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“Good. He’s a whole lot easier to work with than his predecessors.” I crack my neck and wince at the jolt of pain that shoots through my shoulder.
“You okay?” Dante asks.
The knock on the door stops me from answering.
“Come in,” Dante calls, and my uncle shuffles into the room using a cane Kat must have found somewhere.
“You wanted to see me?” he asks, his eyes darting around the small space. Despite what we all learned yesterday, there’s still a lot of mistrust and suspicion between us.
“Yes. Have a seat.” Dante indicates the empty chair opposite his and Vito takes a seat while I perch on the edge of the desk.
“We’re just trying to piece together where everything fits, and we need your help,” Dante says, and Vito nods his understanding.
“You’re sure that your kidnapping had nothing to do with Kristin and the father of her baby?” I ask.
Vito frowns and shakes his head. “No. I told you, it was Pushkin. He’s wanted me dead for years. I knew too much about his trafficking operation, but as long as Sal was alive, I was safe.”
Dante leans forward. “Because of the recording you had of him killing Fiona?”
“Yes. If anything happened to me, that would go straight to the press. So Sal kept Pushkin off my back, but as soon as he was killed, Pushkin wanted me to pay. He didn’t even need me dead, he just wanted to remind me that he could do it.”
“Right,” I mumble, running a hand over my beard. I feel like we’re still missing something. It doesn’t explain who kidnapped me and why.
“Why would it have anything to do with the guy Kristin was dating? He didn’t even know she was pregnant. He couldn’t have. She didn’t know when we left.”
“Why didn’t you help her find him once she did know? She told me he was Russian. Was he—”
“He was Bratva, yes. She didn’t tell me much about him, but I did a little digging. He’s connected, but I don’t know how much. Couldn’t even get his last name. He was like a ghost.”
“Was he the reason you left New Jersey?”
“No. At least not entirely. We left because I started getting the feeling we were being watched. Call it intuition, but I wasn’t taking any chances. And I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t a coincidence that my daughter’s boyfriend happened to be part of the Russian mob.”
“Why are you so sure that you being taken had nothing to do with her?”
“Because they never mentioned her once. Pushkin’s men tortured me. They wanted to know what I knew about the sex trafficking ring and whether I had enough to put their boss away for life, I guess. And then when I told them everything I knew, they left me for dead. If it had anything to do with Kristin, they would’ve asked about her.”
Dante voices his agreement, and I wrack my brain to remember every single thing that was said when those Russian assholes had me chained up.
“Why do you think it would be anything to do with my daughter?” Vito asks, his eyes narrowed.
“Max?” Dante says.
“Fuckers kidnapped me too. When I heard the Russian accents, I assumed it was retaliation because we were backing Dmitri for the takeover, but then they started going on about how their boss was going to kill me because I touched his girl.”
“Kristin?” Vito asks with a frown.
“I assumed so. I mean nobody knew she was my sister. If anyone was following her and saw her leaving my apartment, they could have jumped to conclusions.”
“Ifit was her boyfriend and it was about getting her back, why not take her too?” Vito asks.
“I know. That part didn’t make sense to me either, but at the time I didn’t know if they did have her. After Dante and Lorenzo got me out and I found out she was here, I knew they never could have gotten to her here.”
Vito shifts in his seat, wincing. “Could it have been about the dead girl? Fiona?”
“That is one long ass time to wait for revenge.” Dante shakes his head. “And her father died a few months after she did. Who would take their revenge?”
A fucking lightbulb explodes in my brain. “The girl. They weren’t talking about Kristin or Fiona…”
