Chapter Thirty-Eight

Dante

The drive back from De Luca's is tense despite having succeeded in bringing back Orlando into the fold. Kira's cell phone is still switched off and hasn't moved from that spot in Logan Airport. Sal's voice breaks the silence to beat himself up again.

"Something is wrong. She's not home, either. She had a gig in Boston. It was supposed to be her first in five weeks, so she really wanted to do it. Fuck. I should have protected her better."

I glance at Sal. "Did you take her to Boston yourself?"

Sal knows better than to associate with Kira, especially while she's in Boston.

Sal throws his head back against the headrest. "Yes."

Alarm bells ring in my head, and I turn to face him as I stop at a red light. "Did you spend the night with her, Sal?"

His face tells me everything I need to know.

I don't have to say anything. Sal knows he shouldn't have done it. It's bad enough that Kira stubbornly refuses to live anywhere except for Boston, but we've been careful about associating with her.

"She was scared, okay?" Sal says, throwing his hands up. "She's so self-sufficient that everyone just forgets how vulnerable she can be. She's all alone and terrified."

"Addy lived with Kira, Sal. You know as well as I do that the Mob would have eyes on Kira the moment Addy was proclaimed dead."

"I know. I fucked up, alright? The crazy thing is I knew I was fucking up with every single second I stayed with her. But I just couldn't leave her, you know?"

I know.

I urge him to calm down, but I can't even stop the dread that coils in my stomach. Kira is intelligent and extremely capable despite her disability. But she's still vulnerable because of that.

She wouldn't know if she was being followed.

She wouldn't see or recognize, let alone stop anyone who tried to hurt her.

She can't run.

My mind conjures a million other ways she is at more risk, and I desperately push the disturbing thoughts away.

"We'll go to Boston tonight, if need be," I say, my voice steady despite the turmoil inside. "Might as well get a head start since we're invading in a few days."

"Sound plan, Dante." Sal nods, his face flooding with relief, betraying just how much he cares for his ‘friend.'

"See if you can find her current location first, so we're not just wandering around enemy territory," I say.

"That's the problem. I'll need to hack into hundreds of street cameras at once. It's doable within a day. But with an airport involved . . ."

"She could be outside Boston."

"Exactly, which means we'd need fifty people hacking into cameras in each state to determine which one she's in. There's only one person who can cast a net that wide . . ." Sal's voice trails off when I shoot him a murderous look.

My knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. Cade Quinn. Sophie's brother. I want to kill the smug bastard so bad I can taste it. It's too fucking bad we share the same sister.

"Alright then," Sal murmurs. "Kira had better still be in Boston then."

The Fortress' silhouette offers no comfort tonight. As we enter, Falzone greets us, his usually impassive ruddy face tight and pale with concern.

"Don Vitelli wants to see you both now, Signore ."

My plan was to go straight to Addy and then debrief with Nico later, but I make my way to the conference room, Sal following closely. Each step increases the weight of foreboding pressing down on my chest. I push open the heavy oak door, and the scene before me stops me.

Nico perches on the table's edge, his posture rigid with fury. But his eyes . . . they're not only angry, they're devastated. He looks betrayed, an expression I don't see very often.

Sophie stands beside him, a soothing hand on his arm. Her eyes are red-rimmed, her usual poise cracked.

And then there's the real kicker: Aydin, crumpled at Nico's feet, her sobs muffled against his shoes. The sight is so incongruous, so wrong, that for a moment, I can't process it.

When Nico finally raises his gaze to meet mine, time seems to stop. I know, with a certainty that chills me to my core, that my worst fears have been realized.

"Kira?" I ask. As awful as it sounds, I hope this is about Kira going missing because my brain can't process the other scenario.

"Gone." Nico inclines his head tightly. "Taken by the Irish."

Nico pauses, and I can see him steeling himself for what comes next. "Addy too, I'm afraid."

The words hit me like a punch to the face, and I stagger backward, my hand finding the doorframe for support. Beside me, Sal's sharp intake of breath is the only sound in the suddenly airless room.

