- CHAPTER TWELVE -
COSTELLO
Maverick had knocked softly, keeping me from suspecting anything was wrong until I’d opened the door. Then it was too late.
He’d looked me in the eye, mouth grim as he said one sentence. “What did you do this time?”
I was fucked.
We were fucked.
I was wearing nothing but my boxers, and I was clammy with sweat. The only thing between my father and Scotch was me. The luxurious hotel room was suddenly too tiny, and my brain was rapidly searching for every possible escape. Scotch stood frozen on the bathroom threshold. My father set his death stare on her. Every hair on my body stood straight, and my heart was about to explode from too much adrenaline. It was amazing I was standing so still.
“Costello?” she whispered plaintively.
His sapphire eyes rolled from Scotch back to me. As a kid I used to shrink under his glare—like he could cut through me and see the dark edges of my soul, find all the bad things I’d done and punish me for them. I’d known I could never lie to him. I’d never tried . . . until I was nineteen.
Maverick’s lips went flat and bloodless. “Get her out of here,” he hissed. “We need to talk about the family business, understand?”
I clung to that freshly born shred of hope. He doesn’t know who she is. Whatever info my father had, Scotch didn’t fit into it. Not yet. There was still time to save her.
Nodding briskly, I motioned for her to follow me. She hadn’t blinked; she still didn’t as we sidestepped Maverick. I pushed open the door. “Go,” I whispered.
“Costello—”
“You need to leave.” I tried to say it without a hint of the emotion bubbling in me. Words like flee and escape tumbled in my head, and I prayed she could see them through the shine of my pupils. In desperation I moved my lips soundlessly.
Run.
There was a hint of hesitation as she considered me, a promise of unsaid words. Before she dared to say them, I shut the door in her face. If she stays away from us, she’ll be safe. I should have known that from the start.
I’d been blessed with a do-over, so why wasn’t my heart soaring? Turning around put me face-to-face with my father’s glower.
“Get dressed,” he said, pointing at my slacks.
I hated every second that passed that I didn’t know what he knew. “What happened?” My voice was tight as I hurried to get my clothes on; they smelled like her.
“You know what the hell happened!” He bared his teeth. “Idiot. Did you think I wouldn’t hear that the meeting with the Deep Shots went south? That Darien Valentine was shot?”
I could taste battery acid at the back of my throat. “Whatever you heard, it’s only rumors. Darien—”
“Is the one who called me,” he snapped.
That damn acid was sizzling a hole in my stomach. Be careful, don’t give away too much. “What did he say?”
His stare went on too long. My father didn’t trust me, and just like when I was young, I could swear he was seeing all my lies where I kept them hidden. “He woke up at the Bucket. He didn’t know how he got there, but he did remember being in our club, with one of our girls, when someone came in and shot him in the ribs. He’s saying we set him up to be assassinated.” I sucked air through my teeth.
“Son.” He approached me, big meaty hands clapping down not in kindness, but to trap me where I was. “Tell me what the fuck happened yesterday. And if you don’t tell me the truth, I’m going to do something that would make your youngest sister so very, very happy.”
Yes, Francesca would gleefully dance on my grave. I straightened up under his threat. I’d lied my way into this mess, but it was Darien who was lying now. He was claiming Scotch had shot him? What a pathetic man. Weaving a myth about an attempt to kill him was beyond egotistical.
Controlling my tone so it stayed low and cool, I said, “Darien was shot. But it was his own fault. He tried to choke one of the dancers; a waitress came to her rescue. Darien threatened them both, pulled his gun, and then the fool shot himself in the struggle.”
Steady as a lighthouse guiding ships home, my father scanned deep into my eyes. Whatever he discovered made him exhale. There was still wine on his breath. “I believe you. Not that it helps.” The knot of pressure in my stomach grew bigger and thornier; I’d swallowed a fucking rosebush. “You’re the damn fool, Costello. Hiding this all from me . . . tch. Did you never wonder what the meeting between you and the Deep Shots was really about?”
Terror rumbled up my body with increasing speed. “You told me it was to introduce new members of their gang to us.”
“New members, yes,” he said slowly. His fingers kept crushing, and I worried my collarbones would snap. “People like Darien Valentine. The Valentines!”
That tugged at my memory. Words like important and powerful popped up. I recalled they were another crime family, one that stayed in Boston and out of our hair. I’d had essentially no interaction with them.
Oh fuck.
