Chapter 25 THE SEARCH FOR REID
"He didn't die in an accident, Siren. He was executed. Three hours before you were found bleeding out in that alley, Reid was a dead man."
The words came from a man named Pip, a twitchy, nervous informant who lived in the crawlspace of an old subway station. He wouldn't look me in the eye. He just kept his hands busy with a piece of copper wire, twisting it into tight, anxious loops. The air in the tunnel was thick with the smell of damp earth and stale grease, but I didn't care. I was too busy trying to keep my world from spinning.
"Tell me everything," I said. I leaned against the rusted support beam, my shadow stretching long and jagged against the tunnel wall. "Start from the beginning. Who was he, Pip? Not just to me. Who was he to the city?"
Pip let out a sharp, jagged laugh. "You really did lose your mind in that coma, didn't you? Everyone knew Reid. He wasn't just some street runner you picked up for a night of fun. He was the crown prince. He was the heir to the Valenti throne."
The name Valenti hit me like a physical blow.
I froze. My mind raced back to the Cruz compound, back to the dinners and the galas where my father would sit and discuss the "Big Three" families. The Valenti family had been on the same level as the Cruz family. Don Valenti was a titan of the shipping ports, a man my father respected and feared in equal measure.
And Reid. I remembered the name now. Reid Valenti.
In my old life, my late sister, Sofia, and her friends used to spend hours whispering about him. He was the "Golden Boy" of the criminal elite. He was handsome, untouchable, and destined for greatness. I remembered Sofia showing me a picture of him in a gossip rag. He had a smile that looked like it could melt ice and eyes that promised a world of trouble.
"The first son," I whispered, the realization sinking in. "He was the heir apparent."
"The heir who threw it all away," Pip countered, finally looking up. His eyes were small and filled with a strange kind of pity. "His father, the old Don, had big plans. He’d arranged a marriage between Reid and the daughter of the Moretti family. It was supposed to be the union of the century. It would have made the Valentis the most powerful gang in the tri-state area."
I nodded slowly. I understood that game. I had lived it. I was a pawn in that game myself.
"But Reid said no," Pip continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. "He found a woman. An unknown. A ghost from the streets. He kept her a secret for a long time, but the Don eventually found out. He gave Reid an ultimatum: leave the girl and marry the Moretti heiress, or lose everything."
"And Reid chose the girl," I said. I felt a strange warmth in my chest, a phantom echo of a love I hadn't actually lived. Sienna had been loved that much. A prince had given up a kingdom for her.
"He decided to drop his birthright," Pip said. "He was going to run. He told his father he didn't want the blood or the money. He just wanted her. But the Valentis don't let people just walk away, Siren. Especially not the heirs."
I paced the small, cramped space of the tunnel. Something wasn't adding up. "Reid was the first son. He was trained from birth to survive. How could he be killed so easily? How could a man like that be murdered in broad daylight without a war breaking out?"
"Because it wasn't a rival gang that did it," Pip said. He went back to his wire, his fingers moving faster now. "And it wasn't his father. Don Valenti loved that boy. He was furious, yeah, but he wouldn't have put a bullet in his own legacy. No, it was a clean hit. Professional. No evidence, no witnesses, no repercussions. The police called it a random mugging gone wrong. Can you believe that? A Valenti heir killed for a watch."
I felt the rage bubbling up, cold and lethal. "And what happened to the Valenti turf after he died? What happened to the ports and the warehouses?"
Pip looked at me then, his face pale in the dim light. "The Don had a stroke a week after the funeral. He couldn't lead. The family fell into chaos. And then... the Harbingers moved in. They didn't even have to fire a shot. They just absorbed the whole operation. Kanan Maddox owns the Valenti ports now. He owns everything."
The silence in the tunnel was absolute. I could hear the drip of water somewhere in the distance, sounding like the ticking of a clock.
My timelines weren't just crossing. They were identical.
Sienna hadn't gone "off the rails" because she was crazy. She had gone on a rampage because the man she loved had been executed by the same people who were currently taking over his life. She had stormed their turf, desperate for revenge, and they had crushed her just like they had crushed me.
We were bonded by the same tragedy. We were both victims of a calculated, cold-blooded expansion.
"Kanan," I hissed.
It wasn't just about my father's money. It wasn't just about the Cruz turf. Kanan Maddox was clearing the entire board. He was removing every major player, every heir, and every obstacle to his "legitimate" empire. He had killed Reid to take the ports, and he had killed me to take the Cruz assets.
We were both pieces of a larger game, and we had both been discarded when we were no longer useful.
"You okay, Si?" Pip asked, stepping back. "You look like you're about to explode."
"I am fine, Pip," I said. My voice was as cold as a grave. "You've been very helpful."
I handed him a roll of cash and walked out of the tunnel, climbing the rusted ladder back to the surface. I stood in the rain, the water soaking into my leather jacket, but I didn't feel the cold.
I looked at my hands. These were Sienna’s hands, but the soul driving them was Elena’s. We were the same now. Two women murdered by the same man’s ambition.
I thought about Reid. I thought about the way Sienna had chosen to stay in the afterlife with him rather than return to this hell. She had known. She had known that without him, there was nothing left but the fight.
Sienna and I were not just sharing a body.
We were sharing a pattern.
And patterns meant design.
"I have your body, Sienna," I whispered into the rain. "And I have your mission. I promise you, I will finish what you started."
I realized then that Kanan wasn't just a murderer. He was a predator who had been watching all of us for years. He had probably been the one to tip off Don Valenti about his son’s "unknown woman." He had created the conflict so he could swoop in and collect the pieces.