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I followed him up Ocean Drive and past the park. We stopped at a little café called The Local House. Landon was silent as the server brought out fresh bread with marinara sauce. He took our orders with a practiced smile and served us iced coffee in little Mason jars, and Landon ordered salmon for both of us.
“What’s going on?” I asked when the server disappeared inside.
“I’ve got some news that concerns you,” Landon said flatly. He reached into his pocket and dropped a photograph on the table in front of me.
I dropped my eyes to the picture, and as soon as I saw what was on it, I grabbed it up and held it closer to me and out of the vision of anyone who might have walked by.
It was a body.
Actually, two bodies—a man and a woman.
“Jillian,” I heard myself whisper. She was curled up in a near fetal position, and there was an obvious bullet hole at her right temple. A few feet from her was the man she ran off with when she left me. He was on the floor in a similar position.
“Mrs. Koe and her husband, Ian Koe, were found in their Italian home last week,” Landon told me. “The police are investigating, of course, but they haven’t found anything.”
I moved my eyes away from the picture and to Landon’s face. Instinct told me everything—their blood was on his hands. He’d killed them, or at least had them killed, but why?
My breathing stopped. My heart might have stopped, too. All I could do was stare at the picture—the picture of a woman I hated. A woman I might have killed myself if given the opportunity, but I hadn’t seen her since she ran off with the other person in the photograph. I’d tried to stop her, but Landon intervened. He would have killed me before he let me go after her.
She’s dead.
“Apparently, there’s a child left behind.”
I flashed my eyes up to his. Of course there was a child. My child.
“Child?” It was the only word I managed to choke out.
“A little boy, six years old.”
I clamped my eyes shut. It was too much at once, and my brain was overwhelmed. Images of Jillian and me when we were together shuffled through my mind like pictures from one of those ancient toy movie projectors run with a hand-crank—all black and white and choppy. A flash from the diamond ring I had bought for her the day she left blinded me from the inside.
I opened my eyes and looked back at Landon. I wanted to speak. I wanted to ask him a thousand questions, but I couldn’t form a single o
ne.
He leaned forward.
“Let’s get to the point, shall we?” he said quietly. “He’s alive. He’s safe. And he’s all yours for just one little favor.”
“Favor?” I could barely hear myself speak.
“One little fight, you and five others. Half of them have never ever done a real tournament before, so it’ll be a piece of cake, assuming you really are back in shape. Three weeks of a little catch-up training, a few days up north for the tournament, and you walk away with the instant family you’ve always wanted.”
I looked in his eyes and considered his words. I was about to deny it—there was no way I wanted a family—but before I could even consider the words, I knew they were wrong. It was exactly what I wanted. It would replace the family I had never known, and I could make my own shit childhood seem less crappy if I could give a kid the life I never had.
I’ll never be able to give Raine a child.
The server dropped off our entrees and refilled our drinks. He asked if there was anything else we needed, but a glare from Landon sent him scurrying away with a towel over his arm.
“Why this fight?” I asked, pulling myself from my thoughts. “Why now?”
Landon sighed and sat back.
“There’s war in Chicago,” he said as he forked a chunk of his fish. “The Greco family and the Moretti family have been fighting over heroin and caviar for a while now. Last year, the Russians moved in and stirred things up even more. There were a couple of confrontations, and people were killed on both sides. Now they’re in the process of reclaiming territory. Franks is losing money over the whole situation, so he’s come up with a solution.”
“A tournament,” I said.
“Exactly.” Landon leaned his elbows on the table and took a drink from the Mason jar. “Franks wants control of the caviar—it’s becoming more and more lucrative—and this was his way of getting both that control and ending the wars. Warring families hurt business around the globe.”
