Page 43 of Heart's Temptation
We left the busy city as the sun was making its descent. With the vibrant orange beams reflected on the windows, had this been a different time and place, a different man, or men, this could have been a romantic date rather than a kidnapping.
I watched Liam from my peripheral. With the light reflected, I couldn’t help but notice the network of fine lines around his eyes and the corners of his mouth which seemed set in permanent scowl.
In some weird way, I felt bad for Liam. I had no idea what drove him to his actions but the boy I’d known had morphed somewhere along the way into a stone-cold killer.
He must have felt me watching him and turned his head. “What, lass, find me attractive, do you?”
I chose not to answer his question and instead asked one of my own. “What happened to you, Liam?” There was so much I wanted to know, but the question didn’t come out charged as I’d wished, instead sounding flat.
His brow furrowed. “Are you asking what happened to the neighborhood kid that I was? That was a long bloody time ago. Starvation and responsibility will drive one to do things they never thought possible.”
“What happened to your brothers and sisters?”
His eyes narrowed and at first, I thought he wouldn’t answer. His mouth was set in a grim line. He’d lived a hard life, but I could hardly feel sorry for him. This was all about ambition, climbing to the top.
“Come on, no one is here but us. Just tell me.”
“I can’t tell you. I’d be writing my own death sentence if I did that, but trust me when I say this is for your own good.”
I found the absurdity of this being for my own good so laughable I couldn’t hold it back.
Liam scowled. “When you slipped through my fingers and were no longer a bargaining chip for the Russians to use against the Vitales, they killed my brother, Caelan. He was seventeen years old, Nicolette. Not that you ever gave a shit, but I sure as fuck did.”
Spending most of my time outside of school at the Vitale mansion had removed me from the drama back in the hood and I hadn’t heard about Liam’s brother. Despite feeling a sense of remorse that he’d lost a sibling, that wasn’t what was bothering me about what he’d just shared. After all, his brother dying was on him, not me, but the Russians, what were they doing mixing with the Irish? I had to ask.
“Why would the Irish be working with the Russians in the first place?”
Liam’s scowl deepened. “Stupid girl. Because they had the power and the connections I lacked. Turning on my people for a time was the best way to have the Russians remove all the dead weight in our organization and my competition in one fell swoop.”
Something felt off… “In exchange for what? I can’t see the Russians doing you a solid for nothing, especially after losing me.”
I pondered, trying to connect all the random dots until it came to me, Gabriella’s story about being kidnapped by the Russian mob so they could trade her to her birth father, a Russian Oligarch, in exchange for an ungodly amount of money. My mouth fell open as the realization dawned. “This was never about getting revenge on me or Gio and Marko. Our love triangle was a means to an end, right?”
Liam smirked. “As much as you made an impact on me, Niki, I’ve had my fill of women, thank you very much, but perpetuating that story threw the Vitales off what mattered, didn't it? I outmaneuvered those Italian bastards good!”
I was reeling from this new information. How could we all have been so blind? This had always been about power and money. “It’s about the shipping routes, isn’t it?”
“It’s always been about the routes. Whoever controls them has the keys to the kingdom. We’d had a deal with Vittoria’s father, Don Calogera, but when he brought his unknown heir from Italy, we knew he’d turned on us. Luckily, both father and son died with the Vitales none the wiser to our plan. Through marriage they received what Don Calogera had dangled in front of Don Vitale in the first place. Had we been successful, The Calogera and Vitale riches would have been ours.”
I was sifting through information, storing everything I was learning in case I somehow managed to survive and could fill in the missing pieces for the Vitale brothers. “What happens next? With me I mean.”
“If they manage to fight their way free of the apartment and make it to the docks, the Russians will be waiting for them. And I promise you, Niki, they won’t be outsmarted, not this time.”
He didn’t answer my question, but I was the least important person in the equation. Closing my eyes, I escaped internally to a place where I begged for the guys' safety. Mary, if you’re listening, please don’t let them die.
I must have been lulled to sleep by the praying and the thrumming of the engine, because Liam woke me up when we pulled up in front of a mansion. Judging by the neighborhood, I guessed it was the upper echelon on the outskirts of New York, Scarsdale maybe.
I took a closer look. The place reminded me of Sergei’s weekend home. When we exited the vehicle, the floodlights came on. It was Sergei’s home. What kind of fuckery was this? Was the female Russian voice somehow connected with Sergei? I’d been too worried about the trail of blood being left in the wake of my kidnapping.
Liam tugged me out of the car, holding my wrist in a tight grip. Was he afraid I’d run? I’d like nothing more, but if Gio and Marko made it this far, I wanted to be here when they arrived.
He led me through Sergei’s home, filled with priceless Russian art. That should have been a red flag. The first time I was here with the other high-ranking dancers was for a shmooze fest to entice reluctant investors into parting with their money for a good cause, the arts.
Stupid me, the signs had been there, but I’d been so blinded by my mission to keep Marko and Gio safe and my identity a secret that I’d missed what was right in front of my eyes. Granted, when I’d asked Sergei about the priceless art, he’d said his grandparents had been high-ranking officials and those were gifts from Lenin, the first leader after the fall of the last Romanov emperor.
I remembered being in awe of my surroundings. I’d never seen treasures so old up close. Much of what he had was three hundred years old, or older. The lost relics of a long-forgotten time. I shuddered as I passed through room after room, no longer in awe, but feeling dread build in my belly.
Who would go down with the empire this time? The Vitales, the Kellys, or the Russians? Maybe it would turn out worse and they would kill each other until no one was left. I’d never been one to flourish under emotional duress and I’d learned more in the past few hours than I cared to. Already my body was shutting down, my skin turning to ice. Remembering Amergio’s empty, lifeless eyes had my mind following my body into oblivion.