Chapter 6

Six

Danika

I t’s been four weeks since we’ve seen Magnolia. Four fucking weeks and it feels like a damn year has gone by.

High beams bounce off the first-floor windows. Every Sinn enforcer makes a wide berth when I shove our SUV into park and usher Oliver into the safe house. Tucked into the crook of his arms is a small bundle. He whispers soothing words to the toddler.

Rune brings up the rear.

“Mr. Sinn.” A seasoned guard who worked under the Sinn family back when my father held the reins waits for my orders by the front door.

I take two steps and stop in front of him while Oliver and Rune go ahead of me.

“Secure the compound. No one comes in and no one leaves without seeing me first. Lock it the fuck down. Understood?” I want to know how the Hightowers gained access to my cousin’s family. No one leaves until I get answers.

Had these fuckers done their job in the first place I wouldn’t have had to witness my cousin’s wife get executed at point-blank range or use my time rescuing their daughter from those depraved, murdering, abusive fuckers. When I get my hands on my little cousin, he’s going to wish it was him the Hightowers kidnapped and killed instead. The little weasel will pay for not protecting his goddamn family and forcing me to do it for him.

I shove open the wrought-iron gate on the front door. It bounces off the back wall sending chunks of stonework tumbling to the entryway. Moving through the large, expansive rooms I come to a set of wooden doors. Guards stand on either side with grim expressions to match their black suits. They open the doors and I step inside, their eyes pinned forward.

I crack my neck and roll out the pain buried in my left shoulder from a fresh bullet wound. Motherfucker hurts like a bitch. I’ll have to see the doc, but first I have a man’s face to pummel.

Four damn weeks. Thirty-one days to be fucking exact. We missed Christmas and New Year’s. Fuck me sideways. She has to be worried sick and already deleting us from her life. I would. I won’t blame her if she is erasing us like we never existed. Did we not promise her she was our everything? And then we ghosted her like the rat bastards we are.

I scrape a hand over my face, the weight of my last name heavier than it has ever been.

I spot Oliver’s retreating back heading up the stairs to give the girl to her grandmother, no doubt. Good. The girl doesn’t need to see the violence I am about to unleash on her father.

We rounded up the extended family and brought them to one secure location until we sorted out the problem with the Hightowers.

Except Magnolia. She doesn’t know the full extent of our depravity and my family doesn’t know about her. It is safer that way despite what Rune argues.

Truth be told, I prefer keeping her presence in our lives a secret. If no one knows about her, no one can hurt her.

Now there is only one more asshole to deal with and then we can go to Magnolia and beg for her forgiveness. I hope it takes days of groveling if it means we can lock ourselves away in our penthouse with her.

At the core of my rage, is the fact I never wanted to be the head of the Sinn syndicate. It was meant for my older brother. A heroin overdose took him too soon, putting me in line for the Sinn throne. He couldn’t handle the pressure of taking over for our father which moved me up the chain. I’m never one to balk at responsibility. But I did something my father never contemplated when he wore the Sinn crown—I brought on my trusted friends to serve as my equals alongside me. We share the crown, the weight of its burden, and the sin that comes with keeping the criminal empire strong and our family safe.

My father was too power hungry to think past his own greed.

I’m not him.

And because of that, I would do anything for my family. I’d give up my life to protect any of them, but this shit show was avoidable and cost everyone more than they can ever get back. Namely the little girl clinging to Oliver. No one had to die, and a little girl did not need to lose her mother if my cousin kept his wandering dick in his pants. I should cut it off and do us all a favor.

I find Rune in the middle of the front office, gun raised with murder in his eyes.

Fuck.

He ditched the bullet-proof vest, and the state of his body matches the fury in his expression. Blood seeps into his white shirt where he caught either a blade or a bullet. Dirt, debris, and someone else’s blood stains his pants and hands. He doesn’t seem to fucking care.

“On your knees, motherfucker. You don’t deserve to be a father.” When Aaron doesn’t fall in line with Rune’s command, he puts a bullet in my cousin’s knee. Screams slam into the vaulted ceiling and bounce off my eardrums.

Aaron falls to the floor in a crumpled heap. “Cousin, aren’t you going to do anything?”

I huff out a grunt. “Give me a good reason first. When he’s done, I’ll put a couple of my own in you and then raise your child and be the real father she needs.”

Eyes the color of swamp water find mine. Hope dies a quick death in the other man. His expression turns grim. He probably realizes we know all his dirty secrets.

“Danika, my girl needs me. What the fuck is this?”

