The phone rings. And rings. And fucking rings.
No answer from Lyra.
I stare at her name on the screen. My fingers tighten around the phone, my pulse a slow, steady throb.
Something is off. Something is really off.
I read the second text from her again.
Lyra
Please just get Bianca safe. I can’t explain now. She and my mom are in danger.
I sit there for one more second, then I’m pacing the room, dialing another number.
Bianca not answering has my pulse spiking. Then I try Kratos.
He picks up on the fourth ring, sounding annoyed. “Carmy, I’m a little tied up—”
“Where the fuck is my sister?!” I snarl.
“Carmine—”
“Bianca!” I roar. “Where the fuck is she?!”
“Take it easy man, she’s right here,” he growls.
“Is that my brother?” I hear my sister’s voice say lazily in the background. “Carmine, let me explain something to you about cycles and optimum fertility windows.”
My face scrunches up. “Jesus fucking Christ,” I snap. “I don’t—”
“When a man and a woman love each other very much,” my sister giggles in the background, “and they want to make a baby to express that love—”
“Kratos,” I snarl lethally.
He clears his throat. “I, uh…sorry, man,” he grunts. “I mean, that you had to hear—”
“Is my sister fucking SAFE!” I bellow into the phone.
“Always.” There’s no hesitation in his response. “I don’t let anything hurt what’s mine.”
That satisfies me. For now.
“Are you home?”
“Yes,” he grunts.
“Good. Stay there. Call backup that you trust. I’m sending over some of my own men. Stay inside,” I bark before hanging up.
Another quick call has Santino and ten of my guys heading to Kratos and Bianca’s penthouse.
Then I get in my car and drive like a man possessed to Lyra’s old apartment.
The front door is closed, but not locked.
I push inside, gun drawn, my senses on high alert. The place is empty and eerily still, and there’s no signs of a struggle.
But there’s also no sight of Lyra or her mother, either.
I scan the space, scowling when my gaze lands on the coffee table with Lyra’s phone sitting on it. The fucking battery’s dead.
I grab it and plug it in before I turn to scan the rest of the place. Just as I’m about to head down the little hallway to the bedrooms and bathroom, a metallic glint on the floor catches my eye.
It’s her silver necklace with the ballet shoe pendant, lying half underneath a side table.
I walk over, crouching down to pick it up, my pulse humming.
Lyra loves this necklace. She almost never takes it off. It’s actually one of the very few ground rules we’ve had in our games; that I never tear this from her, or break it in any way.
My chest tightens. This was left here on purpose.
A chime pulls my attention from the necklace. Lyra’s phone is back on.
It’s…strange that she left it here if she and Vera left. Even with a threat looming, it doesn’t make sense that she’d just leave it.
I punch in her passcode and tap on her messaging app.
That’s when I see them, and my jaw grinds.
Text after text from an unknown number.
Demands. Orders. Threats.
Unknown
I just saw you on the news, Lyra.
Unknown
You look sad.
Unknown
I hope this doesn’t mean you didn’t get me what I want.
Holy shit.
Me
I have more time
Me
it hasn’t been 24 hrs yet
Unknown
Does this mean you don’t have what I asked for?
Unknown
Now the game changes, Lyra.
Unknown
Now I have to hurt the people you care about.
Fuck me.
She wasn’t looking for information because she wanted to.
She was looking because someone was making her.
I scroll up, and my vision turns red when I see the picture of my sister sent from the unknown number, and the threat of not to tell anyone.
I grind my teeth as my eyes narrow to dangerous slits.
Lyra didn’t tell me about everything that was happening, and why she was poking around my laptop, because she was scared of something happening to Bianca.
My phone dings loudly, shattering my attention. I see The Stag’s name on the screen and hit accept.
“What,” I grunt, starting to prowl through the rest of the apartment to see what I can find.
“What’s going on?” The Stag growls in reply, hearing the tension in my voice.
“Lots. There’s been a threat made against Lyra’s mother and Bianca, and someone’s been forcing Lyra to dig into me.”
