Chapter Eleven

In Whom We Trust

Rafe

I sit across from the young man with Willow's eyes and say nothing. Because, as it turns out, neither does he. But the kid sees everything. Just because he's silent doesn't mean he is stupid.

Roman Hernandez is nonverbal from trauma, just like Willow promised me when I doubted her honesty. I sweep a hand across my head, letting out a long, shuddering breath.

"Why didn't I just fucking trust her?" Not just that time—any of the chances I had to back my wife, to prevent the abyss that cleaves Rhode Island, and my heart, in two.

"Because you are a hardheaded man, stubborn, with an ego the size of your giant empire. It's a surprise you can fit inside the house." My healer, Thalia, insisted on being present while I spoke, in the barest terms—our conversation was like none other I ever had—but the consequence of that was wearing her ire and disdain aimed my way.

"Thalia," Dom warns from his customary position in the back corner of my office. The huge, tall man loiters in the shadows, seeing as much, I guessed, as the child across from me.

Is he a child, though? Roman lost his parents four years ago, and he endured similar tortures to Willow under their uncle's hand. He would have been a man before others could figure out how to fend for themselves. No, I do the boy a disservice in not giving him credit for a sharp mind.

"It's all right." I wave Dom down as he stares hard at Thalia, who does her best to ignore him, standing straight for her fine-boned, small stature, and glares at me. "I understand Thalia's reasons. She's always welcome to voice them."

The girl in question snorts—another whose childhood was ripped away when she was trafficked. Thalia spent months in my house communicating with Dom nonverbally, and he never gave up on her. Just like I won't give up on Willow's little brother.

But how pissed she will be with me for bringing him within my walls. Not that I have any intentions of hurting or scaring the boy. Man. Whatever. He's the bridge to my wife. If I can earn his loyalty and respect, just maybe I will have a twisted olive branch to extend that she might accept.

Unlike the one she yanked out from under Konnor when she announced my sister was pregnant with his brother's child.

A bridge with many exits indeed.

"Young … man." I pause, refocusing on what would get Roman to my side of the void. "Your sister is effervescent. Beautiful. Powerful. All the things that both attract and terrify men around the globe. More the latter," I muse.

The corner of Roman's mouth quirks.

"And she is also my wife. And while I understand her need to retain her independence, I live every second in terror that some asshole has killed the woman I love because I'm not able to be there to prevent it." I lay out my pain openly.

Roman watches me through curious eyes, and I wonder what he sees. The reflection of himself in twenty years? A man who had everything and lost it because, as Thalia pointed out, my ego didn't have room for two? Or just a broken soul who reflects my pain in his own way.

The kid stares at me for a moment, then taps his chest and points upstairs. I glance over his head at Dom who shrugs with his hands out.

Roman wanders his fingers along his arm and slaps his hand. Thalia lets out a laugh but when I glanced at her for aid, her face blanks and she stares at the window behind me.

Fucking fabulous.

Looks like I'm going this one alone then.

"You want to go up top and…" Fall off the building? I don't get that last bit at all.

Roman's smile widens and he nods once.

"You'll go upstairs to look at your sister's room?" Why would he need to do that? "I was always shit at charades," I grumble.

"He wants to stay upstairs and help you mend your relationship with his sister, but also he's looking forward to seeing you fall on your face in the attempt," Thalia adds with a sugary-sweet smile in my direction.

Dom turns a laugh into a cough through his fist while I stare at the boy across from me. The Hernandez family has some weird fucking sense of humor. I shrug. "Me too, Roman. Let me show you the rooms taken, then you can go exploring and pick whichever one you like." I count in my head. "There's at least twelve free. Pick whatever."

Roman Hernandez smiles, stands, and grabs the coat Dom holds out to him, waiting for me to lead him up the stairs. I shake my head, bemused. Surely this day can't get any weirder.

Until Thalia's voice ripples up to the next story where she rips Dom a new one for not being able to interpret the boy's intentions.

My steps are a little faster in the attempt to avoid her before she latches her claws into me, too. I'm fond of her, but not like Dom. He can have her.

****

While the kid explores, I make a much-needed call to my frenemy.

"Rafe," Konnor's Irish lilt greets me. "Tell me something I don't know about my family. Maybe I can repay the favor."

Good to know you're grasping at straws the way I was when Willow ran from me.

My chest aches like a whiny bitch but I lost my motherfucking wife, for Christ's sake. I am allowed to grieve. Because I'm starting to wonder if I will ever actually get her back.

It's been more than a week. Ten days of ongoing hell.

"Maybe. Do you know where my sister is?" I try to keep my voice easy, but the strain is evident in my last words.

"No. Do you know where my little brother is?" Konnor's voice echoes the plaintive note in my own.

I hadn't just lost one woman, I lost two. The last two female members of my family I actually care about.

"Who do we have to kill to get our lives back?" I murmur.

Konnor laughs. "Looks like we had the rug ripped out from under us. But I can think of a few ways to cut off the snake's head without hurting anyone."

"Yeah," I ask warily, pouring myself a glass of whiskey.

"The docks."

I pause with my glass halfway to my mouth. "No."

"It's a brilliant plan." Konnor shifts on his end of the line, leather squeaking as I imagine him leaning forward. "We take control of the docks. You and me, the giants. Cut off the income, the outgoings. A little power play, but more like herding cats into an alley and setting the ground alight."

"You sound positively gleeful."

"I always love a good plan with an element of surprise."

How long before he then rips that rug out from under my feet?

But then, we are rivals for a reason. I'd be a fool to underestimate him, even before I get my people back.

"My answer is no. That won't win me my wife."

