SWNOVELS Belonging to the Italian Mafia Boss: Chapter 13
I waited until she’d gone to sleep and started snoring softly before leaving the room and striding into the hallway. I pulled my sleeves up my forearms and looked around, knowing exactly what was going to happen this evening.
I was going to take care of a problem that I’d allowed to go on for far too long, and I’d do it without ever waking Sabrina.
I first went to my office and sifted through all the repercussions of such an act. My brother had minimal duties, but he was still considered my inner circle, and I’d delegated enough tasks that this would be an inconvenience. He’d gone against me, and for anyone else, that would warrant an immediate death sentence, but the more I considered killing my brother so soon after our father’s death, the more difficult the thought became.
I knew Tucker, though, and I knew that if I did anything less, he would challenge me.
But because he was my brother, I would give him a chance. I owed at least that much to him.
I found the tasks I’d delegated to him and decided that I wouldn’t need any information to transition them back to myself. I went through each file of half-assed work he’d done collecting debts and monitoring local businesses who owed us either money or favors.
He’d barely tracked any of his designated people, and it made me wonder what he’d been doing instead. Jamison and I handled the majority of the tasks already, and a few more would be no problem.
I made sure my gun rested securely at my hip, and I turned out of my office, going straight to Tucker’s room. I didn’t bother knocking as I strode inside, but he wasn’t there. I moved around the rest of the house, trying to find him. I even went to the garage and found his main vehicle resting in its parking space, but there was no sign of him anywhere.
This wasn’t something that could wait, but I didn’t like leaving Sabrina alone, especially when my brother was on the loose, and he clearly had something against her.
Especially when she’d done what he’d warned her not to do by telling me the truth.
I made my way back to my room, careful to look around each corner for my brother. I wanted to take care of this tonight, but I could wait until tomorrow if that became necessary.
I made it to my bedroom door and decided that would be the best decision as I strode inside, ready to stare at Sabrina lying there comfortably, dozing. To my surprise, though, by bed lay empty.
She’d been dead asleep when I’d left, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she’d gone back to her own room, awakened by my movements. I strode deeper into my room and tore off my shirt, tossing it on the back of the chaise as I made my way into the bathroom to piss before bed. Maybe I should go to her room and stay with her there. I hadn’t made any move to confront my brother yet, but if he learned that she’d told me these things, I knew she’d be in trouble.
I made my way back into my room and paused on the threshold. From this angle, I found her shoes sitting on the far side of my bed…
Her clothes sat scattered around them just as we’d left them after our evening together.
Sabrina wouldn’t have gone back to her room in the oversized T-shirt and jeans I’d given her. She certainly wouldn’t have made the trek across the house without any shoes, knowing that her room was on the opposite side and she’d surely pass a household employee on her way there.
My heart pounded faster in my chest as I grabbed my shirt and stormed from the room, throwing it over my head as I went. I walked with a quick purpose as I made my way through the kitchen and toward her wing of the house.
Jamison came around the corner, looking around frantically.
“Have you seen Karsen?” he asked immediately.
If possible, my heart sank deeper into my throat.
“Is she missing?” I asked Jamison, and he nodded, looking around as if he’d see her walking around the corner. “Where did you see her last?”
He took a deep breath. “I was finishing up on work, and I told her that I’d meet her in bed, and she wasn’t there. I lapped this whole fucking house, and she’s not anywhere. She wouldn’t have gone anywhere without talking to me first.”
I didn’t know what to say, so I broke into a sprint as I approached Sabrina’s door, and when I slammed the door open, I knew deep inside my chest that something was wrong. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.
“Sabrina’s gone, too,” I shouted at Jamison. “Where the fuck is Tucker?”
“You think he did this?”
I nodded. “Nobody else has a reason to touch Sabrina, and nobody would have thought to go after Karsen, too. He’s the only common denominator. I don’t know why he would have taken Karsen, but—”
“I do,” Jamison cut me off. “She told me that Tucker had threatened Sabrina. I was going to come to you about it tomorrow, but today I was making sure that he didn’t have access to any important documents or anything that could hurt us if you left him alive and he retaliated.”
