Bronze.
I hadn’t heard from him in almost a month so I’d figured he’d taken my advice and moved on with his life.
“Bronze,” I answered the call. “Why are you still calling me?”
“I’ve been digging. I told you I would. And I have something you’re gonna wanna hear.”
“Keep talking.”
“I’ve been tracking Ryland, trying to get to the bottom of whose payroll he was on. He dropped out of sight, which I’m guessing you know, but I followed his trail to South America. Someone paid him a shitload of cash to disappear, and that someone was Dante D’Amato.”
I gripped my phone harder. “You sure about that? One hundred fucking percent sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“I appreciate the info. And just letting you know, I’ve sorted my problems with the feds, but I doubt that extends to you, so you need to get as far from Storm as possible.”
He turned quiet for a moment. “Watch over Hailee for me, King.”
“Yeah.”
I ended the call and dialled Lily without wasting a second. “You still at my place?” I demanded, not giving her a chance to get a word in.
“Yes, why—”
“Do not leave there. I am on my way over now.”
“King, what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you when I get there, but do not leave and do not let anyone in.”
“Umm, does that mean I have to kick your neighbour out?”
My blood turned to ice, cooling my veins as it flowed. “What neighbour, Lily?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, all I heard were muffled cries before the line went dead.
I pushed up out of my chair. Eyes to Hyde, I bellowed, “It was fucking D’Amato! All this fucking time! And now he has Lily.”
Hyde jerked up. “Fucking hell!”
We rounded up everyone we could find and roared out of the clubhouse. My heart beat furiously the whole fucking way there. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d been so fucking stressed. If D’Amato hurt Lily, I would hunt down every last member of his family and rip them apart limb by fucking limb. I would make them bleed in ways they never knew they could, and he would wish he’d never laid eyes on my woman.
Hyde wanted to be strategic about how we got inside my place to Lily, but I didn’t have the patience for that. D’Amato knew we were coming, so there was no point fucking about getting in there. I gave Hyde half a minute of airtime with his objections to my plan, and then I fucking stormed the place.
“King, you move fast,” D’Amato said when we entered my living room.
My eyes went straight to Lily who sat on the couch with her hands bound, her mouth gagged. She met my gaze, and I saw the fear in hers. Fuck. I had done this to her when all I’d tried to do was fucking keep her safe.
“Has he touched you?” I demanded of her.
She shook her head. Thank fuck.
D’Amato moved to her, pressing his gun to her temple. “You can’t imagine how happy I was when it came to my attention you’d found a new plaything. After I killed your previous one, I felt a little empty. I decided that was because you didn’t get to see me do it, so this time around I’m fixing that mistake of mine. This time you will have front row seats. All I have to decide now is how long to make you wait for the final performance.”
“You’re fucking insane,” I snarled. “All this for a nephew you hardly knew and didn’t like?”