“Your girl needed her mother, too, but you didn’t seem to care when it mattered.”

Tears run down the grown man’s face. I don’t fault him for that. There is no wrong done in showing emotions. It’s the lack of a backbone that pisses me off. He could have been the father of the year every damn day since bringing that little girl into the world. Yet he pissed away the chance to be better than both of our fathers all to fuck the enemy.

I shake my head and cross the office. “I will not save you. If I were Rune, you would be dead already.” I’m not exactly known for my suave approach.

“Wha...wh…why? What did I do?” The weasel stutters like he’s a fucking saint among sinners. “Where’s my daughter? Did you bring her back?”

Rune moves the barrel of the gun from my cousin’s forehead to the underside of his chin. “You know damn well we did.”

Aaron has his hands up like they make him bulletproof. Dumbass.

“I need to get to her.”

“Don’t even think about moving.” Rune cocks the hammer back and levels the muzzle against my weeping cousin’s heart. I do nothing but go to the bar and pour a tumbler full of whiskey.

“What’s going on here?”

“Rune is trying to decide where to inflict the most pain,” I state flatly, turning to face my aging father as he walks into my office. My old man leans into his cane more than usual. The rainy season of the Pacific Northwest is hell on his old bones.

“But that is nothing that concerns you.” I let my disdain for the man who fathered me hang between us like days’ old laundry—foul and stiff.

Eyes the color of mine roam from my bleeding cousin to find me.

I sip my drink like it is nothing to have a man whimpering in pain and bleeding all over my carpet. Which sums up my life nicely. I’ve replaced it so many times I should consider hardwood or marble at this point.

“What happened to my brother’s boy? You were meant to save his girl and wife, not kill the man.” The Sinn elder’s voice wobbles with age. He fathered me late into his forties while my mother barely had time to hit legal age. I do not lose the similarity between his past and my present. Nor the irony. He always said my judgment of his choices would come back to kick me in the ass and for once in his life he was right about something.

“This son of a bitch got sloppy, put his dick in a Hightower girl and got her pregnant. Didn’t help that the girl is not of legal age. Her father found out about it and the baby that is coming. Apparently, the girl’s father wants my dear cousin here to know just how pissed off he is.”

“He had plans on selling the girl’s virginity to the highest bidder. I was doing her a favor.”

My stomach churns at how my cousin tries to defend his actions.

Typical Hightower move. Disgusting fuckers without a moral bone in their bodies.

Rune rears back and cracks the handle of the gun across my cousin’s cheek. A long gash opens up, and blood oozes out.

“Forcing her in the back of a van and raping her isn’t doing anyone a favor. Come on. Fess up you piece of shit. Did you do it for kicks and giggles or money? Both?”

Crack.

The left side of the cheek matches his right. Rune’s shoulders heave with rage. And I can’t blame him. We are looking to be fathers too and the mere idea of someone harming our blood has Rune seeking vengeance for all the wrong done toward the innocent.

My cousin came to us three weeks ago crying that they kidnapped his wife and child. He professed he didn’t know why other than the blood feud between our families.

Rune, Oliver, and I promised to get her back and sort everything else out later.

It’s later, and time to sort out the issues.

Oliver walks in, his brows pinched together and the wrath of all the gods curling his lips into a deep frown. I haven’t seen the man look his age since meeting him in grade school and right now every one of his forty-three years is clear in every deep crease across his brow and the edges of his eyes.

Four steps and he is across the home office and burying a set of brass knuckles into the other man’s face. My cousin falls back clutching at his jaw, but given it’s still attached to his face I know Oliver didn’t give him the full force of his unhinged anger.

“You put an innocent woman in the grave all because you wanted to fuck the Hightower king’s daughter you stupid fool.” Oliver never raises his voice and right now it’s pitched so low I have to strain to hear him. When his voice matches a demon’s, you need to be careful and right now he’s got the devil’s full army at his back.

My father’s eyes hold mine. “This needs to stop. We do not cannibalize our own.”

“No, we kill them and burn them when they commit a steep enough crime.”

I hold his gaze, unwavering as I answer. If he’s waiting for me to break, he will need to get a chair.

He realizes I’m not backing down from my position and finally looks at my cousin. “Shut up, boy, or they mean to kill you.”

“Look at me you piece of shit.” Oliver clutches Aaron’s swinging chin and forces him to put eyeballs on the blood covering Oliver’s hands, neck, and shirt. I take another drink and hook my ankle over the other. I will not step in and stop this. My motto is you pay for your crimes on this plane and my cousin will pay for his tonight.