It all clicked, and I ran my hand through my hair as I thought through anything that I could do in this situation. Essentially, there was nothing that could be done outside of finding and protecting the girls. We were in a predicament, and there was nothing we could do until we found Tucker.
“Get the strike team ready. We’re going to search every goddamn inch of this town to see where he’s gone, and when we find him, we’ll order that he be brought in forcefully but alive,” I told Jamison as we rushed to the front door of the house. “We’re going to find them alive. We have to.”
He only nodded, following me outside.
“I’m going to kill him when I see him,” Jamison promised, the cool air hitting our faces as we continued forward.
“I don’t think you will.”
The voice that said those words had me freezing in my spot and whipping my head around. There, sitting on the front porch, sat Tucker. For someone who did something heinous enough to be executed on the spot, he sat leisurely, unconcerned by the fury surrounding Jamison and me. I didn’t hesitate, withdrawing my gun and leveling it at him.
“One reason,” I told him. “Give me one good reason that I shouldn’t kill you right now.”
He didn’t speak as quickly as he should have. I expected him to be concerned for his life, but he looked entirely unfazed. “Sabrina and Karsen.”
It was all he said, but it was all the confirmation I needed to know that he’d done something to them—something that he should have kept his nose out of from the start. Did he even realize how ready Jamison and I were to kill him?
If he hadn’t known before, Jamison charging him would have told him all he needed to know. My right-hand man grabbed the front of Tucker’s shirt and effortlessly lifted him from where he sat, shoving him against the harsh stone of the house’s exterior. Tucker grunted, but the smug look remained on his face. “Where the hell is she?” Jamison asked, slamming him into the wall again.
Tucker didn’t say a word, looking more amused than anything.
“If you hurt them, I’m not going to kill you quickly,” Jamison snarled. “If I find a scratch on Karsen, I swear to fucking God, I will—”
“Cool your fuse,” Tucker said in a contradicting tone. “They’re both fine for now. But if anything happens to me, I guarantee you won’t find them before they freeze to death. It’s one of the coldest nights we’ve had this year, and neither of them were dressed for the elements.”
“Let him go,” I demanded to Jamison as panic began overtaking me. It was cold, and I remembered exactly what she had been wearing. It hadn’t been anything thick enough to keep her warm, and I couldn’t risk prolonging this.
Jamison stepped away, his fists still clenched at his sides.
“What are you getting out of this, man? You’ve never been this stupid. You wouldn’t do this for no reason,” Jamison said, desperation clear in every crevice of his face.
Tucker chuckled. “You both have weaknesses that will get all of us killed one day. I don’t have weaknesses, and I’m here to prove it. I’m not going to let your weaknesses come between me and the power I’m owed.”
“You don’t have power,” I shouted, lifting my gun again. “You’re nobody, and you’re about to be a dead man if you don’t tell us where they are in the next thirty seconds.”
Tucker still didn’t seem phased, but I was done. If he wasn’t going to tell us, I wasn’t going to keep him alive unnecessarily. “That’s the thing. I do have the power here. What can you do other than do exactly as I order? Are you really going to risk their lives?”
“Fifteen seconds,” I told him, and I’d never been so serious in my life. “Or we’ll find them ourselves.”
His eyes flashed a hint of uncertainty for the first time, but he continued. “You know I’m not stupid enough to kill them when they’re the best leverage I can find.”
Jamison shook his head. “You’re really fucking stupid for doing this.”
“Five. Four. Three…”
Tucker stood a little straighter. “It’s a damn shame that Sabrina is going to freeze with your baby inside of her if I die.”
I froze. Everything around me froze in place as his words registered in my mind, sending all the gears spinning. My… my baby? I thought about all the unprotected sex we’d had, and I realized that it was more than possible. Likely, even. And for Tucker to know that meant that he had a hell of a lot more leverage than I initially knew.
He knew this wasn’t a gamble.
It had been a calculated plan from the start.
“Drop all of your weapons. I’ll pat you down, and then I’ll take you to them.”
I looked at Jamison. My immediate instinct was to tell him no, but with Sabrina carrying my baby, it made all the difference. Losing her would be unbearable. Losing Karsen would be impossible for Jamison to handle.
But to lose a child alongside the rest of it.
We had to do what he asked, and we had to get them out.