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They don’t see me.
That’s good too. The rage inside me wants to unleash. It’s times like these when I’m irrational and I can’t get a handle on myself. Unfortunately, sometimes the people I care about the most get bruised from my wrath.
One chef, Chef Romi, has known me since I was a kid. I don’t want to make a guy like him scared of me tonight.
The air changes when I near the end of the corridor. It’s like the line of demarcation, warning that what’s to come next is violence.
I take the stone steps down, listening to the slow drip of a broken tap outside. We need to get that fixed. I swear on nights like these, though, it’s part and parcel of the danger that lurks in the dark. Mobsters at their finest.
Mobsters and monsters. Sometimes we’re the same thing. I don’t think I’m much different.
Salvatore meets me at the door as I go down the last set of stairs. I’m in the basement now. He doesn’t look good. He looks as tense as I feel, and I know it’s to do with the girl. I wish she weren’t here too. This kind of thing hasn’t happened in a while, but it’s always messy when there're witnesses or people who get caught up. Wrong place or wrong time.
“Hey, they’re down there,” Salvatore says with a sigh.
“They give any more trouble?”
“No, they’re just scared.”
I’m glad he and Gabe have been on the case with me. The whole damn problem started at my investment company, but Mark dragged everyone else in too when he thought it was a good idea to try and steal from the family business.
My damn fault again.
Mark has worked for me for the last eight years. I thought he was the best person to trust when it came to handling my business accounts. That just gave him access to fuck with our lives.
All the man did was make me look bad in the worst way. Now I have my brother looking at me with a question in his eyes. I know what it is even before he asks.
“Ava Knight, age twenty-six, magazine editor.Journalist. Press.Media.What are you going to do with the girl, Vin?” he asks cautiously.
That info was him laying the cards on the table. Laying down things I would have found out and known they put us at risk of exposure.
“She’s seen too much,” he adds.
Seen too much, but what does she know?
I wonder if Ava Knight knows what her father did.
Does she know how much he owes?
How long he’s been stealing from me and taking me for a fucking fool? I think this grates me the wrong way because the records showed that he stole from me when I was at my lowest. Right after Sorcha was killed in cold blood. The man used that as a gateway to rob me to fund his little habits.
That’s not what tonight’s about though. That’s small fry in comparison to the recent shit. Mark deserves death at least, for the dumb fucked-up shit he did that could have gotten people killed.
Salvatore looks at me waiting for an answer that I can’t give just yet.
“Vin,” he prods, then his eyes go wide. He must think I’m going to kill her. “Vin,think before you do anything. Hurting women isn’t our way.”
It was me who instilled that concept into him, and the rest of them.Me… not even Pa. Not that Pa would hurt a woman. I’ve been the eldest for close to ten years now, and it’s me who made sure all the boys knew the code we live by.
I get it though. I’ve changed. That’s what happened. I’ve changed, and everyone knows it. When Sorcha was killed, I became the beast.
A heartless, merciless, soulless creature.
That’s why my brother is giving me the reminder.
I look at his face and think of how similar we look. He’s not like me though. He hasn’t been through the same things as me, so he won’t understand that rage is what courses through my blood, as it does my mind.
I look away from him and move to the door of the room holding my captives, leaving him staring after me with worry in the dark hue of his eyes.