"What the hell?" The word comes out as a strangled whisper; I hardly recognize it as my own voice.

Aydin's sobs grow louder, and suddenly, everything clicks into place.

"What the actual hell?" This time it's a roar, the sound tearing from my throat. Rage and anguish propel me toward the woman on the floor.

Nico moves swiftly, pulling Aydin roughly to her feet and pushing her toward Sophie. "Get her out of here, now," he growls.

Nico grabs my shoulder, his hold on me restraining and comforting as Sophie quickly leads Aydin away. Sophie's golden eyes are huge and pleading as she trains them on Nico, mouthing something that sounds like ‘call him, please,' but I can't hear over the roaring in my ears.

I struggle to breathe, to think. The world has just tilted on its axis, and nothing makes sense anymore.

"How?" I manage to push past the tightness in my throat, a single word laden with a thousand questions.

Nico's voice is clipped, emotionless. "They picked up Kira from her concert in Boston. She confessed that Addy is alive. They threatened Aydin to give up Addy in exchange for her daughter and so she convinced Addy to leave. As soon as your woman left, Aydin confessed to Sophie."

Each word is a nail in the coffin as the future I dared to dream of crumbles before my very eyes.

"I'm getting her back," I say, my tone brooking no argument. "Tonight."

"Dante—" Nico starts, but I cut him off.

"Tonight!" I roar.

Nico sighs, running a hand through his hair. "We don't know exactly where she is. Although Aydin gave Addy one of our trackable phones."

Sal moves to one of the laptops on the conference table and starts typing on the keys. He finally straightens. "It's no longer live but it was last in O'Hare airport."

Nico leans over to peer at the screen, too. "She must have been taken back to Boston."

"Then Boston we shall go—" I begin, but Sal holds his hand up, cutting me off.

"Hold on," Sal continues typing on the keyboard. I peek over his shoulder to see that he appears to be chatting with someone. "She might not be in Boston, Dante."

When Nico and I simply look at Sal, he explains. "It looks like the deal with the Shadow gang is being struck today. Sounds like the top guns of the Mob, including Benjamin O'Shea, are in Philly tonight."

I nod, but it still doesn't make sense. I rake my hands through my hair and grab hold of the strands. "If they're wrapped up in a crucial deal tonight, how the fuck do they have time to pull something like this today of all days?"

"Because they're desperate to take their only leverage against us?" Sal replies. "With Kira and Red Wine in their grasp, they could ask us to fall on our own swords, and we'd do it."

"Or," Nico levels his gaze at me as he voices the worst possible scenario, "it could be that they need Addy for the deal."

An unnatural chill settles inside my bones. What I feel is beyond rage. Beyond despair. It's a cold, monstrous vengeance demanding blood. A reminder of why I would choose this life over and over again. The freedom it gives me to create my own justice.

I will personally flay every inch of skin off the bones of anyone who so much as touches the mother of my child.

I pull up a chair and make myself sit because giving into a fit of anger will achieve nothing. Instead, I let all the rage coalesce into a hot, tight ball in the pit of my belly.

Sal taps a few more buttons, pauses, and then starts up again. Finally, he straightens from the laptop and confirms. "Confirmed. Half of Mob are in Boston, the other half is at a wedding in Philadelphia."

I huff out a bitter laugh. A wedding, huh? She's about to become a widow.

Between Sal and me, it'll be a piece of cake to locate Addy, considering the Shadow gang isn't the most innovative.

But it'll take several hours, if not days, to extract her. I need better. I need a fucking demon who can do it in minutes.

I tell Sal while leveling Nico with a stare, daring him to contradict my next words. "Sal, get me Cade Quinn."

"Absolutely not," Nico says, deadly soft. "Since we already know where Addy is, all we need is—"

"Cade fucking Quinn!" I roar. "Now, Salvatore!"

Nico stares me down for a full minute, then snaps. "Fine." He stalks out of the room, obviously not wanting to be here when I speak to Cade.

He pauses at the door and throws behind him, "We've had enough. Call everyone in. We move within the hour. The moon rises red in Philly and Boston tonight."

I love you too, fratello.