“Look at your wife’s blood on my skin. Her blood on my shirt. These bits and pieces are your wife’s brain. Rune should have shot you in the dick.”

Oliver rears back. This time I don’t see him holding back. My cousin will meet his maker, be it the devil or God.

“Enough!” My father roars, earning him the full force of Oliver’s deathly glare.

My blood brother is heaving with anger when he pivots and heads toward the Sinn elder.

“Enough? Enough? You didn’t see the girl’s mother lose her brain, old man. You don’t get to step in now. You had your chance. You are the real reason we have a fucking enemy out of the Hightowers to begin with. Shut the fuck up and find a corner to die in, old man.”

A silver cane comes up and strikes Oliver in the chest. “Boy, you are nothing in this family. He gave you a reason to live. He gave you my crown. You didn’t earn it.”

He meaning me.

Oliver grabs the cane and tosses it across the room with a heavy thud. “Didn’t earn it? What would you call me killing three Hightower men tonight? Men who were three weeks ago dropping their kids off at college, not planning war against us? What do you call picking a crying toddler off a rat-infested floor who begs for her mommy? I see you, old man. I know your sins. Don’t put them at my feet when I am doing nothing but cleaning up your mess. This family would be gone and buried under several more empires if it were not for Rune, me, and your son. Your legacy lives on because we stepped in and cleaned out the sewer.”

“Oliver.” I step in when it looks like he’s going to give my father the beating Aaron deserves. “You said your piece. Let the old man hold on to his lies.”

“Someone has to make him face the truth.” Oliver steps over Aaron and heads to the bar. He grabs the glass I left and downs it after refilling Rune’s.

“My wife is dead?”

I grab my cousin by the collar and toss him out of my office. “If he wants to leave, let him,” I tell an enforcer before closing the doors, shutting him and everyone else out. I don’t care what happens to the weasel. Let the Hightowers off him the second he steps off Sinn property. The world would be a better place without him.

My father finds his chair by the fireplace, his gaze already lost in the flames. “What happened?” he asks after a long moment of sitting in silence.

“Did you miss what I said five minutes ago?”

I pull off my T-shirt and toss it onto the sofa opposite my father’s chair. Between us is a long table used for holding bottles of million-dollar bourbon or signing contracts. Tonight it has bandages, material for stitches, and disinfectant.

I signal to Rune, and he helps me drag the sofa closer. He sits beside me, and I help peel his shirt off to see the damage he took to his right side.

“Son of a bitch. Magnolia is going to be pissed that the rattlesnake and flowers are sliced in two.” She loved tracing the scales and kissing the flowers.

“I’ll make it up to her,” Rune grunts. “If she is still talking to us after this.”

I set to stitching up an eight-inch knife wound. Oliver hands me everything I need, never speaking.

My father’s eyes never leave me as I work. Gears are turning in that head of his. He’s afraid the Sinn empire is falling into the hands of the enemy. I can see it written all over his frail face.

“What happened tonight? And I don’t mean with Aaron. I mean with the Hightower elder,” he patiently corrects himself like his age has finally caught up with him. No, not his age. The man doesn’t believe he’s a day over fifty despite the truth. All the evil he did to get the power and wealth he amassed is what gives him drooping shoulders and robs him of his energy.

“Hightower is out for blood and frankly I don’t blame him. Aaron took his daughter and stole her virginity in the back of a van.”

I finish Rune’s stitches and Oliver disinfects the utensils before Rune returns the favor and checks the entry point of a slug in my shoulder.

“It’s clean,” he informs me before the needle touches skin. I’ve had so many stitches now I’m dead to the prick of pain.

“It took forever for them to lower their guard. All it took was for them to do it once and we took advantage of the moment. It’s the only way we got the girl back.” Shooting our way inside the Hightower compound could have ended with my niece’s death so we waited for an opening. It took four fucking weeks of waiting. One guard fell asleep. Rune slit his throat and then we were in. No bullets. Not until we were on our way out. A few of the Hightower fuckers have good aim. Or did. They aren’t alive to shoot at us again.

“We took down half of the man’s army, but it won’t take him long to find new recruits willing to pick up guns if the pay is right.”

Oliver passes me a fresh drink, and he clinks glasses with Rune. “We need to go to Magnolia now.”

“Agreed. She’ll think we ghosted her.”

Rune downs his drink, using it instead of pain meds. “We need to explain how things work. Enough of keeping her a secret and secluded from our real lives.”

“Magnolia?”

Before tonight, we never discussed Magnolia in front of anyone, but I no longer care who hears.

