his eyes as we traveled the last few miles before reaching the gated community that had gone nowhere.
I grunted, nodding.He would be talking in my ear, telling me how to position myself in case he had a chance to get a shot off on Nico or anyone else he might have brought with him.A trio of Grayson’s most trusted, experienced freelancers were a few miles behind us, prepared to come in once I’d announced my presence and, ideally, distracted anyone inside the house.
“I can see it from here.Two cars outside,” he reported.It meant going against my instincts, but I eased up on the gas pedal to give him more time to assess the situation.If it were completely up to me, I would have gone straight in, but we couldn’t afford to take chances.There wouldn’t be a second try at this.
“Two cars?”Immediately, the hair on the back of my neck prickled.“Why did they need two?”
“One is a van.The other is a Lamborghini.”He lowered the binoculars, whispering, “Fuck.”
“What?”I snapped.
“The license plate reads M-A-N-C-I-N-I.”
It would be a miracle if I didn’t snap the steering wheel.“Motherfucker.What, does he want to be a witness?”I demanded, hearing the strain in my voice, unable to do anything about it.
“Breathe,” he urged.“Calm your shit down.Even if you don’t feel like it, you have to push all of it behind you for her sake.”
I heard the truth in his words while picturing Nova’s face.Her smile.That light dusting of freckles.Those deep, dark eyes, so easily wounded.She tried so hard to be brave.She only cared about what was right.
My pulse slowed to something closer to an even rate by the time I rolled to a stop outside the tall, open gates.There was a concrete wall to either side, winding around the community’s perimeter, giving Grayson cover to step out and follow on foot.“I’m right with you all the time,” he reminded me.“But are you sure you want to do this?We could wait for the guys, go in all at once, take them out.”
“You know we can’t take that chance.If Nico or Riccardo catch a whiff of what we’re doing, they could blow her away.”I found it hard to imagine a father doing that to his own daughter, but desperation was an ugly thing—that and greed.
I was alone by the time I entered the development.Bleak and sad with nothing but the light from the moon to illuminate the ghosts of what were once luxury homes.A shit housing market, not to mention an overvaluation of the area’s potential for growth, had left the place empty.Dark, broken windows were like eyes watching me as I wound down wide, curved streets whose pavement had long since cracked, allowing weeds to breach the surface.A pair of coyotes loped nearby, one of them carrying a carcass in its jaws.That was the most life I observed by the time I reached the block where the Mancini house stood.
Sure enough, two vehicles were parked alongside it, and the front door stood open.Why not?There was no one around to hear what was going on inside.A faint glow emanated from inside, like candlelight.
What mattered more was the tall, thin man with the dark ponytail who stood on the front porch, a pistol in his hand.Message received.
He didn’t try to stop me as I parked yards from where he stood.Like I was expected.He stared at the car, unable to see me through the tinted windows.She had to be in there.She was probably waiting for me, praying for me to come if she was still alive.I needed to believe she was.That Nico would not have killed her until he was convinced she hadn’t shared her secret with anyone but me.
After an eternity, I opened the door, showing my hands all the time.I couldn’t give him an excuse to fire.“I’m unarmed,” I assured him, looking toward the open door when I should have been watching him.What was going on in there?
“Yeah, I’m gonna have to see for myself.”He stepped off the porch, joining me beside the Maserati, tucking the gun into his waistband to free his hands for a pat down.It was incredible, really, the things that would come back to a man at a moment like this.The old instincts, born from years of being the rich kid everybody wanted a piece of.That was the one thing Dad had never understood.I never asked for it—the fighting, the trouble.I had only ever defended myself or someone else.
I was defending someone now, waiting while a man’s hands traveled down one leg, then the other, checking me for hidden weapons.
It was when he reached my ankle, bent at his waist, that I pivoted.Turning my hips, I took him by the back of the neck with my left hand and freed his gun with my right.
