I’d stormed out with Fist guarding my back, my fingers flying over the screen.
For reasons still beyond me, my mysterious hacker had seemed in a mood to answer questions. Starting with one I’d asked before.
Who the fuck are you?
Nightowl.
Aduheye roll wasn’t even worth the effort.
Why are you helping me and how do I know you’re not feeding me bullshit?
That had pissed him off and he’d disappeared for half an hour, returning when I was back in my hotel room, mourning my disappeared wood and wondering if I could get it back intime to rub one out to the memory of Maddelena’s incredible taste and scent.
His next message, when it came, smothered enough thoughts of sex to redirect my brain power north instead of south.
TRY SEARCHING THROUGH THE WILLOW
‘The fuck?’ I’d muttered, my feet frozen in the middle of the hotel room.
What the hell is this? I don’t have time for a motherfucking easter egg hunt!
Tossing my phone on the bed after that because I’d suspected this ‘Nightowl’s’ cat and mouse game would mean silence for another few hours, I’d been surprised when the ping had arrived as my phone was bouncing on the bed.
I’d snatched it up.
W.I.L.L.O.W.
Growling my frustration, I’d paced for ten minutes before throwing in the towel and texting the siblings group chat.
The name Willow mean anything to anyone?
The chorus of no’s hadn’t lifted my mood. Nor had the ribbing about karma and the consequences of forgetting the names of chicks I’d banged coming back to haunt me.
The temptation to tell Nightowl to shit or get off the pot had been strong, but I’d managed to control myself.
In a last-ditch attempt, I’d sent one last text to the trio of MIT students we supplied free molly and a cool ten grand a month retainer to be at our beck and call to dig info for us.
Their response just after midnight had been eye-opening to say the least. And kinda obvious when spelled out.The fucking Russians.
My first instinct had been to call in every favour owed and start fresh tabs if necessary to get to the bottom of this as soon as possible. But common sense and the need for caution had stayed my hand.
If the cause of my woes really had ties to who I believed to be Willow, then we were dealing with a whole new level of threat.
And if Maddelena was somehow tied up in it too…
The rush of alarm and tension coiling through my middle at that thought had dried my mouth. Considering she was a very bad liar and we both knew it and yet she persisted in stating her innocence, had she been forced to deny any wrongdoing out of fear or genuine ignorance? And which other Mancinelli knew, if at all?
The possible new players were cunning enough to have slipped a mole right under her nose.
The notion that I was searching for excuses for her didn’t escape me. But curiously it didn’t bewilder me as much as I thought it would. Which in itself was… nuts.
But in the hours before morning, what had puzzled the fuck out of me was the hope that she truly wasn’t in with the fucking Russians. Because if she was… what Rafa had said in the car on the way back from the meeting with Yalcin about me needing to slit her beautiful throat?
Unfortunately, that was a possibility that had grown exponentially real. And potentially out of my hands.
Even if it was the last thing I wanted.
The Salvatore Estate in Fallbrook in the Lower Hudson Valley came into view from the left side of the chopper windows, and my breath hitched. Originally set in sixty-seven acres of prime real estate, Orazio had spent decades buying up the surrounding mansions and countryside until we now owned over five thousand two hundred acres.
