AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yourdoctor?” Greta said. “Presumably the woman upstairs?”
I nodded.
“She saved Aurelio’s life, and you’re keeping her locked up like a prisoner? Remind me never to save your life,amico,” she jibed, though there was no venom in it. As much as Greta might not have liked the situation, she knew me well enough to give me the benefit of the doubt before she went all “crazy superwoman” on me.
But first things first.
“How’s Freya?” I asked, my gaze swinging back and forth between my father and Greta.
My father sighed and nodded to Greta, letting her fill me in since, presumably, she was just upstairs with her.
Greta’s lips curved upward in a half-smile. “Shaken, but not stirred. She’s stronger than you guys give her credit for,” she said, daring to swing a mildly accusatory glare at my father. Greta was probably the only person on the planet who could get away with that.
But talking about Freya flooded my head with fresh memories. Memories that would stay in my head for the rest of my goddamned life.
“We’re close, boss,” Bruno says. “We just left L'Ultima Cena, two blocks away. Aurelio’s with me.”
“I’m coming. Hold them off, Bruno.” But even as I say it, something twists up painfully in my chest. It’s too far. I’ll never make it.
And then the sounds come all together. The crack of a gunshot. The shatter of glass. My sister’s scream.
I grip the phone so tight, it’s a wonder it doesn’t crack as I flyout of the parking lot, listening, helpless, as a volley of gunfire continues.
The volley subsides, but I hear no voices. Not Bruno’s. Not Aurelio’s… not Freya’s.
Endless minutes. Endless traffic.
When I finallyarrive on scene, the car in front of our white Lexus LS is squealing away. There are two men in a dark blue Nissan and a puddle of blood on the ground next to where it had been parked. Another three men dead near the car behind ours. Not my men.
The dire urge to go after the Nissan pumps through my veins, but I race to the Lexus instead, my heart pounding, trying to prepare myself for what I’m about to see, trying to prepare myself for Freya’s bullet-riddled, lifeless body.
But she’s not there. The car’s empty. No sign of her but for a smear of blood on the rear passenger seat.
“We’ve got her, Signor,” Aurelio’s voice comes from way down low on the other side of the Lexus.
My chest unclenches as I hop over the hood of the car. Freya’s on the ground. I crouch down next to her. There’s blood on her arm, a few inches below her shoulder. Enough blood to bloom through the sleeve of her cream-colored shirt, but not enough to be alarming.
Just infuriating.
As I stand back up, I surveythe dead men on the ground. Their clothes, their faces. The first two are strangers; I’ve never seen them before. But the third one, I know that face. I’ve seen it before.
And the man who’d sent him has just made a very big mistake.
“Get her home, Bruno,” I sayas I help Freya to her feet. “Aurelio, I want you tracking the ones who got away.”
As for me? I’m heading straight for the source.
By the time I’d gotten to Bianchi’s apartment, the cowardly fuck was long gone. He should have taken his scumbag VP with him, though. That fucker squealed like a fucking pig when I cut him.
“All right,” Greta said, making herself comfortable in one of the wingback chairs in my father’s office. We’d moved there at some point in the past thirty seconds. Can’t say I had much recollection of it. “I get why we’re after Bianchi. What I don’t get is why Bianchi was after you,Signor—or after Freya, in this case.”
My father shifted in his seat behind his mahogany desk. He didn’t generally discuss Luciano matters with anyone but the closest men in his top circle, but Greta had become an exception. I think it might have been the aura about her that said she could handle shit, and more than that, it said that she wasn’t going to go away, so you might as well let her in.
My father cleared his throat and steepled his fingers on the desk in front of him. “Elio Bianchi wants two properties owned by the Lucianos. When he couldn’t bribe me out of them, he tried to threaten me with legal ramifications.” He scoffed at the ridiculous notion. “When that didn’t work…” He trailed off, brow furrowed, murderous rage flashing in his eyes.
“Two properties?” Greta’s frown was almost a mirror of my father’s as she sat up straighter. “This seems a little extreme for a bit of real estate, doesn’t it? The guy had to know what he’d be going up against when he went after Luciano property… and then hisdaughter,” she said with barely a telltale hitch in her tone.
Freya was my father’s only legitimate daughter, but I had a feeling Greta knew that he truly had two. I’d seen it right away, when she’d come into our lives after growing up in LA. Others had, apparently, been slower to see the resemblance.
