I send the text and set the phone down on the coffee table.
An hour she’s been gone. She was last seen going west on Main. There are restaurants, stores, lots of places she should be right now. A million possibilities.
My phone buzzes. It’s Ares calling me. A sickening filling swirls inside me as I answer.
“Hey,” he says. “Just got your text. Junie?”
“Not our guy.” I almost don’t want to ask. “You find her?”
“I did. I’m looking at her right now. She’s sitting in a diner about a mile from the city line with Michelle Rastelli.”
Rastelli… ?No. That can’t be right. “Agent Rastelli? FBI?”
“One in the same.”
I’m speechless. We’ve known about Michelle Rastelli and her fucking task force for the better part of a year. She’d been responsible for at least three arrests from my crew in that time period. It used to be said that every Bratva eventually has a demon circling them if they’re doing things right. That demon usually comes in the form of the FBI.
Ember is meeting with an FBI agent. Ivan was right. I’ve been blindsided. Fuck. I never even saw it. I should have known better than to think I could bring such a straight arrow into the fold. Fuck me for not catching on quicker.
“How do you want it handled?” Ares asks. The simplest question with at least a dozen answers. Ares is a well trained enforcer and one of the best assassins I’ve ever known. If I told him to takethe both of them out, he’d not only do it without question, but he could do it fast and easy in a crowded diner before anyone would even know what was happening.
As Pakhan, I have a duty to give that order. I have a duty to protect the brotherhood.
I can’t. Even when it’s so fucking obvious. Maybe I’m still in disbelief, clinging onto the hope that Ares needs his eyes checked. Or maybe I need Ember to look me in the eye and tell me that these last couple of months together meant absolutely nothing in the end. It won’t be real until that happens.
“Bring her back here,” I tell him and hang up. I need her to tell me to my face. I need to hear her say the words.
And then… I’ll have to rip my own heart out of my chest.
23
EMBER
This might be the first time since I’ve been meeting Rastelli at this diner that it’s been busy. The parking lot is full of cars and from here it looks like every table is full of people. I get out of my car, and something tells me to take a look around just in case. I don’t see any familiar cars or faces. I’m pretty sure no one has followed me.
Like I said, I got out of there too quick for Ares to follow, and thank God. I don’t even want to know what happens if he finds me here.
I walk into the diner and a cacophony of sound hits me. A dozen conversations, the sound of food frying from the kitchen, plates and silverware clinking together. And the smell of sweet pancakes and bacon hovering over the room.
I look to my left at where we usually meet. She’s sitting there with a cup of coffee in front of her, smiling at me expectantly. My stomach roils the moment I see that motherly smile. I wish I had a knife to cut it off her fucking face.
I walk over and sit down. “What the fuck did you people do?”
She gives me a surprised look with a little smile and says, “That’s a nice way to greet someone. I thought your father taught you better manners?—”
“You raided my club,” I hiss, leaning into her. “I tell you that I want out of this arrangement and your response is to mess with my livelihood? Are you insane?”
She looks at me, her smile faltering slightly. “Your livelihood? You mean your job? Weren’t you the one who called it that? ‘It’s just a job’, right?”
“There was nothing there.” I do my best to say it in a low enough tone so that we’re not overheard by the neighboring tables. “I told you that nothing was happening at the club. I told you that I didn’t know anything. Why can’t you just let me go and drop this?”
“Because, as it turns out, there’s plenty going on at your little club. At least there was last night.” She takes a sip of her cup, her eyes narrowing, then she reaches under the table and pulls out a manila folder and opens it.
“Have a look,” she says, spreading out crime scene photos in front of me. Shots of the back alley with bodies lying in pools of blood. Most were in tactical gear with bulletproof vests. One had a bullet hole in his head as his dead eyes looked up and into the beyond.
I cringe and try to turn away. She slides another right up to me. A large man in a business suit, face down on the concrete, shiny dark red pool of blood underneath him.
“Wow, look at that,” she says. “Looks like there was quite a bit happening at your club, after all. This one, That’s Joseph Anthony Abate. He was one of the bosses of the Cantinellifamily. Caught a bullet to the throat. Probably courtesy of your boyfriend.”
