“Greedy, foolish mobster. You’ll get yours,” Goliath taunted with a cynical sardonic laugh that actually made my skin crawl.
Not many things could get to me. Not many things could instill the fucking fear of God in me, but this guy…
He did it. He reached a place inside me that I never knew existed, and I hated that. Same as I hated the macramé of knots that had tangled through my nerves and the fibers of my soul.
“Where is my wife!” I screamed. “Where is Marissa?”
All he did was laugh. Of course, he would. The man was insane.
Insane and ruthless. Ruthless and heartless. I didn’t know how I’d gotten myself mixed up in this shit with him.
“The thing is, Claudius, I am going to tell you where she is. We’re going to play a game.”
“Don’t be a fucking prick. Give her back to me.” My heart squeezed at the thought of what he must have done to her.
And…I didn’t know how he’d gotten to her in the first place.
When shit went down yesterday and the deal fell through, I’d taken Marissa to the safe house. A place that only me and a few people knew about. A place that only me and The Four, my men, knew I was taking her to.
When I saw she was gone, I didn’t have time to think that I had a rat in my circle. The worst kind because I trusted those guys with my life and couldn’t’ think of what reason on earth they could have to double-cross me in the way they had.
Marissa was my priority. I had to get her back.
“She has nothing to do with this,” I cried, slamming my fists down on the kitchen counter.
I’d come home in my search for her, looking everywhere like a maniac, refusing to believe that she’d been taken.
“She is yours. That means she’s your price. The price you will pay for messing up my plans. Plans that lost me money. Millions, billions, who can say?” Goliath bellowed into the phone. “So, Claudius, you know how I love games. The last one was so much fun.”
My blood boiled then froze. The game he was referring to wasn’t a game. It was evil.
There was a difference between being bad and pure evil.
I was a bad person, a criminal at best. But I wasn’t evil.
This guy was.
The other day, one of his bodyguards allowed a cop to get too close to him. It was no fault of the bodyguard; it just happened.
However, Goliath blindfolded the man and made him walk near the edge of a cliff.
I tried to stop him from falling over the side, but I was too late.
When I actually saw what was happening, I was too late. Goliath told the man to step backwards and walk toward him, making the man believe that by stepping backwards he’d be on the ground still. One step back, and he went hurtling down to his death.
“You ready?” He laughed.
“I’m ready, asshole.”
“Testy, testy, considering it was me who you wronged. This is mild. You could be dead with your head on display someplace or hanging from a mountain.”
“Goliath, you tell me where my wife is!” I had no patience left. I didn’t have any in the first place.
“Fine, calm down. So, here’s the thing, I got confused, so I took your wife and her sister. Twins can be so tricky, and you’re a mobster. Those can be tricky too.”
Everything stilled inside me.
He has Ava too.
Fuck, no!
No.
Nooo...
Mindlessly, I walked outside the house, my legs weak, my heart barely beating, my soul…
My soul screaming so loud it was deafening, and I couldn’t think straight.
“Why?” The word fell from my lips.
“I just told you, Claudius. Mobsters are tricksters. Can’t trust them. You could have put the twin in the safe house. Sure, I doubted it, but best to be on the safe side, right? They’re at the docks in two different warehouses. I have a glorious bomb in one, as to which you have to guess. Bomb’s set to go off in half an hour.”
I was moving before he could finish.
Fucking bastard. He knew it would take me at least twenty minutes to get to the docks, and at rush hour it would be crazy.
I jumped on my Harley and tore down the streets like a demon, driving around the traffic, driving on the pavements, driving where I could that had a path that could get me to my destination.
I couldn’t believe this, and Goliath wasn’t by any means right. It wasn’t greed that got me mixed up with him.
I had enough money. My brother Luc and I were capos to the Rossi Family. Raphael Rossi owned Chicago.
I had long since abandoned the poor life I had lived in my teens and God, I had so much money I could barely keep up with what I had and what I didn’t have.
So, why’d I think it was a good idea to take on this fucking side deal that put both my wife and her sister in danger?
