“Right,” she said with raised brows, as if she was some virginal prude who hadn’t fucked and sucked half her father’s men.
My eyes snapped up to hers, a thought suddenly hitting me. Her obsession with Silas, the fact she was even here… It all seemed so… beyond her brother’s death. A man she rarely got along with. Had she slept with him, too?
Why did I suddenly want to put my hands around her neck?
“Melina?”
Just as she raised her attention, a server placed a white box and a bouquet of white roses in front of us.
“Courtesy of the gentleman in the back booth,” he said in a thick accent and raised his chin behind us, but when I turned to find the man in question, there was no one there but an elderly couple.
“From who?”
His dark eyes crinkled, darting back and forth, as if searching for whoever had given him the items. I was immediately on alert. The gesture was too random. Strangers sent drinks or invites to their hotel rooms and penthouses, not flowers and unmarked packages.
My hand flew to the Glock at my waist, but before I could stop her, Melina reached for the box and flipped open the cover.
The world suddenly stopped and faded away as my eyes locked on the horrific sight. Every ounce of blood drained from my body, my heart sinking to the floor as a painful, guttural scream pushed up my throat.
“No…no, no, no…” Tears distorted the bloody image as I shook my head in shocked disbelief. “Papa,” I choked out.
Melina’s voice sounded distant, an echo somewhere around me, calling for my attention, but I couldn’t quite make out her words until a hand fell on my arm, tugging me away. That’s when the world crashed around me. Everyone came into focus, barreling into me with the force of a nuclear bomb.
I held the edge of the table as my knees grew weak. Melina’s grasp on my forearm made me stumble back, as I was too frail and shaken to counter it.
My father. The only person I loved in this world was gone. Brutally murdered. His fucking head inside a box in front of me.
His fucking head in a box.
Rage suddenly ignited white hot, replacing my sorrow.
Red.
Red was all I saw.
Gritting my teeth and nearly snapping every fingernail against the wooden table, I fought to temper my wild and shallow breaths by closing my eyes.
People needed to start dying. Someone—anyone—had to pay for what they’d done.
In a flash movement, I fisted the server’s shirt collar, the barrel of my gun pressed between his eyes.
“Who put you up to this? And I suggest you start talking before I add another fucking orifice to your face.”
His eyes doubled in size as they ping-ponged from me to the box on the table. “I—I don’t know. He gave me a tip. That is all,” he stammered, crying like a little bitch.
“What did he look like?” I demanded, shoving the hard steel into his mouth. I heard the cracking of teeth as I pushed harder. His tears didn’t do a damn thing for me.
“Helena,” Melina whispered harshly, knowing well enough not to test the nickname, “Everyone is looking. You can’t kill this man like this. Right here. I won’t be able to help you. Put it down and let him go.”
The server was momentarily forgotten when I reached for her red hair, curling it around my fist tightly until she hissed in pain.
“I need answers. This isn’t some fucking coincidence. You better start talking.” Grief strangled my voice as I tried to channel my fury and keep the mournful cries at bay.
I’d break later.
“Helena.” Her voice was low, a subtle warning behind it, her way of reminding me of our power imbalance. But she was unaware that nothing mattered to me at that moment unless it involved someone dying a slow death on behalf of my father, and if that someone happened to be the daughter of an important syndicate, well, I’d deal with the consequences later.
I had nothing and no one to lose anymore.