My eyes snapped wide. Maverick nodded grimly. “Yes,” he said. “Now you’ve realized. Darien is their youngest son. Apparently he’d joined the Deep Shots on the pretense of becoming their new leader. You know things were a mess among them.”
The gang had been like chickens with no heads. They hadn’t had a real leader for a long while, but because they weren’t in our way or causing trouble, I’d ignored that fact, assuming someone like Rush would step up eventually.
Maverick said, “The Valentines must have sensed some worth in the gang to allow their son to become involved.”
I found my voice again. “You should have warned me and Hawthorne!”
He let me go, shoving me in the process. “How the hell could I? I had no idea this was going down, I was as blind as you! But I’d assumed my own fucking sons would recognize someone like Darien Valentine, that you two could handle one meeting without me sitting in on it!” He turned away, head shaking like a rage-blind bull’s. “Darien gets injured on your watch, but you don’t speak a word of that to me. You prance around here with your hands on some girl’s tits, acting like everything is fine!”
“It is fine. Darien is alive, we can make amends to his family. Money soothes all problems.”
His smile was twisted and toxic. “He doesn’t want money, he wants revenge.”
A dryness spread through my mouth. “On us?”
“On the waitress he claims pulled the fucking trigger,” he snarled. “Darien keeps saying it was a plot! That we set him up! I told him and his father that we didn’t, but all I could get them to agree to was giving up this woman—Scotch, Darien said that’s her name.” Maverick stormed through the room, talking as he went. I heard him, but my attention had shifted helplessly to the messy bed, the place I’d lain with Scotch.
That amazing woman saved her friend, and now Darien wants her dead.
It was a worst-case scenario in turbo drive. Why had I convinced myself that we could outrun this problem? That Darien would admit he’d done something idiotic and let bygones be bygones?
“But Thorne says he doesn’t know where she is,” my father rambled. I tuned in, staring at him in a daze. “We’ll need to find her soon. Before Darien’s family decides her blood isn’t enough.”
Despair had been flooding into me. Now it began to seep away. Thorne hasn’t told him anything about Scotch. Of course; I’d been too distraught to put the pieces together, but if Thorne had revealed the truth, Scotch wouldn’t have been allowed to leave this room. Maverick would have strung her up on the spot.
Silently I thanked my brother. I glanced at the door; my father saw me look and said, “You’re not leaving until we make a plan.”
Breathe in. Stay calm. When I spoke I was all ice. “The plan is obvious. We find the girl.”
My father considered me with narrowed eyes. “You still haven’t explained why you or your brother decided to hide this from me.”
“We were ashamed,” I said quickly. “The meeting went south, we did what we could to make sure Darien stayed alive. I guess we thought that if no one died, we could just have the meeting again when things calmed down, and you’d have nothing to worry about. It was wrong to hide it from you.”
I’m not sure he was convinced, but his shoulders slumped an inch lower. “Do you know where she went? The waitress?”
Yes. “No,” I said firmly. “I was too busy getting Darien out of there before any of the Deep Shots saw and lost their damn minds. You know how they can get, especially when they’ve been drinking.”
That part he did believe. He pulled out his phone, then buried it again. “Reception here is fucking terrible! It’s a miracle Darien’s call came through. I’d noticed some missed ones, but I was too busy with the wedding to play phone tag.” He shook himself and frowned; I knew he was as pissed at himself as he was at me. “You’re not off the hook. Neither is Thorne.”
“I know.”
“We’ll head back home in the morning. Someone at the Dirty Dolls must know where to find her.”
“I’m not waiting until the morning to search.”
He’d opened the door, but now he stopped. “What?”
I bent down and scooped up my gun from where I’d set it under the bed as Scotch and I had stripped. “There’s no time. If the Valentines are threatening us, we need to act quickly to keep things from getting violent.” I need to keep her safe.
His eyes were slits. “This won’t be like before, will it? You running solo and getting yourself so deep in trouble that you have to involve—”
“No,” I said quickly. “I would never.”
“Fine. Look for her, but don’t you dare put this family at risk by talking to the wrong people.”
I’ll never live my past down. My jaw creaked from my molars coming together. “I understand.”
When he shut the door, I burst into motion, putting on my shoes, then slipping into my leather jacket. I straightened the stiff collar and, out of impulse, brushed my fingers over my face, across the long scar from my eyebrow to my nose.
No. My father didn’t need to say a word about before.
I had a constant reminder.