Velvet Lullabies

“Yeah.” Lucian groaned, looking around. It was getting worse, the body toll was rising.

“So, do you know what you’re going to do?” Enzo asked.

“No.” Lucian sighed, entering what looked to be a spare room and closing the door behind him to have some privacy with his brother.

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, there’s a problem. Nobody actually knows what happened. Looks like Massimo fed them all this line of bullshit and now they’re at war but no one really knows why.”

“Huh.” Enzo nodded. “Why would he do that?”

“I think he’s hiding something and Adelina claims nothing happened that night.”

Enzo snorted. “She was beat up.” He’d seen the pictures. It wasn’t a secret, most men in their world had. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence for the daughter of one of the Underbosses to get beat up, let alone the same night two men are killed.

She was bruised and bloody with a jagged cut down her side. Her face was swollen in every photo, and she showed up to her father’s funeral a week later limping with a cane. Someone had hurt her badly, and yet, she claimed nothing happened.

Lucian didn’t see Adelina as a woman who took kindly to be hit, so why lie? Who was she protecting?

“Yeah. I think she’s afraid of someone.”

“The Irish?” Enzo asked.

“I don’t think so. I think it might be Maranzano.”

Enzo’s gasped on the line. “You think he hit her?”

“I think he did something. You should see the way she looks at him, En, she’s terrified.”

“That video he played…”

“She said it was something Theo asked he to record. He said it was just for him. She has no idea why Massimo had it.”

“Probably went through the kid’s phone.” Enzo suggested.

“Yeah.”

“You worried about her?”

“Yeah,” Lucian told his brother. “I don’t know what his issue is with her and don’t get me started on her brother.”

“He’s scum.” Enzo snorted. “Wouldn’t leave me alone at the party, kept insisting we were all brothers now.”

Lucian scowled. “I don’t trust him.”

“Me either, bro.”

“I think it’s time I have a chat with our friends in Boston.”

“Need backup?” Enzo asked.

“Not yet.”

???

Today was the day. Lucian decided begrudgingly that today he was going to head to Boston and try to put the pieces together on this puzzle. His gut told him that Providence was using him. If it was anyone else Lucian would have left them to fend for themselves, but he knew if he did that Adelina would be screwed. And not in the sexy way.

He drove his Mercedes north toward Boston. Today, he was going to make a visit to the O’Conner family, Boston’s most notable Irish.