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“I wasn’t talking about your brother,” Victor replies coolly. “I was talking about your wife. You know how this looks, don’t you? The longer she’s with Theo, the more precarious our situation is here.”
“How do you figure?”
“Rumors are already swirling,” Victor says. “People are starting to think your brother’s obsession with Vivian was more than just a mental breakdown. They’re saying he’s trying to start a war—and it won’t be long before they start saying she’s in on it with him. I don’t want to have to justify my son being unable to manage his personal affairs...” He levels Lucas with a cold look. “Especially if I’m going to be passing control on to you.”
“If?” Lucas asks, his tone souring.
“That’s what I said,” Victor replies. “I’m not handing this operation over to anyone who will make us look weak. That jeopardizes this entire alliance with the Daltons. Some of the other families are already sniffing around our territory, and that’s not even getting into the fit Andrew Dalton is pitching about our letting any of this happen to his daughter. He still has pull around here, Lucas, in case you’d forgotten. If we don’t get this under control, and fast, we’ll start losing ground. I don’t want that.”
Lucas stares him down, fighting the urge to throw the table over and start swinging. “So what are you saying?”
“It’s simple,” Victor replies. “You put an end to this now, or I’ll find a new successor. And you can move back to Russia, where you’ll be out of my hair.” He pushes away his empty plate and stands up, nodding to his henchmen. “Get this taken care of. I’m losing my patience.”
Lucas bites back a response, but he can’t repress the scowl that pulls at his lips as he watches with silent resentment as Victor and his men stride out of the room. He resists the urge to fling a glass against the wall, instead cursing under his breath. He watches the door close, then takes a long swig of his own drink and stands up. He has work to do.
“All right, DiMarco,” he says, slamming the door behind him as he stalks into the downtown salon where his newest ally has been for the past half-day. “Time’s up. What do you have for me?”
Sienna is reclining in a massage chair, being doted on by no fewer than three hair and nail technicians. She doesn’t react to his entrance, although she does raise an eyebrow as he strides across the room, ignoring the other people in her entourage. Her friends are all taking up the other chairs, chattering incessantly over the racket of hair dryers and pedicure spas. “Are you always this impatient?”
“Only when people make promises they can’t keep,” Lucas snaps. “You said you could help me track Vivian down. What’s the deal?”
“Relax,” she replies. “I’m working on it.”
“We don’t have time for you to be ‘working on it’,” he retorts. “My father’s concerned about the alliance, and this involves you. If the syndicate falls apart because of this, your family’s going down, too.”
“And it would fall apart all because your little plaything ran off with someone else?” She lets out a patronizing laugh. “I would have thought your leadership was a bit more solid, Lucas.”
Lucas sees red. “All right,” he growls, pulling his gun out of its holster. “I’ve had enough of this. Tell me what you know.” He stands over her and trains the gun on her chest. Some of her followers shriek, and one of the nail technicians pulls abruptly back. “Now.”
Even more infuriatingly, she doesn’t look scared—just pissed off, and she leans forward with a haughty glare. “Now look what you’ve done,” she says, waving her manicured nails at him. “You ruined the polish. They’re going to have to redo it.”
“Are you not hearing me?” Lucas demands.
“I’m hearing you,” Sienna replies. “I just don’t see the point in threatening me when I’m the one who can get you your little wifey back.”
“You keep saying that,” he spits, “but all I’m seeing is a spoiled little mafia princess with too much time on her hands.”
Sienna’s expression goes cold. “Fine,” she says. “If you must know, Tristan told me he’d put her up in a safe house along the coast. Your brother’s reach goes farther than I thought, that’s for sure. I’ve been having my father’s men do some digging, and it turns out your wife’s phone last pinged somewhere along the M4. My best men are following up on a lead as we speak.”
“That’s it?” Lucas demands, but he lowers his gun.
“Not at all,” Sienna replies. “As a matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to ask you about your wife’s place of employment.”
Lucas snorts, jamming his hand into his pocket. Vivian’s defiance of his order not to work there is still fresh in his mind, and it stings more than he’d like to admit. “Employment? You think schmoozing rich assholes all day counts as employment?”
“Whatever you’d like to call it,” Sienna replies dismissively. “She was employed, was she not?”
“Yeah. At the Sterling Gallery. Slinging pretty pictures for a living.” He scoffs.
“Interesting,” Sienna says. “A lot of hot stuff moves through there. I’ll have my people look into it. There may be a lead we haven’t found yet.”
“You think the police haven’t already—”
“I don’t care what law enforcement is doing,” she interrupts him coldly. “I care about what we can do... and if anyone on Sterling’s payroll has usable information, I want our men getting it.”
“And who says they will?”
“My sources are good,” Sienna says, leaning back in her chair with a breezy air. “If the intel pans out, you’ll have your wife back by the end of the week.”
