“Oh, Lucian, this isn’t that kind of call. I don’t want ransom just yet. We have to get to the arena first and play this game out. Forgive me. I should have said I wouldn’t be saying ‘Give me Amelia and the diamonds in exchange for Gigi.’ This call was just to fuck you up even more. You can’t find me, and only God knows what I might be doing to the beautiful witch. Maybe the same thing I did to Lydia. She has very pretty toes. Matches her hair. She’s my kind of woman too.”
I made the mistake of covering my mouth.
When Amelia saw that, she looked worse. I couldn’t help it though. It was a natural reaction because of all the horrific images that coursed through my mind.
“Victor, please leave her alone.” I was begging. I was begging a fucking psychotic animal, and all he did was laugh at me.
“Oh, behold the great Lucian Morientz, capo to the Rossi family, underboss, boss of them all, begging. Ha, ha, ha, ha.”
Amelia burst into tears.
“Victor—”
“Lucian, if I were you, I’d worry about the next player in this game. In the meantime, I’ll give Miss Gigi the star treatment.”
A second later, a tortured cry of desperation and anguish sounded. It was so loud it hurt my ears.
It was Gigi screaming. It was her screaming from what sounded like the depths of her soul. We all heard it.
Amelia crumpled to the ground in floods of tears. Then the line went dead.
* * *
Amelia
* * *
Numbness…
Numbness gripped me.
It gripped me, and I couldn’t …
Couldn’t think, couldn’t focus, couldn’t breathe.
What was the point of me? I was a cop. I’d left my best friend in the care of a mobster while I fled to Chicago to more mobsters for protection.
Okay…
All of that was wrong, and for all my time in the organized crime unit, I didn’t use the knowledge I’d gained.
Fuck, for all the time I’d been a mobster’s daughter, I didn’t use the knowledge I’d gained from that either.
Your enemies come at you through your weaknesses.
What were weaknesses? Loved ones.
The answer was simple. My loved ones were my weakness, and like any other well thought-out plan, this was the same thing.
What a brilliant plan too. Earlier, when I’d told Luc I understood Tag’s quest for revenge, I never really thought about what I was saying. I was talking as a person who hadn’t really been hurt yet.
Cole died because of me. That hurt me to the depths of my soul. Sinclaire nearly died too because of me.
Gigi though…
God, was she dead?That scream sounded like she died. That scream sounded like she was being tortured to death, and I couldn’t imagine the pain she must have gone through. Been going through.
Luc took me to my room, where I lay down on the bed, processing what was happening and what was going on.
