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Letting out a choked cry, I huddled in my arms and gripped my hair, shaking from head to toe and wishing that I could wake up from this nightmare.
There’s no going back now,said a voice in my head that sounded like my mother.You’re in a world of blood and mobsters and monsters.
And I’d just become another monster.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ty
Out of a half-formed nightmare of chains and shadows that I’d been buried alive in, under my father’s training room in the basement, a truly foul smell filled my nostrils and woke me right the hell up.
Eyes streaming, I coughed and flailed as I jolted upright, catching an arm that was holding something under my nose. It took me a second to realize I knew this person, that I trusted him with my life and I relaxed; easing my grip enough for him to pull back, taking the smell with him. I heard something get capped and then a soft light flared around Daniel’s face as he looked me over.
“Ty,” he said in a voice barely above a whisper. “Take deep breaths. You were just unconscious and unresponsive.” Suddenly, he pushed a water bottle at me. “I used Artie’s cologne to wake you up.”
I almost choked on the water and stared at him, the shadowed room feeling miles away in my fucked-up state. “Are you kidding me?”
“Yes,” Daniel said, and his quicksilver grin flashed across his face. “Smelling salts. I came prepared after I saw the alert that the power got knocked out. Sorry I didn’t get here sooner, although…” He glanced around. “I have no fuckin’ clue what’s happening. I got an alert on my phone, as I said, though I was south of Boston so it took me forever to get here.”
I nodded as I sat up, still struggling to clear my head. Something was nagging at me, a sharp pinpoint growing clearer but out of my grasp. “Knocking the power out means someone was casing the place. Wanted to get in, probably.” I put a hand to my spinning head. “Knocked us out, too. So, is anyone hurt?”
“No un-friendlies in here,” Daniel said. “The doors were locked from the inside. I came in through the window.” He gestured behind him then pointed to the door. “Did you do that?”
“No, I—” Clarity came to me like a bullet between the eyes, and I started, trying to stand up and falling back down. My chest heaved, and I gripped Daniel’s arm. “Lia.”
Where is Lia? Is she okay?
For once, Daniel wasn’t able to school his expression, and I saw the grim resignation flash over his face, a mix of sorrow and anger. Then he slowly said, “I’m sorry, Ty. I don’t know where she is. But your bedroom window was open and—”
Pain and panic squeezed my temples while an iron hand reached in and turned my heart to a pulp. I didn’t even know I could still feel something this deep. I thought the only time I’d ever feel this particular agony was if something happened to Danny or Luca. And even then, I didn’t think it would hurt like this, this sense of being destroyed with every breath.
“Lia.” Her name was cold on my lips and I thought I might be sick.
Had someone knocked the power to get to her? Was that why we’d been knocked out? God, I was going tokillwhoever had done this if they’d harmed a hair on her head.
I propelled myself to my feet and stumbled to the office door but it was locked. Slamming my hand on it in disbelief, my brain couldn’t put two and two together.
Why did someone knock us out and lock us in? And if they had, what kind of backward-ass, twisted game were they playing?
“Here,” Daniel said, and he went to the hidden keypad by the door to unlock it. But that didn’t work. It took me a second to realize the door was locked by deadbolt, not the electronic locks. That meant someone had manually locked it.
“What the fuck is going on?” I asked and glanced at my desk, noting that the top drawer was open. “Get these assholes up and make sure they’re okay.”
“Are you okay?” Daniel asked in a quiet voice.
Unable to answer, I went to my desk and grabbed the gun strapped underneath it. Clicking off the safety, I exchanged a glance and a nod with my cousin, then went to the door.
Not since my goddamn father had walked these halls had I felt this particular leap of terror. Finally, taking a deep breath, I undid the deadbolt and pulled the door open, only to hear a faint groan, and I started upon seeing a man lying in the doorway.
“Dan,” I barked, and my cousin flew to my side. Together, we turned him over, and we both started as he blinked at us. His eyes went wide with fear and he struggled against his bonds. Then I recognized the fucker. “Joe Ugly?”
Joe “Ugly” Iglio worked for Hendrix.
I went to punch him in the face when I saw the blood on his temple and the bruises around his jaw, as well as the gag in his mouth. Again, I had the upside-down sense that I was in some kind of whacked-out dream instead of my foyer.
“He’s hurt pretty bad,” Daniel said. “Leave him for now. I—”
I glanced at my cousin to see that he was squinting across the foyer and stood up, walking across. I followed, glancing back at Joe Ugly once, then stopping in my tracks when I saw who else had come to visit.
