Page 69
She was, quite literally, clutching her black pearl necklace like a fainting Victorian heroine.
I hated her a bit in that moment, weak in the face of this catastrophe. I wanted to shake her, snap my fingers in front of her glazed eyes, and tell her to get her shit together because the more minds we had on this puzzle, the more likely we were to solve it.
I didn’t understand how she could be so contradictory sometimes, strong and fierce, and weak and simpering. It reminded me of the way Dario fluctuated, and I wondered if their condition was hereditary.
“The Russians,” Lando offered darkly. “Those fucking bastards.”
“Dva medvedya v odnoy berloge ne zhivut,” Carla shocked me by murmuring contemplatively. “Two bears don’t live in one lair. The Pakhan cannot be happy to share dominion of Chicago with our family.”
“I didn’t know you spoke Russian,” I said.
Carla’s smile was wide and bright. “Know your enemy, darling. Besides, my hairstylist is a wonderful girl from Lithuania who only speaks Russian, and I simply had to learn in order to communicate with her. Talented though she is, when I accidentally told her to give me a perm ten years ago, I was not impressed.”
I fought the urge to shake my head at Carla’s frivolity and refocused on the matter at hand.
“Dario always said he had a deal with Pakhan Maksim,” I retorted to play devil’s advocate. “He proved it well enough when I was kidnapped and the Pakhan immediately gave up his own men. Why go for Dario like this? Why now?”
“Because he’s let his control slip,” Lando snarled. “He’s gone fucking soft. If anything, the kidnapping proved that when he only killed the two idiots directly involved instead of taking down the entire organization the way we would have back in the day. One is not a fitting substitute for the many.”
A stuttering, shocked laugh machine-gunned out of my compressed lungs before I could curb it. My hand caught the sound and shoved it back into my mouth. “Are you kidding? Dario is the coldest capo this side of the Atlantic.”
“Yeah? So why are the Irish suddenly thinking they can run shit?” Lando pushed, his face turning florid with frustration. “Why was our product stolen en route from Sicily, huh? Our enemies knew he was losing his edge, and they started pressing their advantage.”
“Dario put the Albanians who stole the shipment in the ground,” Cesare defended, his barrel chest pushed out, his pugnacious face tight around his snarling lips. He was a guard dog, first and foremost, Dario’s most loyal knight. “The Irish? They’ve cycled through two new kingpins in the last two years ’cause we put both down like the feral fucking dogs they were. Enemies come for any man sitting long on a throne. Doesn’t mean he’s weak.”
“Settle down,” Carla soothed. “Shouting isn’t good for my nerves.”
Cesare rolled his lips between his teeth but shot me a look as if I’d understand his banked vehemence. I nodded slightly at him in acknowledgment. The only reason I wasn’t shouting myself was because Cerberus was seated at my side, his entire weight a steady pressure against my legs and his head in my lap because he knew I needed the comfort.
“I think we can all agree Dario didn’t deserve whatever it is that is happening to him,” I said calmly, shocked by the steadiness of my voice when inside a tempest of emotion was threatening to consume me whole. “What we need to figure out is where the hell he is and how the fuck to get him back.”
“Don’t swear, dear,” Carla rebuked softly, almost by instinct. “It’s uncouth.”
“Fuck uncouth,” I bit back. “Someone just sent me my husband’s ear in a goddamn box, Carla! I think I deserve to be a little unhinged, no?”
“It’s men’s work to figure this out,” she insisted, straightening her shoulders. “We should go to bed, try to rest. Let them handle it. I’m sure everything will seem so much better after a good night of sleep.”
I gaped at her, my fists clenching and releasing with pent-up frustration.
Bonnie appeared at my elbow. “Why don’t I draw you a bath, Signora Ferretti? You do look wan.”
I blinked at my friend, ready to protest, but a look in her eyes warned me to obey. So I mutely shot Cesare and Ciro a look that promised I would follow up with them and then allowed Bonnie to take me up to my room.
She even drew a bath, the fragrance of vanilla and crushed flowers curling on the rising steam until the sweetness fogged the bathroom and drowned out the old-penny scent lingering in the grooves of my bloodstained hands. I sat on the edge of the bath and stared at my palms, wondering in a kind of fugue state if this was the last time I’d touch my husband.
A piece of him, carved off in anger and sent to rile us all.
“There was no ransom note,” I said as the thought occurred to me, my head snapping up so suddenly it ached in my spine. “Why send the ear, then?”
Bonnie arched a brow but didn’t say anything. She knew enough about how my mind worked after all these years to act as a silent sounding board.
I stood up and began to pace the marble floor. “Why send the ear if they don’t want money for his return? It only serves to alert us to the fact that he has been taken and that they’re torturing him.”
My stomach turned over at the image that conjured, my big, strong husband cut up like a side of beef hanging from a rack, bleeding out into a drain in the floor.
I could tell myself I hated Dario until I was red in the face, but the way my body reacted to the thought of his agony and possible death made me wonder just how deeply he had sunk beneath my skin despite both of our best efforts over the years.
We had our differences. Namely, he was an asshole, and I disliked assholes. But we had been married for over half a decade now.
