Niko shrugs. “Not necessarily. Celebrities usually have lookalikes on standby to show up somewhere for them somewhere so they can be elsewhere. The Duchess has one of those, actually. Which means…”
Dread fills me. “Which means Kane knew we placed cameras in his suite, and they switched places while he was at PresCorp yesterday. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” I panic in lowercase, “Look, get some sleep. I’m gonna roll back the footage and see if this guy was the one that entered the suite last night. Because where the fuck is Kane Burton?”
Niko yawns, looking tired as shit.
“Take a nap. I’ll call you if I find something.”
He doesn’t respond, just nods and hangs up.
It takes me three hours to find the time “Kane” got into his penthouse suite.
Spoiler alert: It’s not Kane.
Eight hours later
The wail that comes from inside of the mansion has my heart pounding. I run behind Niko, who's screaming—alerting Sabrina that it's him. To not shoot. She throws the gun and goes back to pumping Parker's sternum. Her makeup is ruined. There's blood all over her pretty costume, her hair, and her arms.
“I got this, Boss Lady, you go get help.” I grab a turkey baster-looking thing from a drawer, doubting my Pakhan's wife hears me.
It takes two seconds for me to trade places with her. I'm proud of her for having packed Parker's wound. I don't really know the guy, but he doesn't deserve to go out like this. None of us do. Niko sucks out the blood from his mouth with the baster, so he doesn’t choke on it, then turns Parker’s head to the side. He’s already on the phone with the doctor we have on retainer.
Niko says something to Sabrina, and something I've glimpsed a dozen times when guys go into training with Bianchi and Rossi happens to her. She’s in shock. She’s moving like a life-size, blood-soaked Barbie that was witness to a murder scene. She goes eerily still, takes a deep, shuddering breath, then squares her shoulders back like she wasn’t just crying and screaming.
She's gone by the time I hear Savage take a full breath of air. I twist him to the side so he can vomit more blood, even though he's already lost a fuckton.
He's barely breathing.
But he's breathing.
A win is a fuckin’ win.
When Sabrina comes back, the blood all over her still isn't dry. Raven and her trio enter behind her.
And our queen, The Duchess of New York City, gives the order.
“I want every fucking member here. From the consigliere to the grunt man. Every capo. Every wife. All of them. I need my husband. I need himnow.”
Sabrina’s rage isincandescent.
November
Chapter One
Parker.
The lights seem to strobe above me, bright, humming, sending riveting vibrations through my sweat-slick skin.
I’m neither here nor there.
A metronome somewhere is counting the beats of my heart.
I feel like I'm floating while I'm doing my best to take in my surroundings, but it’s too bright. I ache. Everywhere. There is not an inch of me that does not feel like it’s been shot to hell. I fight to sit up, but it’s useless.I’museless.
I close my eyes, it’s the only thing I can seem to manage, and do my best to remember.
Blonde hair, green eyes, the scent of spun sugar, cinnamon and berries.
“You can’t leave me… I love you.”
