Chapter 12

Daniel

There were three things I couldn't stand in my work.

Insolence.

Disobedience.

Chaos.

All three kept me on edge, which wasn't good for my psyche or anyone else for that matter. When I was enraged, I didn't fall back into grabbing my mother's kind personality as an influence, coming close to mimicking my father's behavior instead. I'd worked on it over the years, enjoying time spent with animals as a way of corralling the beast inside.

This was exactly what I hadn't wanted to see happen and didn't need.

In the back of my mind, I knew I should go after Maria, but I'd add insult to injury because I wouldn't be the loving, caring man most women needed in a difficult time like this. No, I'd be the asshole she'd already determined I was, ordering that she stop acting like a child and take back her demand.

Now who was acting foolish?

Oh, yeah. This guy.

She would need to sulk alone while I sorted out what the hell was going on and what I was going to do about it.

Every soldier I had working for me would be looking to me to react instantaneously, hunting down the asshole responsible and gutting him like the twisted pig he was. The thought of it made my dick twitch much like every filthy thought about Maria did. Maybe I'd hit my head harder than I thought. That could be the reason for the irrational thoughts.

My entire world had just been turned upside down and it had only a little to do with my marriage to a woman who refused to heed to my authority. I took a deep breath after Maria brushed past me, racing from the room in near panic. The look of horror seeing the blood on my clothes and face had obviously been too much for her to take. Perhaps her father had kept her shielded from his world, keeping her in a protected glass house for her entire life.

There were less powerful men than Giovanni Rossi in every arena of law-abiding, powerful families who did that on a regular basis. Still, I remained in cautious awe of the fact her immediate reaction had been to ask for an annulment.

I didn't try to stop her as she raced from the room, rushing up the stairs without looking back. The various voices drew my attention from the vision of the horror I'd seen covering every inch of her lovely face.

The day had certainly not turned out like I thought it would. Losing a man was never easy. Losing one in such a tragic way was even worse. Roger hadn't deserved to die the way he had. The only good thing at all, if one could call the situation that, was he'd died on impact from blunt force trauma. I'd only survived because I'd chosen to sit behind Brock who was driving or there was no doubt I'd be dead as well.

There'd been no satisfaction in killing the two men in the other vehicle, none whatsoever. I'd wanted to crush them into broken pieces instead. However, it had already been difficult to keep members of the Kansas City police department from breathing down our necks. I had a feeling Constantine had called in a favor or two.

Kane walked in, lifting his eyebrows as Maria brushed past. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Let's just say it would appear Daddy kept her nice and protected."

He walked closer, holding something in his hand. "It's not going to get any easier on either one of you."

"What do you have?"

"You're not going to like it."

Exhaling, I wasn't certain I'd like anything at this point. "Give it to me."

"One of the men found this at the south entrance. Of course, no one saw anything and since there are no cameras, I have no idea when this was nailed to the wooden post."

In his hand was a photograph of the wedding, with a big red X through Maria's face and a single word plastered at the bottom, written in red as if the fucker was emulating blood.

Soon…

"Fuck." I glared at the photograph, realizing that whoever had taken it was located inside the facility. That likely meant one of my guests was a traitorous fuck.

"Find out if there is anything on the internet or listed on the dark web."

"I have a feeling whoever did this is old school," Kane said without emotion. His instincts were usually pretty good in these cases.

"We can't look past anything or anyone."

"Understood, boss. I'll get on it."

By the time I heard my brother's voice seconds later, I was already headed to the bar. I placed the photograph on the surface near the whiskey bottle, unable to take my eyes off it. No one would be allowed to touch my woman. No one. I was surprised at both the level of anger and concern racing through my system, but it wasn't something I could ignore.

The rush of adrenaline I'd felt the moment of impact was finally wearing off, the aches and pains beginning. When Danika rushed in first, her cries drawing my attention, I glanced at the doorway. It never mattered we'd been trained to handle something like this or that it had occurred before. We were a tight family, so much so that I knew my mother was likely hysterical at this point.

Danika flew toward me, sobbing more than she'd done at my wedding. When she wrapped her arms around my neck, pressing the weight of her lithe body against mine, I winced vocally.

"Ouch, little sis. Watch the ribs. A little tender here but I'm fine."

She was only my younger sister by two and a half minutes but I adored tossing it in her face and always would.

She growled at me as she always did when I blew something off. When she pulled back, she cupped the side of my face like our mother always had when we were kids and fell from a swing or a tree. "You look terrible. You're going to bruise."

"You haven't seen the worst of the bruises," I laughed and she scowled at me.