Rune finishes his drink and stands, moving to a hidden closet set deep into the far wall. He pulls out three clean shirts and passes one to me and Oliver.

“You can’t be serious, you daft boy. You want to go get a piece of ass when the family needs you?”

“Modern slang doesn’t fit your style, Father.”

My father’s words grate over my raw nerves. Clutching the tumbler in my hands I hurl it and the contents into the fire. Flames roar and throw the room into a burst of angry reds and oranges.

“When you pitted our family against the Hightowers for no reason a decade ago you lost all say-so in this family. I stepped in to keep the other territories from slaughtering us in our sleep. Your ego has no place here.”

My father waves a hand like he can dispel my words, but the truth never goes away, and he knows it.

“The fact remains, if you left a single Hightower alive. Even one. They will be out for blood. If this girl is so important to you and you make the mistake of bringing her into this family now you are putting a target on her back. She’ll die within a month. Just like your cousin’s wife.”

My temper blazes. Veins bulge and the sheer amount of adrenaline jacking into my system has me rearing back and releasing my wrath into the high ceiling. Heaving, I arrow all my rage and frustration toward one man. “I loathe the day I took over this empire. When my brother died, I should have burned it all to the fucking ground. If I had, we would all be free of you.”

Father pushes to his feet with the help of his cane. He crosses and stands in front of me. His weathered face pulled into a frown. “Calm down, son. I am not right about much, but this one time listen to me. Don’t be me. When I married your mother it was out of love despite what you may think. Back then I didn’t have the strength I needed to protect her. I always told you she died in childbirth when in reality she died at the hands of an enemy because I was too weak to protect her. Now your cousin feels my pain. Don’t bring some innocent woman into this family until you can make it safe for her.”

There are tears in my father’s eyes.

I long ago learned that even the smallest of lies will always come to light. Feeling as though I’m swallowing broken glass, I take in my father’s confession.

“You lied to me for forty years?”

A frail shoulder lifts. “It was easier that way.” My father falls back into his chair. “I rather you grew up loving the idea of a woman who died to bring you into this world rather than hating the men who took her out of it.”

I don’t expect to feel pain, but the barbed wire wound around my heart for the man in front of me loosens and drops to the floor between my feet. My gaze connects with Rune’s before finding Oliver’s.

“Don’t look so taken aback. You are right to hate me. One thing done right doesn’t erase the evil I committed with the hatred that consumed me. The Hightowers did nothing to me and I nearly eradicated their bloodline from my—our—territory out of hatred and fear. They have every right to hate our family.” Flames dance in his eyes giving the man an eerie appearance.

“If you will excuse me. I have a baby girl I need to see.”

My father makes his way to the door. He looks back with a lifetime of knowledge folded into the wrinkles on his hands and face. “You will do well to heed my word, son. Eliminate the threat first. Then find the girl. If she’s worth fighting for and the one who will love the three of you as you are, she will be there once you are done.”

I watch my father’s retreating back. A broken man with little to live for with no wife and no empire to rule over.

Oliver pulls our phones out of the drawer. We left them behind so no one could track us or distract us from the task at hand.

He tosses mine in my lap and hands Rune’s to him on the way to the chair by the fire.

Oliver’s phone goes off with old messages coming through.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” he seethes.

“What?”

Rune sits up when Oliver flips the phone around for us to see.

“One hundred and twelve messages from her. They start out sweet and then turn worried and then hurt. What did we promise her? We promised her she was our everything. And look what we did to her. She could be carrying our child right this second and we are leaving her defenseless.”

I sit up, lowering my elbows to my knees, not bothering with the messages left on my phone. Not yet, anyway. “My father is right, Oliver. We have to stay away. It won’t be for long. We eliminate the Hightowers, and then we can be with her. It’s the only way. I witnessed the destruction my mother’s death left behind. I can’t place Magnolia in the same danger.”

“You mean we, brother.”

I nod at Rune. “We,” I correct.

“Fuck, Danika. I don’t know if I can go another hour without touching her. Much less days.”

I hear the strangled torture in Rune’s voice. Oliver’s silence is deafening. He might as well be roaring his frustration into the rafters until the roof caves in with how powerful he is when silent.

I pour each of them a drink and get a fresh glass for myself.

“How long have we known each other?”

“Fuck, I think I remember you in diapers.”

I crack a grin at Rune. “You wish your memory was that good. But the fact is, time is nothing. We are blood. We either agree on this as a unit or we don’t do it, but you heard my father. The old bastard is a fuckup, but that doesn’t make him wrong about this.”