The truth was, it was a distraction from all the shit that had happened in my life. A fucking selfish distraction.
Now I was paying for it in the worst way possible. Bad enough to take Marissa, but Ava too.
Ava… the woman I…
No. I willed myself not to think of the mess of a situation I’d had with her. I willed my heart not to venture down that path. I willed my mind not to contemplate the possibility of the fear that rose in me, telling me what this game was.
Two warehouses.
One had a bomb.
One sister in each.
With so little time to get to the docks, the crux of the game was either to kill me and one twin, or make me choose who I saved.
Bile rose in my throat at the thought. Bile and the cold tendrils of fear that wrapped around my nerves.
Twenty minutes.
It took me twenty minutes to get there. The darkness of night was already settling over the place. I leapt off the bike and ran down the boardwalk that led to the host of warehouses. There were at least twenty of them.
How the hell was I supposed to know which to go in was anyone’s guess. Time was ticking, moving, getting away from me.
Like a madman I ran for all I was worth, adrenaline kicking in. I opened the first door and abandoned the place when I saw it was empty. It was a storage facility.
Warehouse two was empty also. Three and four held some large freight containers, so I looked around those to see if either sister was hidden there.
Five minutes…
My hands were shaking, my body a mess.
My throat dry and my skin on fire.
I ran inside warehouse five, and that was when I saw Ava tied to a chair. There were crates everywhere and barrels of fish.
She’d been gagged, and when she saw me, her eyes went wide.
I moved to her with lightning speed, pulled the gag from her mouth, and—
“Claudius,” she wept.
“There’s no time,” I cried trying to keep my hands steady as I started undoing the rope. “Where’s Marissa?”
“I don’t know. Claudius, I don’t know. The bomb’s attached to her.” Hysterical tears were pouring down her cheeks.
I stopped what I was doing and stared at her.
“Attached to her?”
“Yes, I don’t know where they took her.”
Two minutes…
She kicked off the ropes and tried to come with me as I moved, but I whirled around and held her in place.
“No, stay here!”
“She’s my sister. I’m coming with you.”
“No, fuck. Ava. I won’t lose you again.” I don’t know what made me say that. It was my emotions running on high. As I said the words though, she knew what I meant.
She knew exactly what I meant.
She held my gaze with her sea-green eyes. They seemed brighter today against her platinum blonde hair. More tears streamed down her cheeks.
She opened her mouth to talk, but my phone rang.
I pulled it out. It was Marissa’s number.
Did she get out?
My heart leapt at the thought.
“Marissa, where are you?” I asked, but a hollow sound echoed in my ear.
“Claudius, get out of here. It’s a trap. Please just leave,” Marissa wailed.
“Tell me where you are, please. I’m here. I’m at the docks.” I ran outside. Ava followed.
“No, get out. It’s too late,” Marissa screamed.
“Marissa, for fuck’s sake, tell me where you are. You’re on the phone.” Frantically, I looked around.
“They hooked the phone up to some device. Claudius, get out. I took enough from you. Don’t let me take your life too.”
One minute…
One fucking minute left.
I looked at all the warehouses left before me.
I wouldn’t make it. I wouldn’t make it…
“Marissa, tell me where you are. Tell me right the hell now. Tell me!”
She started crying. “I love you. Thank you for sticking with me. I love you Claudius.”
Ava started crying too. I looked at her, then back to the scene before me.
“I love you too,” I told Marissa and felt like a bastard.
She knew those words were hard for me to say, especially when I’d had to learn to love her.
This was my fault.
This was all my fault. She deserved better.
“Claudius, please take care of my sister. I—”
An explosion shook the ground. Instinct made me grab Ava and shield her with my body.
I looked back to see the warehouse about thirty feet away from us on fire.
Fire billowed up into the sky in a cascading wave and blew into the warehouse next to it.
As Ava screamed and tried to move out of my arms, I held her back.
All I could do was stare. Stare at the nightmare scene that unfolded itself before me. Stare at what it meant.
They killed Marissa.
She was dead.
And it was my fault.
All mine…