"Why aren't you at the hospital?" Her demand was par for the course. "You could have internal injuries from the impact. You could have ribs sticking into your lungs and you're going to bleed to death. You could have a concussion. Where the hell is your wife? Why isn't she here taking care of you? Take off your shirt so I can see the extent of the injuries. If you don't allow me to help you, our mother will kill you and you know it."

Both Constantine and I laughed. "Always the tough girl," he said.

"Yes, she is."

"Don't either one of you give me any shit," Danika growled. "This is serious. Daniel could have died." I sensed she'd noticed the picture, her gasp of horror as dramatic as my sister had always been. "What the hell? Who did this?"

"Likely the same person who tried to have me killed."

"This is outrageous," she continued. "You need to do something about this, Constantine." She held up the photograph briefly for my brother to see before tossing it back where I'd placed it.

Constantine took a deep breath. "Motherfucker."

"I'm fine. Both of you. And the photograph is nothing more than an attempt to push my buttons so I'll do something stupid. That's not going to happen. I'm banged up to shit and I'll ache like crap in a couple hours, but I'm the lucky one."

"So you refused seeing one of the paramedics," Danika snapped, acid in her tone.

"Yes, I did," I told her. There was such a strong connection between us that we didn't really need to say anything to each other, but I poured another drink, handing it to her. "I think you need this more than I do."

"You're incorrigible. Where is Maria? Does she know about this?"

"The photograph, no, and she's not going to hear about it either." Unless it came directly from me. "She's resting upstairs. I don't think she's used to near death experiences."

Constantine was slower to advance, but nonetheless concerned. "Well, she's not supposed to lose her new husband on day one after the marriage."

"I'm not sure she cares," I said absently, laughing until it hurt too much to do so after seeing the expression on my sister's face.

"Men," she huffed.

"Brock remained at the scene?"

"He's at the hospital. Possible broken arm. I sent a couple of the guys to keep watch and bring him back," I told him. "I need to speak to Roger's mother."

"I'll take care of that. What the fuck happened, bro?" Constantine asked.

"I think that's fairly clear. We were blindsided," I answered, gently pushing my sister away. I needed that damn drink to calm my rage, let alone hopefully soothe my aches and pains. "That means I was either followed or someone knew I was going to a meeting."

Danika gasped. "You don't think someone betrayed you from our employ. Do you?"

"I don't know what to think at this point, but it was no accident. They wanted me dead."

"I'm so sorry about Roger," she said, reluctantly letting me go.

"Yeah, it was ridiculous to lose him." There were no words to adequately explain how I felt. While I didn't know the lives of every single employee who reported to me and certainly not nearly that many inside the large corporation we owned, that didn't mean we hadn't attempted to promote the organization as family oriented. That had been our mother's doing, her insistence we handle operations like a Fortune 500 company something my father had adhered to, including bonuses when justified and presents for the children of the workers.

Sure, we were dangerous and ruthless, but that didn't mean we had to be inhuman.

At least most of the time.

Granted, what I had planned for the fuckers who did this wasn't just something most people would call inhuman, it would be abominable.

And well deserved.

"Do you think it's the Irish goon who did this?" Danika asked. There wasn't a single thing she didn't know about inside our family, the beautiful woman exactly like our mother.

"There is no doubt Liam is responsible," I answered.

"For what you did to Ronin?" She planted one hand on her hip, shaking her head as she always did when admonishing me.

"No, I think it's for another reason entirely." I glanced at Constantine. It was past time to come clean. I took more than a swig of my drink. It was even painful to swallow.

"Then what, brother?"

"I wasn't going to say anything but you both need to know that Liam proposed a marriage arrangement between Danika and Ronin."

"What? Over my dead fucking body," she snapped.

Constantine exhaled. "What did you tell him?"

"Pretty much what our baby sis just said."

"Then it's solid grounds for the assassination attempt, not just because of how you humiliated Liam's son."

I nodded. "Yeah, tell me something I don't know."

"What now? I'm not marrying that pig." Her insistence was exactly as I would have expected.

"No, you're not but we might use it as a ploy if necessary," I said, which was more of thinking out loud.

"Not bad but I think checking with our informants first to double check we're not missing anything is vital. And I need one of those drinks." Constantine walked past me, cursing under his breath.

But I heard him.

Neither one of us liked to be challenged.

"I still wonder why Liam would dare allow his son to attack you. Even after the humiliation you provided Ronin, the patriarch is well aware a war could be started that they have no chance of winning."

I resisted laughing at my brother's summation. "Arrogance breeds absolute confidence. That's something you should know well." I was only half teasing.

He shook his head as he stopped in mid action, his glare turning into a smile. "Touché, brother."

