We stay silent the entire time, only the sounds of the metal spades clinking against each other every so often.
Three hours later, I hit the casket, and two hours after that, we’ve rigged up a rope system and pulled it up out of the ground.
As we stare at the silver box, a sliver of doubt creeps over me. This is wrong. The only thing keeping me going is knowing that the guy in the casket was an evil person. Dozens of charges of domestic abuse against women on the guy’s record, with arrests as recent as three months before the accident.
“Where’s the prybar?” I ask, looking around for it with the minimal light we have from one flashlight.
Xander holds out the heavy, black bar to me, while Cash grabs the flashlight and shines it on the casket.
It takes several tries before I break the locking mechanism and disengage the bolt that secures the lid. Everyone is so silent that it’s eerie. As I reach out to open it, a shiver runs through me like a lightning bolt.
Cassian helps at the other end, and the two of us lift it open, then take a step back while Beckett takes one look before he gags and coughs, then takes off toward the car.
“Fucking pussy,” I mutter, though it’s light, because honestly, I want to vomit right now, too.
Cash runs the light over the decaying corpse, starting at the feet. Something glimmers inside the casket toward the guy’s head.
Taking a step forward, I look in, and right next to the guy’s skull is a silver coin with something carved into it.
My blood runs cold as I stare at it, my arms frozen at my side.
No fucking way.
I thought for sure Cassian was out of his mind.
“Jesus,” Cassian exhales when he stands beside me and looks at the coin.
Cash and Xander come over. Finally, I reach in and pick it up, then put it under the light, so I can see whatever is carved into it.
LR.
“What’s LR? Who is that?” I ask Cassian. “Another mafia family?”
Cassian shrugs. “I’m not sure. I need to look into it.”
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, then,” I growl as I push the coffin closed. “He can sleep above ground for one more night until the employees get here in the morning.”
“There’reno mob families with those initials,” Cassian says as he stares at his laptop. “So I searched individual names within the crime families I have a record of. Two names popped up with those initials.”
I sit up straight, my hair still wet from the hot shower I took as soon as we got to one of Cassian’s safehouses in Seattle.
“Which names?” I move over to sit closer to Cassian. As I stare at the screen, I can’t even begin to understand what I’m seeing.
Lorenzo Ricci – Italian Syndicate, deceased
Luciano Ricci – Italian Syndicate
“What are you showing me?” I ask because I can’t make any sense of it.
Cassian shrugs. “I don’t have every name in the syndicates in my database. It’s been information my brothers and I have gathered for years during our time working with different families. Most of what we have are higher-ranking men. It’s possible I don’t have whoever LR is in my list.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Cash says, his eyebrows pinched. “But it’s also possible that Luciano Ricci tried to kill her. LR. LucianoRicci. He’s alive. He’s a killer, just like the rest of us. Would he try to kill Ace?”
His question is directed at me, but I’m too fucking stunned to speak. I don’t like Luciano. He’s a problem, and I don’t like problems. And if he tries to get between me and Ace at any point, I’m going to break my promise to her and kill him. Because she’s mine, and I’m not going to let anyone or anything get in the middle of that.
If he ordered a hit on her, though… Fuck. It would break her heart. As much as I hate it, she loves him.A lot.
And I love her.
