“She was in the hospital for weeks. They had her on a lot of pain meds, which is why she doesn’t like them now. After she got home, she hardly slept. She already basically lived in Lil’s room before this. We took turns sitting up with her until she pretty much passed out every single night. She couldn’t stand to be alone. She flinched at almost everything. Loud voices and quick movements, especially. I… I could barely let her out of my sight. I would panic and imagine finding her bleeding to death again. Ford showed up at all hours of the day and night to check on her.”
Again, he pauses. In this room right now, he’s not Marco DeVille, a badass mafia-ish boss. He’s Marco DeVille, a loving father who almost lost his daughter.
“The dreams started not long after she came home. The memories. Her biological father stabbing her over and over again, saying things like, ‘You think you’re better than us now, Princess?’ We used to call them both our princesses. We don’t anymore.”
I lift my head up from where I’m holding it in my hands. I don’t remember dropping it there in the first place. “I know. She had a panic attack a few weeks ago when I called her that without knowing. It was terrifying, Marco. She couldn’t breathe.”
The sadness in his eyes is overwhelming. “Those are bad. Knowing what triggers them helps so we can avoid them as much as possible. Things are a lot better now than they were at first. The girls hardly left the property for a year. Everyone went to therapy. We started slowly after that. Let them go to high school, but only at a private school with a full security detail. Made them learn self-defense. Put trackers in everything we could. Ari was already good with guns, but she trained to get better. We let them drive themselves at sixteen and lessened the number of men following them.”
He drains the rest of his whiskey and slumps in his chair. “The girls were begging for more independence. They’re rebellious hellions, they needed out of the cage. So, we let them. Hell, we’ve let them run a bit wild in the last few years. They went on a two-week-long road trip the summer before senior year with the girls from school. They had trackers, and I tapped every crew along the way to keep tabs on them, but they didn’t have any of my men following along. I honestly thought he was dead or smart enough to stay away, or I would never have let that happen.”
My knuckles crack as I flex my fingers. “Why is he still alive, Marco?”
“My men searched for him. All the crews did. We never stopped searching for him, even when there were rumors he was dead. When we brought Parker on a few years ago, he ran more searches than I thought possible. Still does. It’s another thing that bugs him, not being able to find proof Fred Mitchell is alive or dead.”
His back straightens and his face morphs as anger takes over. “We don’t have proof it’s him out there now, but I don’t need fucking proof. My daughter is in danger. We almost lost her once. We can’t go through that again. She can’t go through that again.” His voice breaks near the end.
“How do we keep her safe?” I growl.
“We plan for the worst. We take every precaution. They don’t leave the house without me or you, plus a full detail. More men stationed around the house and property. And I’m activating the trackers in their teeth.”
“They have trackers in their teeth, but you don’t use them?” I’m shocked by both of those things.
“They each have two trackers in their molars. I didn’t tell them, and I don’t feel fucking bad about it because if Ariana had one back then, I would have gotten to her a hell of a lot sooner. Only reason you don’t have any yet is because I’ve been complacent, thinking there was no real danger.”
“Do all the men on your crew have one?”
“No. Only family, Luca. Which you are, twice over now.”
Warmth fills my chest at his words. “Why are they turned off?” I ask.
“They were back ups. There’s already trackers in fucking everything I can put a goddamned tracker in. But I wanted something that couldn’t be ditched easily. There are some that go underthe skin, but Parker’s working on designing a better one, so I haven’t bothered with those yet.”
I lean back in my chair. “The road trip, you actually let them go alone?”
“There were a lot of stipulations they agreed to beforehand. Many of which they ignored once they were gone. They were grounded for the rest of the summer.”
“Fuck.”
“There’s a lot of incriminating video still floating around in the cloud.”
Chapter 52
This house is even bigger than I thought
Luca
Many hours after walking into Marco’s office, I leave and immediately go looking for my girl. I need to hold her in my arms. I need to make sure she knows I love her and nothing is going to change that.
I start in the kitchen, where Mia and Becca are sitting drinking tea together. As soon as they see me, they jump up and give me a hug.
“Do you know where she is?” I ask, sandwiched between them. My voice comes out ragged as fuck.
They loosen their arms to release me. Mia shakes her head. “They were everywhere at some point, but I’m not sure where they are now.”
“I’ll go find them.” I make my way upstairs, stumbling a little. If they’re not where the food is, I figure they’re where the booze is.
Lil’s bedroom and closet doors are open.