"Why don't we grab the men and head into my office? I don't want to inflict any further damage on Maria than necessary."

Constantine chuckled. "And so it begins in earnest."

"Don't start with me." I refilled my drink then headed out of the living room, glancing at the stairs in some ridiculous hope of seeing her at the top of them.

The landing on the second floor was empty.

I wasn't certain what the fuck it mattered anyway. As Maria had so eloquently put it, we weren't going to be friends and I doubted we'd share anything but hot sex.

And she would give that to me.

Yeah, I was an asshole and at this moment, didn't give a shit.

"Kane, Mark, Steve. Come with us. We're going to develop a plan. Have some of the others head to the stomping grounds to check with our associates in the streets. Make certain none of the windows or doors on the exterior haven't been fucked with and check for any listening devices. Also arrange to have security cameras installed. That's way past overdue."

Kane seemed surprised I was already barking orders. "You're pissed off."

"You bet I am. No one fucks with my life or those of my men. Or my wife." I could tell Constantine was watching me with amusement. Maybe I had taken things too lightly. Or perhaps we'd all been living in a vacuum, refusing to understand or accept that at every moment of the day, tragedy could happen. We weren't infallible. We weren't immortal. Being dangerous men didn't come with a ‘get out of hell free' card either. It was time I took my job more seriously.

"You got it, my man. I'll have the cameras up by nightfall. What about the trip?" Kane asked.

"Oh, yeah. Call the pilot. Tell him it's off for now. I'll reschedule in a couple days." Whether or not Maria would be disappointed couldn't matter. Not now. Not when there was so much at stake.

"Got it." Kane headed to another part of the house to make the various arrangements while Mark and Steve trailed behind us.

Once inside the office, Danika moved toward my desk, keeping her arms crossed. "We can't let this go without an act of retaliation."

"Constantine is right. We need to ensure we're certain about the people responsible. Anything short of that and we could start a war. I don't think any of us want that to happen."

"Agreed," my brother stated. "However, I'm glad you're taking this more seriously."

"Yeah, well, maybe you're right in that when you have a family, everything fucking changes." I threw back the rest of the drink, trying to keep my thoughts off my wife. The love-hate relationship was already making my head spin.

"What is it?" Constantine asked, sensing I was in a fog.

"She asked for an annulment," I said, hating to admit it.

"What?" He laughed then noticed I was upset by it. "She's just upset. You two are already connected."

"I don't know. Something is off."

"What do you mean?"

I looked at him, trying to put my finger on it. "She's not who I thought she'd be."

"Meaning what?"

"Just an odd feeling that she's someone else, someone much stronger but forced into a position she didn't want."

I could tell my brother and sister were looking at each other, a silent confirmation that I was off my fucking rocker.

"Do you want me to go talk to her?" Danika asked. "I didn't have much of a chance prior to the wedding or at the reception either."

I thought about her offer and nodded. "Maybe that's a good idea. She's probably in our room."

"Then I'll do it." She took another sip of her drink before placing the glass on my desk, brushing her hand across my arm. "I can tell she cares about you. For what it's worth."

I wasn't certain if that would ever be the case. After she left, Constantine walked closer.

"You know I did run a check on Maria and her family and had our attorneys look over the contract very carefully. Everything that was offered and presented was as it should be."

"Yeah, I know. Maybe it's just we don't know each other."

"Then take a couple days and head on that honeymoon. We can make certain the area is protected."

"Perfect. She'll love being required to always have a barrage of armed guards with us."

"Maybe not but it's better than the alternative. Isn't it?" He had a twinkle in his eyes.

"Fine. I'll concede to that. If we are able to determine Liam and his gutless son are behind this attack, what then?"

"They we carefully lay out a plan of retaliation. It's entirely possible if they wanted you dead, you'd be dead."

"You weren't there, brother," I told him. "You have no clue the speed they used or the determination on their faces."

"Did you recognize them?"

"No, but they were definitely soldiers from some fucking army. They both had weapons on them, more in the trunk."

Constantine nodded. "We'll figure it out but that's not happening tonight. You need to try and get some rest. Talk to Maria. This is her life too."

I chuckled before draining the rest of my glass. Somehow, I had a feeling I'd need to lock her inside our room to keep her from escaping.

When Danika rushed into the room, she was already shaking her head.

"What the hell is wrong?" I demanded, thudding the glass on my desk before taking long strides toward her.

"Your bride is gone."

"What do you mean gone?"

"She's not upstairs and the front door is open a crack."

"What the fuck?" I raced out of the room to the front door, flinging it open. I didn't need to take a full assessment of the vehicles parked in front of my house. I knew them well.

And one was missing.