“Oh no…” I say, trying for sincere shock.
Mr. Parker grins. “Yup, but we’re going to see her right after this, sweetie. That money-grubbing whore’s gonna get what’s coming to her.”
Panic, real, liquid panic tears through me. I lower the poker. “What do you mean? Are you going to Corinne’s house?”
Mr. Parker beams at me. He looks like a little boy who finally got the reaction he wanted. “I guess you’ll find out.”
“What does that mean?What do you mean?”
But Mr. Parker just grins and slams the door shut, leaving me all alone.
Chapter Twelve
January Whitehall
Imove likeI’m underwater, my insides shifting and turning. I make it to the operations room, peering into the retinal scanner to unlock it. There’s a speakerphone in the middle of the table, a secure emergency line to the outside world. Beside it is Eli’s small, leather-bound book of contacts. I pick it up and wonder who I could possibly call. Who could come and help me? No one from my past. No one from Velvet House. Zia Teresa is dead and there’s a chance Mr. Bianchi is fine with all of this. I need to find someone I can trust. I flip through pages of unknown names and wonder if I could save my men myself. But that’s so unrealistic. Adriano taught me to hunt, to shoot, but I can barely kill a deer without crying, let alone break locks or kick down doors. What I am is a nineteen-year-old pregnant bartender.
Because I am pregnant. That is undeniable. I’m pregnant with a kidnapped man’s baby and I need to get all its potential fathers back. My hands start to shake, and I lean on the table to steady myself, then I remember the last time I felt like I was in an impossible situation. Trapped in a limo with Mr. Parker on my way to be forced to marry him in Vegas until—
The Baskerville twins. Bill and Archie. The ones who rescued me from that helpless place. The gun-toting, gangster enforcers who want to be a part of Velvet House.
“Please,” I whisper, flipping through the contact book. “Please be here. Please.”
Both numbers are. Baskerville, Archie and Baskerville, Bill.
I dial Archie with shaky fingers, holding my breath in case I scare him away.
“Hello,” says a slow southern drawl. “What can I do for you?”
“Archie,” to my surprise my voice comes out clipped. Strong. “It’s January Whitehall. Are you okay to talk?”
A short pause.
“Sure, Kitten? Where have you all been? No one’s seen you since—”
“You need to come and help me. You and Bill, right away.”
“I—what?”
“The boys have been taken by Mr. Parker. He came to our Vermont safe house and abducted all of them and left me behind and I need you to come get me and help me rescue them.”
That all sounds straightforward to me, but it takes a long time to explain things to Archie and when I’m done, he puts me on speaker and makes me explain it to Bill all over again.
“Shit,” Bill says when I’m done. “Where do you think he’s taken them?”
“I don’t know,” I say, tears spilling from my eyes. “Do you know? Has Mr. Parker told you anything?”
“No, but we’ve been in Miami running a job. Did he say anything, anything about where he might be going?”
I think about what Mr. Parker told me when he returned to the safe house. “My stepmother. They’ve been working together. He was going to see her at my old house. Maybe she knows where Mr. Parker took the boys?”
That sounds bananas to me, but Bill makes a thoughtful noise. “I wouldn’t be surprised, Kitten. They’ve been real close these last couple months.”
There’s a pause and I know we’re all thinking about Corinne and Mr. Parker sleeping together. I press a hand to my chest, willing my heart to keep beating, keep me and the tiny human inside me alive. “Okay, well what do we do?”
There’s a sound like keys being picked up.
“We’re coming to you, Kitten,” Archie says. “Right away, we’ll fly to Vermont and—”
