When I turned and took Ines’s hand as we headed for the house, I tried not to think about the fact that Ryker had known I would know what a dial indicator was.
I knew several women who had mechanic fathers. Most of them could barely change a tire.
It was just one more thing he knew that he shouldn’t, one more piece of the puzzle of just how thoroughly he knew our lives. I couldn’t say how much of what he’d given us was a manipulation or what was genuinely because he wanted us to be comfortable, but he’d done his research either way.
It didn’t give me a happy feeling, and as I crossed the threshold to the hallway, my skin pebbled with goosebumps and a chill raked down my
spine in a way that was all too familiar.
I spun, finding Ryker’s gaze intense on my back.
With a swallow of nerves, I stepped into the hall and out of sight.
My hair settled immediately.
Twenty-Two
Ryker
It took everything in me not to lose my shit the moment my cell pinged with another notification. It wasn’t the kind that came from my own messages, but from the app that forwarded Calla’s to me.
I knew who it was. Knew he’d been texting my woman for the last hour.
Enzo looked amused at the rage on my face, like it thoroughly entertained him to see us caving to our women and the ridiculous emotions they evoked in us.
Jealousy was not my favorite look, but it seemed like it would be a permanent fixture where my Sunshine was concerned. “What did he do that you had to drag my ass out here, anyway?” I asked him, nodding to the latest fuck to land himself in my chair.
There wasn’t a whole hell of a lot that a man could do to have Enzo bring him to me. The man’s experience in covert operations made him one of the more straight-laced of us, but he was still crooked.
We all were.
Enzo, like most of our less enthusiastic alliances, saw the benefit to Bellandi rule in the city.
We didn’t run women.
We didn’t let people kill kids.
We might have been a crime syndicate, but we had standards of what was and was not acceptable. Enzo saw the value in that. He knew that if we didn’t exist and maintain control of the city, someone much worse would rise up and take over.
Someone like Tiernan Murphy.
“Drugged a woman at Indulgence,” Enzo said, crossing his arms over his chest. If that hadn’t already been a big no-no for one of the Bellandi properties, it had quickly become one after Matteo learned someone drugged Ivory in a date-rape attempt during their twelve-year separation. Now the criminal kingpin hosted charity galas in his clubs to support the victims of date rape.
It might have seemed like a mind-fuck to anyone who didn’t know the man, but he made it work for him. Power and money went a long way in explaining a person’s eccentricities. “What’s he want done? Dead? Alive?” I asked, stepping over to my tools as I examined them.
I genuinely hoped the word was dead. I was generally inclined that way, since there was one thing I didn’t tolerate and that was rape.
“Warning,” Enzo grinned at me, as if he could sense that I needed to kill something. Namely, one Jason Taylor. “Trouble in paradise?” he asked. I glared at him in response, because I couldn’t talk about Calla in front of a guy who we’d let walk after I roughed him up. Sometimes stupid people did stupid things when they had vendettas like that, and the knowledge that I had a woman of my own wasn’t something I needed to be public yet. At least not with potential enemies.
I taped up my fists, and Enzo watched with fascination. I knew the man was no stranger to it. I’d sparred with him a few times, but he disliked it. He didn’t want his opponents to know what he could do before he fought them. There was logic in that, but I could always tell when he steadily approached the need for a genuine fight.
It was all in the way his eyes lit up at the sight of me taping my hands, like the violent pull we all felt toward just needing to beat something to shit suddenly became irresistible. Enzo might have been more human than me, a little less beastly when it came to the serial killer inside of him, but at the end of the day we were all just monsters who craved the beauty of blood on a canvas made out of flesh.
Enzo rolled his eyes, snatching the noise blocking earmuffs off my table and stuck them on the guy's head. I huffed a laugh at the look of panic in his eyes before Enzo wrapped a filthy rag around them. “There,” he said pointedly, holding his arms out to his sides. “Light and sound deprivation. Punishment in itself. So what crawled up your ass and died?”
“Chad’s partner keeps texting her to check in. Apparently, he went to the studio, and they informed him that Calla has been out for over a week. He got worried, especially when they told him her boyfriend called in for her,” I grunted, landing my first strike against my victim's face. The spray of blood that came from his nose appeased me just a little, soothing the part of me that demanded blood.
Enzo howled with laughter. “Boyfriend. Fuck. The idea of your crazy ass being someone’s boyfriend.” He laughed again, slapping his knee with his amusement. I punched my victim in the ribs, earning a grunt and a groan of pain.