I reach for my phone and power it on. I get the same number of messages as Oliver did.

I scroll through a few of them before stopping over the very last one. “Did you see this message?” I hold my phone up and show Rune then Oliver.

“Come and catch me… if you can,” Oliver reads.

“We pissed her off and a woman this mad is nearly impossible to reach.”

Oliver’s grin turns wicked. “I say we head over to her place and find out what will make her take us back in.”

I shake my head. “Stop. We can’t and you know it. You still have blood under your nails from the last fucker you eliminated.”

My stomach curls into itself with a sickening feeling of guilt and unworthiness. She deserves better but fuck if I can let her fully go.

“You’re scared.” Rune wipes his face with both hands. “You’re scared of touching her after having blood on your hands.”

Fear grips my throat. “Aren’t you?” I force out.

Oliver refills our glasses and snags my phone.

“She sent you a selfie at some point that I didn’t get. Look at this smile. She’s so damn sweet and innocent it hurts to think of her in danger because of our life choices.”

Rune balances his glass on his knee. “We should walk and never look back.”

I don’t know how I feel about them agreeing with me. I half want them to fight me on it and drag my ass out of this safe house to find our woman.

Rune takes my phone from Oliver’s hand and sends himself the picture. “If we are going to do this, declare war on the Hightowers, I’m going to need that sweet smile to get me through.”

His head is pointed down, and he’s not exactly talking to us, but Oliver and I hear him all the same. We share a look. Rune is worse than a pit bull after blood. Once he sets his mind on destruction, there is no off switch until the job is done.

We take on the business of wiping out our enemy, there will be no turning back.

He returns my phone, and I stare at Magnolia’s face. “If we go to her, bring her into our lives now with Hightower out there with a gun with our name on it, she will have a target on her back.”

“We have to erase her from our lives until the job is done. Nothing can trace back to her in case one or all of us die. Pictures, messages, contacts. Nothing.”

We all nod and pull out our phones. I hover a thumb over the delete button. Two taps for each of us and it’s like she never existed.

“Fuck that hurt. She’s gone.”

Rune’s words come out strangled.

“Not forever, brother.”

Rune raises his head and I see tears in his eyes. The man is a fucking rock. He didn’t cry when his mother beat him. He didn’t shed a damn tear when the doctors reset his leg after having a run-in with a metal baseball bat. Nor when he took three bullets saving my life.

But the man has tears in his eyes at losing the one person in our pathetic lives who means something to all of us.

I put a hand on his shoulder and squeeze. “Find us a way to watch over her from afar. Even if it’s for only a few seconds to make sure she is okay. Something that auto deletes every two minutes.”

He nods and gets to work. He’s good with his hands and his brain. If you want backdoor access to any security grid mainframe, he’s your guy.

Oliver pulls out a black book from the safe, and we pore over names and contacts. Wars don’t happen in a single night. You work your allies and make sure no one will turn on you when your back is turned. You call in favors and give a few in return.

“I have some friends in Chicago. Harlon, Cassius, and Santi. If we need weapons, they will supply.”

I nod. “Get it done. We need men, too. The more guns we have on our side, the faster this ends.”

“They have friends in New York. People who will get their hands dirty for the right causes. They call themselves the Savages.”

I like them already. It’s always good to make new friends.

I look over to find Rune who has a grim look on his face.

“What’s wrong?”

Rune flips his phone around and shows us six squares filling the screen of his phone. Magnolia is in none of them. My heart clenches.

“You put cameras in her apartment and didn’t tell us?”

“Not exactly. I tapped into the feed of what is already there. You’ll never guess the password.” He stands and Oliver takes the phone from him.

“Where is she? What are you showing me? I see an empty apartment.”

“Exactly.”

“Find out where she went and get access to whatever security system they have there. I have a feeling she’s moving to another city but won’t stray far from her job. Call Raja, Rune. Apply whatever pressure you have to for the information we need. He’s our ticket in.”

Rune pulls up the keypad on his phone. “What are we willing to promise him in return for information on Magnolia?”

“Whatever he wants,” I deadpan. “Remember the property we have in Paris. It would make a great place for a new Golden Key Society. We can sign the deed over tonight.”

“When this wraps up, who’s going to be the one to tell her we violated her privacy?”

That is Oliver.

“We all can while we are on our knees begging for her to take us back.”

Oliver hands me my cell and a list of allies. “Let’s get started.”

Rune is already on the phone with Raja.

A few weeks more and this will be done. We will do whatever it takes to win her back. By Valentine’s Day, Magnolia will be in our arms once again and all will be right in the world.