I stop talking as tires screech alarmingly close to me. I look up just in time to see Finn Kearney smile from inside the pickup truck.
Something about his smile, about the entire thing, makes big alarm bells go off in my head. Like the ones that need a Hunchback of Notre-Dame to ring them.
“W-what are you doing here, Finn?” I ask, taking a step back toward the entrance.
He gets out of the vehicle and shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. “Just drove by and saw you, that’s all. I wouldn’t have recognized you if I hadn’t known you’d dyed your hair.”
A sliver of coldness slithers down my spine. “H-how did you know I’ve changed my hair?” I throw my splinted hand up to stop him when he keeps walking closer. “Finn. Stop,” I demand.
But he ignores me and keeps moving closer. I look back at the door, which is now further away than he is to me. What the hell is happening? This is not good. Frantically, I try to come up with a plan, but nothing… oh! An idea hits me out of the blue.
“Let me just make a quick call,” I say with forceful cheeriness. While talking, I gesture wildly with my splinted hand as I try one-handedly to dig the North Coast Effects business card out of my purse.
“You can do that from the road,” Finn counters, no longer smiling. “Let’s go. Raven. Now.”
Bingo! I get the card loose enough I can slide it out while I follow Finn over to the truck. Just before I get in, I throw it on the ground fucking hoping that Matteo sees it.
Once Finn has the truck roaring to life and is pulling back onto the road, I try to discreetly call Matteo. But before I can even unlock the damn thing, Finn snatches it from me and throws it onto the road.
“What the hell?” I scream, more outraged than scared.
“Oops.”
“Oops?” I parrot. “That wasn’t a fucking accident. You did that on purpose—”
Before I can finish yelling at him, the vehicle swerves when he grabs my throat and yanks me so close I can see the menace in his eyes.
“If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’ll have to drug you or kill you, Raven. Is that what you want?”
Chapter 37
Matteo
Gia’s final whispered words echo in my head as the door to her hospital room clicks shut behind me.
“He said… he said you’d come back to me… I just needed…”
My blood runs cold at the implication there’s someone else pulling the strings. A motherfucking puppet master. It makes sense, though. Gia’s never struck me as an evil mastermind, or someone who plans shit.
My men stand at attention as I approach, their faces solemn. Two of them have been with the family since before I could hold a lighter. They’re not mine per se, but they’re loyal. They’re the kind of men who would walk into Hell if a Russo asked them to.
“Where’s Raven?” I demand, scanning the empty corridor.
“She left,” Isaac states.
“I can see that,” I growl, my voice dropping to a dangerous register that makes both men straighten. “But where did she go? Where. Is. She?”
“We don’t know,” Kim admits. “We were watching the room, not the hallway.”
A vein pulses in my temple, rage building like a pressure cooker inside my skull. The world narrows to pinprick focus, every sense heightened as adrenaline floods my system.
“Find her,” I order. “Now. Search every floor, every room, every fucking closet in this place.”
They move instantly, splitting off in opposite directions, phones already at their ears to mobilize the rest of our men stationed throughout the hospital. I turn in a slow circle, scanning every face, every doorway, looking for a flash of pink hair, a glimpse of her smile. Nothing.
“Young man,” a voice calls from the nurses’ station. I whip around to find an elderly nurse. “You’re making a scene.”
I stride toward her, leaning across the counter until I’m close enough to see the name tag pinned to her scrubs. Helen. “I need to find someone,” I tell her, fighting to keep my voice even. “Pink hair. About this tall.” I hold my hand at shoulder height. “Wearing a pink dress. Have you seen her?”
