The air in the Black Ox has never been so tense. Hazel stands at the bar with her shotgun, loaded, on the bar and a warning look in her eyes. It doesn’t faze me. There’s only one thing keeping me from diving across this table and strangling Matteo Barati and it’s not Hazel’s shotgun. It’s the fact that I have no idea where Evie is and killing the man I suspect won’t get me any closer.
Cian and Saoirse flank me, though Saoirse chooses to sit under Cian’s watchful eye. He’s silent on his anger about our leaving the hospital too soon, but we’ve wasted too long already.
Matteo sits across from me puffing slowly on his cigar while his son, Rocco, stands off to the left watching me with his dark brows pulled low.
“You have shown me a great deal of disrespect,” Matteo begins slowly. “And still I grant you the chance to apologize to me in person.”
“Apologize?” My fist slams down onto the table, making the glasses jump sharply. “I’m not here to fucking apologize. I’m here to give you one chance to tell me the fucking truth.”
Cian shifts his weight to his other leg and clears his throat.
Matteo is unfazed. “You dare accuse me of lying?”
“I know for a fact that you’re lying,” I snap. “You can’t fucking fool me. And I ain’t scared of you either, so you’ve got one chance to tell me where Evelyn and Noah are or the streets will run red with Italian blood.”
“Your threats are baseless,” Matteo says quietly. “You yap at my ankles like a young dog. Your brother had infinitely more respect.”
In a rage, I snatch up the nearest glass and throw it at the wall. It shatters into a thousand pieces that rain down like starlight while Hazel snatches up her shotgun with a grunt of warning.
“Don’t you dare speak about him,” I snarl. Every muscle is wound tight with rage, solid and swollen and ready to snap at the barest hint of release. “He was worth ten of you and you still had him killed.”
Matteo finally looks at me. “I have told you before, we had no hand in the death of Brenden. Just as we had no issue with you until now. Now, you attack my men in the streets and raid our drug houses. You think such actions won’t go answered?”
“My actions are the answer,” I snap angrily. “Your little rat Noah just didn’t know when to stop, and now he’s taken the one thing I will kill everyone to get back. You understand me?”
“Father…” Rocky suddenly steps forward, but he’s silenced by a raise of Matteo’s hand.
“Your proof?”
“My proof?” I snarl, lunging upward. Italian guards immediately move forward, hands on weapons ready to defend their Don. My own men do the same. “Evelyn was the proof of my brother’s murder, the only one who could identify the Italian fuck he was arguing with because she saw it. And then suddenly, he gets his hands on her, and I can prove that with fucking CCTV, you Italian cunt. You’ve gone too far, you hear me? You took my brother from me, and God as my witness, I will burn your stinking empire to the ground for that, but I won’t let you take her too!”
Rage carries me forward as I storm out of the bar, seething with anger. I’m so furious I can barely breathe so when I climb into my car, I tear away from the sidewalk without waiting for any of my guards. My blood boils, and my hands sting hot with fury, searing into the steering wheel. I have no destination in mind and a city far too big to search by hand, but fuck it. I’ll do it.
I need her back.
I swore nothing would happen to her again, that I would protect her, and in that I’ve failed. I can’t even stomach imagining what Noah has done to her in the days he’s had her, but I swear I will make him pay tenfold.
I drive and drive until a text pings through on my phone, followed by several more. Forced to a stop at a red light, I glance at my phone to see messages from Cian, Saoirse and more, but one makes my heart stall in my chest.
It’s a text from Evelyn.
There are no words, just an address. It’s Noah. It’s got to be.
I slam on the accelerator, ignoring the red light, and spin the car around.
I’m going to make that fucker beg for a quick death.
“Noah!” I bellow his name as I descend old, dusty steps inside the abandoned theater he dragged me to. I’m under no illusions. This is definitely a trap, but I walk into it willingly for Evelyn. The stage ahead of me is dull and dusty with a few chairs and stage props scattered and abandoned. Old lights dangle overhead and a few frayed ropes twist and sway from the tension they hold.
No one answers me.
I continue down the path and raise my arms. “Noah! Where the fuck are you, you little rat?”
Reaching the stage, I climb the steps two at a time. Still no answer. Despite the low light, several holes in the roof above give me enough light to scan my surroundings, but just as I turn in search of signs of life, Noah attacks from the shadows.
Something solid and heavy collides with the back of my skull, sending me crashing forward. I land hard on my hands and roll over in time to see Noah above me with a baseball bat in his hands.
With a cry of rage, he brings it down on me hard.
I roll out the way, and it splinters the wooden floor where my head just was. He lifts it again. I kick out one leg and hit him behind the knee. As he stumbles, I climb to my feet and punch him hard across the face.
He stumbles and swings the bat hard, catching me in my abdomen across my fresh stitches. Pain explodes through my gut like a gunshot, and I grunt heavily but push through it with a yell of my own.
My fist collides with his jaw, his bat hits my thigh, and then I tackle him down onto the floor.
We grapple like animals. I’m fueled by my rage, and he’s driven by insanity if his eyes are anything to go by. What he lacks in strength, he makes up for in how nimble he is.
Each time I punch him and pin him, he wriggles free and quickly realizes my gut is my weak spot. Blood warms my shirt as he kicks me hard, but I grab his leg and flip him over.
His face smashes into a nearby box and it splinters and breaks under him. Then I’m on him, punching him repeatedly.
“Where is she, you fucker?” I rage. “Where the fuck is she?”
His face grows slippery from blood and split flesh, and I have to force myself to stop. Killing him will lose her to me forever.
The moment I hesitate, Noah elbows me in the balls and wriggles free, then he scrambles for his bat. I dodge the first swing, but a wave of agony across my abdomen causes me to falter.
He swings the bat into my face, and it hits me so forcefully that I see stars.
I crash back onto the stage with a pained grunt. Noah scrambles and yells, pushing at one of the stage props. By the time I regain my senses, the wooden cupboard is toppling down on top of me and I have no time to roll out of the way.
I throw my hands up to catch it, preventing it from crushing me, but it leaves me open to everything else.
“Fuck!” I rage, and Noah laughs maniacally as he dances about my head.
“You fuck,” he slurs through his mashed up face. “You thought you had me but I have you, and you’re gonna stay away from Holly forever, you hear me?”
“Holly?” I gasp, torn between keeping the cupboard from crushing me and trying to talk. “The fuck do you mean?”
“Goodbye, Cormac,” Noah says dramatically as he pulls a knife from his pocket. Pictures of Brenden’s murder suddenly flash in my mind and my blood runs cold.
No.
But to my surprise—and relief—Noah has other ideas. Instead of slitting my throat while I’m trapped, he moves to one of the ropes nearby. I quickly follow it up to a broken stage light dangling above my head, and my heart sinks.
“Shit.”
“Shit indeed.” Noah laughs loudly.
He raises his knife, and I screw up my eyes, ready for impact with a broken apology to Evie in my mind. Suddenly, a loud bang echoes around the theater.
I wait for the impending crash of the light, but it doesn’t come.
Opening my eyes, I look over to Noah. His arm is still raised with the knife, and blood pours from a gunshot wound to the throat. He gurgles and tries to swing his knife at the rope, but he lacks any kind of strength. The blade slips from his limp fingers and he crumples down off the stage like a broken mannequin.
“What—”
Footsteps echo on the stairs, and I look over. Rocky Barati climbs the steps with a gun in hand and shakes his head. “You drive like a fucking maniac, Cormac.”
