Page 36 of Wicked Bloodlines

Belle stood over by the monitors, staring at the wall. Her hands shook. In her right, she held a burner phone. Sofia’s. The one I’d seen on her vanity, right where she always left it. I knew it was her direct line to Cesare and, while I knew she’d never betray me, I was starting to regret my choice of not keeping the phone. No. This was an attack on people Sofia loved to bully her into compliance.

Belle looked at me, her eyes huge and shimmering with tears. “She left.”

I crossed to the phone and took it from her hand. Belle didn’t try to stop me. The screen was unlocked. One text message open, timestamped 01:10.

Come to the old estate. Tonight. Alone, or I will rain hell down on the Villa Luca. The first person I kill will be Belle.

I flipped the phone to Alessandro. “Run the locket.”

Seconds later, a single red dot moving steady across the outer city across a map used by my brother’s tracking software. “She’s heading southeast.”

“How long’s she been gone?” Dario asked.

Alessandro checked the logs. “At least an hour.”

“She left the phone for me to find,” Belle said softly. “She wanted you to know.”

“Told you that one needed a spanking,” Brando muttered. I hadn’t noticed the man earlier, but now that I saw him, he had a goose egg on his forehead.

“What happened to you?” I asked as I grabbed some fresh ammo and prepared to leave again.

“Your woman happened,” he bit out before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “Surely you didn’t think I’d just let her leave on her own. Woman brained me with something hard. Then fucking apologized as I passed out.”

I was sure I’d laugh about that later, but just now, I wanted to find Sofia safe and sound so I could take Brando’s advice and spank her ass. “Let’s roll.”

Chapter Thirteen

Sofia

Ihunched forward, white-knuckled, behind the wheel of one of the many cars I found near the entryway outside near the garage. Everyone in Matteo’s family unit worked so hard on the raid at the pier. I hated deceiving him but I couldn’t risk anyone finding out I was leaving.

I’d almost slipped out unnoticed. Brando would have a headache and a grudge, and I’d owe him an apology he’d already half-heard. I knew it wouldn’t be too long before Matteo returned and found me gone, but the sudden, violent storm would likely delay him. Visibility dropped with the heavy rain making me have to slow down when my father had pushed me for speed. Every streetlight came warped and doubled as the windshield wipers set a blistering pace but couldn’t keep up with the torrential rain.

The dash glowed with a blue navigation line pulsing southeast through industrial zones and into the old money sprawl. Soggy Halloween decorations clung to the occasional stone fence, plastic ghosts flapping in the wind like they were trying to warn me to turn around. They wouldn’t be wrong.

I was acutely aware of the locket against my skin. The thing now felt more like a lifeline than any leash I might have imagined before. Thank God Matteo had thought of this because my father had issued me the one summons he knew I’d never be able to ignore. That necklace represented my extraction plan.

He’d soon find out how done with this whole mess I was. Maybe I had it wrong, but I thought I finally had the chance to be happy, to have a family who cared about me and might even learn to love me. Now, Cesare wanted to take it all away from me? I ground my teeth.

No. One way or another, tonight I would be rid of my father forever.

I’d hid my phone in my right boot, nestled in the stretch where I usually put my knife. I powered it up, double-checked the audio recorder, then slipped the device into place. Not the least obvious place for anyone to look, but Cesare had no expectation I was anything other than the loyal daughter. Even if I defied him, he’d never suspect I’d actually take an active role in striking out at him. I knew the Lucas had no plans on making a legal case against Cesare, but the more information they had the better, and if Cesare had anyone else in on whatever scheme he tried to pull, Dario needed to know. In my hair, Belle’s comb held the twist I’d fastened it into. Even if Cesare found my phone, he wouldn’t find the comb or, more importantly, the blade it concealed.

Rain hammered the car’s roof so hard I missed the turnoff and had to double back before finding the crumbling brick pillars marking the old Marchesi estate. The gates hung open, twisted wide like arms ready for a funeral. The house showed up through the rain, like a real life haunted mansion. And maybe it was. Lord knew it had been a house of terror for me.

The house was three stories of shuttered windows, peeling paint, and decay. Dead fountains out front, stone cherubs missing chunks of face, the family crests over the door were faded. All served as reminders how my father’s power and money had dwindled to nothing.

Every window on the first floor glowed with candlelight. The automatic generator had long ago ceased to function and, apparently, the power had gone out at some point. It suited Cesare, though. He liked drama.

I parked beneath the broken overhang. The second I stepped outside the vehicle, rain soaked me through like I’d had a bucket of water dropped over my head. My boots left tracks in the moss along the marble steps.

Two guards waited at the door, stone-faced in black coats with Marchesi lapel pins. I kept my chin up and didn’t flinch when the taller one stepped in close. His cologne stank of cheap spice, but he missed the phone in my boot and the murder weapon in my hair. He just sneered at me.

“Boss is waiting,” the other one said, voice flat. “You’ve already kept him waiting too long.”

A shiver threatened, but I held my reactions as close as I could. I walked through the doors with my head high, letting them look at me like I was the sacrificial lamb. They could stare all they wanted. I wasn’t a lamb on the way to the slaughter.

The foyer still held the same cracked mosaic, a long-dead family crest underfoot, the air damp and cold. At the end of the corridor, the great hall doors loomed. The handles were bone-white. I looked at them and thought of all the times I’d been dragged through those doors as a kid, every time I’d disappointed Cesare. The guards flanked me now, one on each side. Just like when I was a kid.