"How so?" Konnor snaps. "She'll have no income, no way to move product. We take her drugs, we take her transport, we corner her. Problem solved."

"Your problem solved, not mine," I counter. Konnor's silence speaks volumes. "My wife took those accounts and gave me what I have of the docks. There's trusts and contracts and a slice for her brother…"—shit, I shouldn't have said that—"and if I fuck with that, I lose her. Guaranteed. This is about her claiming a slice for herself, Konnor. If I take that from her…" I kiss my fingers, blowing our future away with a puff of breath, even though he can't see it.

"Fair enough," Konnor grumbles. "But it was a good plan."

"It was a great plan," I agree. "We could take out the Korean faction for shits and giggles? Give ourselves an early Christmas present, perhaps?" Keeping Konnor happy comes secondary to my wife, and only her. If she runs to him again … there are enough unfriendlies in his household I might lose her or Regina forever.

Or the baby.

Regina, I knew, was pregnant. Willow and I…

I squeeze the phone in my hand so hard the glass cracks.

"I know you're worried about her," Konnor says softly. "Rafe, I have another call. I will talk to you later."

He hangs up, leaving me with an empty room, and no more idea what to do about my wife than before. Because in this game, it's not my move anymore. It's hers.

****

Which is how I end up across the road from the Hernandez house, lying on my stomach with a pair of binoculars pinned to my face trained on the door. One phone call, my wife to my healer, and we came running like so many well-trained dogs. Or feral ones.

Dom lies next to me, breathing softly. Even that sound irritates the shit out of me.

"Can you be quieter?" I ask. "I don't remember you forgetting how to scope a place out."

"That's because he's deaf in one ear," Thalia pipes up from her place curled along Dom's other side, lying on her back, and studying the sky.

Bringing a healer with me seemed like a good idea, right up until now.

"He is?" I shoot Dom a look as her words process. "Why didn't you tell me?"

Dom opens his mouth but Thalia's words seem to come out of it. "Maybe you're deaf, too. I can test you," she offers.

"Maybe later."

I strain to sweep the binos across the windows opposite, but every one of them is painted black. "You said she was coming out."

"Fucking stalker," Dom grumps, flexing his shoulders. "We're too old for this shit, Boss."

I turn over an idea that sprang to mind after my not-talk with Roman. "I want you to head up the Hernandez operation after I get Willow back."

I don't have to look at him to know his face is full of incredulity.

"The fuck is wrong with you? She wants out because you're controlling and now you want to take away the foothold she's gained? I should have let Thalia punch you."

I grin. "To hold it in place for Roman and train him to lead his people."

"Oh." Dom tips his head to one side on my periphery while I strain to find my wife behind the imposing building. "That's probably a good idea."

"Why me?" Thalia pipes up again, way too loud. Dom shushes her.

"Because you can communicate with him. I have a doctor. I'm not sure they do. And I trust both of you to keep the kid alive." Keeping Roman happy gets me back in Willow's good graces.

Happy wife, happy life, and all that fucked-up jazz.

Spin it any direction, I'll do what it takes to get her back.

Two cars enter the street at opposite ends. I take in the car Willow was in and swing my attention back the other way, not recognizing the drivers.

"I thought you said she was inside," I rasp at Dom. "She's going to get herself fucking killed."

Another car pulls into the street behind the one opposite Willow's, and I recognize Konnor.

"Fucking bastard," I mutter under my breath. "We need to get down there."

"You need to stay here. Both of you." Dom gives my back a hard tap and pats Thalia on the head. "Do you understand me?"

I glare at him. Thalia shoots him the bird.

Dom stalks away, muttering curses under his breath.

"So sweet," Thalia calls after him, her voice cracking with so much use.

She had been nonverbal for a while, like Roman, but came back to us when Dom made some fairly romantic, bloody gestures, and promised her things I wasn't sure we could actually get. But it kept her on our side of the line, and I couldn't afford to lose anyone else. My last thought before Dom steps out of the building we perch on, just as gunfire rings out.

Willow sits frozen in the passenger seat of her car for a too-long moment. The window splits in slow motion, like I'm watching a Guy Ritchie film, waiting for the final moment. Spiderwebs appear in the glass, and Diego's hand slaps her head down. Blood spurts, but she isn't in the bullet's way. It pierces his arm instead, and his mouth opens in a curse I can't hear.

The car swings around in a one eighty, and roars away. That is enough to move my feet, but before I get anywhere, Dom reappears, puffing like hell.

"We have to go," he says in a strained voice. I only realize belatedly he holds a hand to his ribs. Thalia darts between us, lifting his hand away.

Blood glistens darkly against his black shirt, but his eyes never leave mine. "I know where Singleton is." Thalia jerks back, the name of the man who trafficked her dying unspoken on her lips. Dom's attention was fixed on me, though he slides a hand behind her neck, holding the tiny healer in place. "She's safe, Rafe. But I have to follow this lead now. If you stay, those bastards down there will end you, and her."

"That's a shitty choice," I grouse. "I don't care if I die for her."

Dom's eyes glow. "You will if they kill her after. Diego has her and he's loyal, Boss. Let her go for now."

I close my eyes, and follow him off the rooftop away from my wife without knowing her fate a second time. Halfway along the fire escape, I freeze, yanking out my cracked phone, and send a message her way.

Rafe: I know what happened. Tell me you're okay.

The moment I send the message I know I worded the demand wrong but fuck it, I'm desperate. What if a stray bullet tore through her fragile body? Willow might be strong inside, but she's still human. Mortal. And that terrifies me.

When Dom turns back, gesturing me to follow, my feet move me along like an automaton along for the ride. I check my phone every few seconds, but she never reads the message, and she never responds.

I haven't felt more helpless in my fucking life.