The Stag swears under his breath. “Okay, what do you need?”
“Not sure yet. I’m at Vera’s place, but there’s no sign of either of them. Lyra’s phone is here… I think they went somewhere together.”
“Fuck,” The Stag hisses. “I called because I have some more information about Arkadi’s death that might interest you. But it can wait. Go do what you need to—”
“No.” I shake my head. “I’m listening.”
He clears his throat. “Arkadi’s will specified burial. But he was cremated.”
I frown. “Vera could’ve made that call as next of kin, which I assume she was.”
“Yeah, she could have.” The Stag’s voice sharpens. “But she didn’t. At least nowhere where I can find it recorded. Also, the medical examiner who signed off on Arkadi’s death?” The Stag continues, his voice relentless. “Killed himself a week after Arkadi died. Prescription pain meds overdose.”
I inhale deeply, forcing my tone to stay even despite the slow, sharp chill slithering down my spine.
“That’s…one hell of a coincidence.”
“It becomes even less of one when you find out he was under investigation for taking money from the Nikolayev Bratva,” he mutters. “And it gets better. Vera only visited Arkadi in prison once, years before his death, when he got into a fight with some Aryan Brotherhood assholes and needed a blood transfusion. They brought her in because she had the right blood type. O-negative.’
I exhale slowly as I step into Lyra’s room and start scanning it for anything that might tell me where the hell she is.
My eyes land on a small vanity by the window and the photo tucked into the mirror’s frame. I step closer, peering at it. A young woman smiles back at me, holding a baby with red hair.
The woman is wearing the same necklace I’m holding in my palm.
A memory comes swirling back from weeks ago. I had asked Lyra about her ballet slipper pendant—the one I bloodied when I got it back from Grigori Popov and his men—and she said it came from her Aunt Alison. I guess that’s her.
“How’d they manage to convince Vera to give Arkadi blood?” Vera was famously outspoken against her husband after everything blew up.
I walk out of Lyra’s room and into Vera’s. Instantly, the scent of stale cigarette smoke and cheap perfume slams into me. The place is a mess—dirty clothes piled in a corner, unmade bed, empty booze bottles littering the nightstand.
I frown as I stop and glance down at a big box of mail against the wall, mostly junk or sales offers, and rifle through some of it.
“They didn’t,” The Stag replies. “They compelled her. Arkadi was a possible witness in some other mafia case. So the State of New York needed him alive, and she was the key to that with their matching O-negative blood and it being an emergency . State prosecutors got a special judge’s order forcing Vera to donate blood to Arkadi. But I think you’re missing the point.”
I frown. “Which is?”
“Your wife has type AB blood.”
I stop moving, instantly. The world goes still, and a ringing sound begins to whine in my ears.
Holy. Fucking. Fuck.
Type O is recessive. Arkadi’s offspring could only have the same.
The whining in my ears crescendos to a roar as the realization slams into me.
“Arkadi wasn’t her father,” I say quietly.
The Stag’s voice darkens. “Given what you just told me about Lyra being under threat, and presumably with Vera, I’d be much more concerned right now that it means Vera categorically cannot be her mother.”
My breath stills.
Oh fuck.
“Do you have any idea where they might have gone?”
My gaze snaps back to the box of mail.
Something itches at the back of my mind, something I didn’t fully process before.
I crouch, grabbing a handful of envelopes from the top, rifling through them with shaking fingers. There are some sent from a legal firm, a few medical bills, some opened ones that seem like they probably contained Vera’s disability checks. Then suddenly, my eyes land on two offers from some shitty used car dealership promising zero percent down.
…A shitty used car dealership in Kingston, New York, two hours north of the city.
That’s where Lyra grew up.
My eyes drop to the mailing address, and everything goes sideways.
They’re addressed to Lyra’s childhood house.
…And they’re postmarked just three weeks ago.
I lurch to my feet.
That’s where they are.
And I’ve already wasted too much fucking time.
