Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“What?” I asked, tensing.
“My mom!”
“Oh,” I said, giving her a smile, relieved that was it. “It’s okay. Dante and Santo were going to catch her outside of work when she goes in for the day. We figured that was slightly less alarming than them showing up to her house.
“Oh, okay. Good. Is she coming here?” she asked. And was that a slight hint of hesitation in her voice? I knew she loved her mom to fucking pieces, so I could only assume it was because she was enjoying the fuck out of playing house with me.
“If you want her to, we can bring her here. But I figured the safe house in a cabin in the woods might suit her taste more. Or even the beach house.”
“You know her well already,” she said, giving me a smile. “Thanks for thinking of my mom,” she added. “I was a little hazy from all the sex,” she admitted, tapping her temple.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. And your mom is family too, sweetheart. Of course we are going to protect her too.”
Or so I thought at the time.
It wasn’t until I got a call from Luca that I knew something was wrong.
“What’s up?” I asked, stepping a few feet away from Savannah. Not because I didn’t trust her, but because the Family had a rule about not letting the women overhear too much, never wanting them to be able to be brought up on any kind of charges.
“It’s Sunshine,” he said. My fucking stomach dropped.
“What?” I hissed, moving a few more feet away, then lowering my voice for good measure. “Is she hurt?” I asked.
“She’s missing,” Luca told me, not dancing around the fact. I always appreciated that about him.
“Missing?”
“Your brothers waited outside of her work for almost two hours. When she still hadn’t showed, and they felt it was too late for her to show and be able to make food for the day before opening, they made the decision to go to her house.”
“Fuck. Tell me there’s not a lot of blood somewhere.”
“There’s not,” he said. “But her back door was wide open, and there were signs of a struggle.”
“Goddamnit.”
“I know. I know, but you need to keep your head on straight because shit just got a whole lot more serious. I am going to go through this list to you again, and I need you to really think about these people.”
So he did.
And I still just… didn’t think it was any of them.
“Okay. What about any cases you’ve helped out on? Anywhere you played the heavy, took more of the heat?”
“No. Wait… fuck,” I growled, raking a hand down my face, pissed that I hadn’t thought of it before. “Yes.”
“Who? What job.”
“Your job,” I told him.
“Mine? The docks?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said. I’d mostly been working there for him since I’d stepped back from running my own jobs to focus on my house. “Remember that issue we had with the fuckers we caught trying to bring in items without giving you your cut?” I asked.
They’d been somewhat organized, that crew, but maybe not enough to have their own designated hitman. So they would think to hiring someone else to do the dirty work if they didn’t want to get their hands in it themselves.
“Fuck,” he hissed. “We’re on it. But we might need you for a little bit once we find one of these fucks.”
“Yeah. Anything you need,” I said.
“Tell Savannah we will do everything in our power to find her mom and get her back to her.”
Right.
I had to be the one to tell her.
“Is everything alright?” she asked me as I made my way back toward her.
Sucking in a steadying breath, I told her the truth.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Oh, what is it?” she asked, body tensing as she put a fork back into the drawer.
“Your mom.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Savannah
My mom?
My mom?
I wasn’t sure I truly understood the phrase ‘my heart sank to the floor’ until right then. And it had a long, long way down to go, since Nino had made it feel so light that it was all floaty inside me.
“Honey, she’s missing,” Nino told me as my whole body felt like it was misfiring at once. My pulse pounded, but my blood felt like it froze in my veins. I felt a sweat start to break out, but was almost intolerably cold.
My mom was missing?
No.
No, damnit.
“When she didn’t show up to work, my brothers went to her house, and the back door was wide open, and they said there were signs of a struggle. But there wasn’t any blood, no bullets,” he added.
No blood.
No bullets.
But a struggle.
Missing.
My brain felt thick, and each thought seemed to be slow to form and make sense.
“We think we have a lead on who is doing this, though, so everyone is on this. I promise we are going to find your mom.”