Page 13 of Blissful Devotion

The two that look like her brothers are, in fact, both related. Shaved-head, Dom, is her brother, and the other, Leo, is her cousin, but they’re also half-brothers…

There might be too many people for me to possibly remember all of them right now.

Oh, and the reason for the arguing: the pretty little blonde is Hazel, Trent’s little sister. Suddenly, I feel like maybe Trent wasn’t being too harsh, because if she were my sister, I’d probably be pissed off too.

She’s sitting on the lap of the head of the Italian mafia after all…

Though from what they’ve said, he seems to be married to the leader of the Russian mafia…

Maybe.

Yeah, no, I’m lost.

I’ll ask Oliver later; no doubt he’s mapped the whole family tree by now.

I hadn’t been sure going to Elio was the right choice, but it had been the only one I had.

Vince said it had taken weeks to reach Jade when he tried to contact her about locating Carter.

You have to go through networks; most don’t just have a group of mercenaries on speed dial.

But when they came to drop off Carter, I remembered them mentioning Elio, and that was all I needed to know that he was worth a try. I couldn’t just sit around and hope for answers, not when Kat’s out there somewhere.

Thankfully, Elio had been the connection we needed, though I wasn’t sure at first how they were connected. The connections are all coming together now, though, and it’s easy to see that Jade and Hazel are really close as well.

A family of mercenaries and mafia leaders…

I’d hate to end up on their shit list.

“A star?” Jade looks to the big guy, Kratos, and then to Trent, but neither seems to have an answer. “Hm, I haven’t heard of an organization with star tattoos, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one.”

“Unfortunately, they pop up as fast as we can take ‘em down,” Trent says with a huff.

Jade doesn’t look happy about it either, not that I blame them.

“Have you had any contact regarding a ransom or any demands?” Trent asks, slipping into a much more serious role than a moment ago, the joking and bickering seemingly forgotten.

Father shakes his head, and I look back at Trent, unsure whether that’s a good thing or not.

“Did you see anything else?”

“We didn’t see any of it. Addison did.” I’m not sure it’s important, but I want them to have all the information, or as much as we can give them.

“Your daughter?” Jade asks, turning to my father, and I’m not sure how she knows that, but I’m not surprised either.

Father explains what happened and how Addison was the only one to see anything, all the while Vince looks like he might throw up.

“Did she mention anything else that might help identify them?” Trent, the cop, asks, having slipped completely into his job.

“She mentioned another tattoo on his face, a knife, and a word she couldn’t read since it was in another language,” Oliver says.

“And where is Addison now?” Rick asks… or is it Spencer… fuck, why are there so many of them?

“We took her to our parents here in Italy. We needed to ensure she’s safe and give our full attention to bringing Kat home.”

“Do you have any enemies?” Zander asks, pursing his lips as he leans in to curl a strand of Jade’s hair around his finger.

Unlike the rest of them, he hasn’t sat; he stands behind Jade, where she sits on the couch.