Chapter Twenty-Eight

I parked at the end of Monato’s block and got out of my car. I rolled my eyes at what I saw. The apartment building where Monato was rumoured to be holed up was flanked by four cars with tinted windows. I could see three armed guards blocking the front entryway.

Does he think I’m bringing an army?

I shook my head. The man was all flash and fire and no finesse. If our roles had been reversed, he probably would have brought an army.

I watched from a distance. One of the sedan’s doors swung open and two more guys rolled out. One of them reached back into the car and dragged out an angry young woman. Even from my vantage point, I could see her ferocious expression. She took a few steps toward Monato’s building, then tripped and yelled something unintelligible at the guards. The two men laughed and one of them gave her a nudge with his foot. I gritted my teeth, but she just got up and shoved him. She straightened her ridiculously short skirt and tried to walk away, but stumbled once again as one of her high-heeled shoes snapped. One of the thugs put out his arm to steady her and she pushed it away irritably. She bent down, yanked the heels off completely, and stomped into the apartment building. She was drunk or high or both.

“See something you like?”

I spun around with my fist in the air, and Monato stepped back just in time.

“I didn’t think she’d be your type, Seever. I don’t know why, but I thought you preferred blondes,” the other man said mockingly.

“I like my women sober and willing, Monato,” I retorted.

His face darkened. “I think you like women who don’t belong to you.”

I snorted. “You may have that backwards. And where are your men?”

“I think we can settle this like grown-ups,” he replied. “Don’t you?”

“You mean you don’t want them to see you have your ass handed to you?” I asked.

“Hardly.” Monato said.

I hesitated. He was expecting me to come at him. He probably thought he’d robbed me of my connection to Leo, and the income that went along with it. He’d come into my club, into my hotel, and he’d tried to take Cass from me, too. I was fed up, and had a right to be.

I want nothing more than to crush you like a bug.

But instead of speaking my mind, I just smiled tightly. He thought Cass was dead.

“How much do you want for her?” I asked.

Monato frowned. “For that waste-case of a brunette?”

I rolled my eyes. I doubted he even knew her name.

“How much for Cass? For my wife,” I clarified.

“I think I already…” The other man trailed off as he caught the dead serious expression on my face.

“You think you already what? Took her out of the equation? I guess you’re not as efficient as you think you are.”

Monato snorted derisively, and I pulled my phone out of my pocket.

“Have a look,” I suggested. “Check out the time stamp.”

I’d taken the picture the previous night, not long after we’d arrived at the cabin. Cass was looking up at the mountain with a small smile on her face. Monato scrutinized the photo with pretended indifference. Even if it hadn’t had the date and time at the bottom, the marks on her neck were clearly visible. Monato shoved the phone back at me.

“So what? You want to…buy her from me now?” he sounded utterly disbelieving.

I nodded. “Yes.”

He tilted his head quizzically to one side. “But if she’s your wife, then she’s not one of my girls. And that means I can’t sell her to you.”

“Monato, I’m giving you an out,” I said as patiently as I could manage. “I’ll pay you whatever the going rate is. Hell, I’ll double it. Tell people you pulled one over on me. It gives you an excuse to leave her alone—maybe it even justifies your claim on her, I don’t know.”

“And it gets you what you want, of course,” Monato added.

“Yes,” I agreed. “It does.”

He tapped his chin with exaggerated thought. “These decisions aren’t entirely up to me.”

I sighed tiredly. “What do you mean, Monato? They’re your girls, your decisions.”

He looked uncertain for one second, and I wondered what he was playing at. I just wanted to pay him off and be done with it, everything else be damned. I’d already made up my mind to tell Cass what I’d done, and let her choose whether to stay or go.

God, I hope she stays. My heart twisted when I considered that she might not.

Monato’s snide mask was back in place.

“Did you know a man named Colin, by any chance?” he asked innocently. “Minor player in the game before you came along.”

I went very still and answered in a carefully neutral voice. “I knew him.”

Monato smiled. “I thought you might. Something about you reminds me of him. Not the way you look, exactly. More something in your demeanour.”

I gritted my teeth and said nothing. Monato’s smile widened.

“He was interested in a girl, too,” he told me. “What was her name? I’m so bad at remembering them.”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it Marion, maybe?”

I felt my face pale. Billy had a daughter about Colin’s age. But she had become involved with the wrong people, and had died of an overdose—right around the time my brother was killed. I remembered one of the last conversations I’d had with him. I’d been trying to talk him out of staying in the business any longer. I thought he’d been trying to change the subject.

“I met a girl,” my brother interrupted my rant about the dangers of carrying on.

“You didn’t,” I argued.

“But I did.”

“Tell me about her,” I replied with a sigh.

“Soon,” he told me. “We just have to sort out a few things.”

With his job the way it was, what other kind of girl would he have been exposed to? But it never occurred to me that she was someone I already knew—someone who had become entrapped in Monato’s little harem with no way out.

“Mary-Anne,” I corrected, knowing it was true.

“That’s right. Mary-Anne. Colin offered me a deal eerily similar to the one you’re trying to make.”

“Mary-Anne was Billy’s daughter,” I stated.

Monato’s smile slipped just a little, and I realized he might not have known.

“That’s right,” I said. “That girl, who you hooked on drugs and dragged into your so-called business was my colleague’s kid.”

“Mary-Anne was a whore and an addict, like the rest of them,” Monato replied.

“She was barely eighteen,” I replied angrily. “You manipulated her into becoming something she wasn’t. And you wouldn’t let her go when she asked to be set free.”

“That’s a little more simplistic than I see it,” Monato countered with a shrug. “But Colin saw it the same way. He accused me of the same things—more even. Trust me when I tell you that all these girls are the same, in the end. What is with you guys and your hero complexes?”

“Shut up.”

“I tried to talk him out of it,” Monato continued. “But he was stubborn, like you. At least he was until I shot him.”

His confession should have thrilled me, or at least offered some kind of satisfaction. It’s what I’d been after for six months. But all I felt was rage mixed with despair. For several seconds it almost crippled me. The smile on Monato’s face set my teeth on edge. And he must have been laughing it up, knowing.

I let the anger crash through me as I lunged at Monato. He easily sidestepped my anger-fueled attack. I stumbled, and the other man reached for his gun. I went for my own, knowing he had already taken the advantage. He cocked his pistol as I fumbled to draw mine.

He went down, crumpling to the ground with a comically surprised look on his face. His eyes rolled back in his head as he hit the ground with a thud.

“You don’t fight well when you’re mad,” Billy said in his gruff voice.

He was holding a short, black baton, and smiling grimly. He reached back and swung again, even though Monato hadn’t moved an inch. Blood was already pooling behind his head.

“I think you got him,” I said.

“Just making sure.”

“He killed Colin,” I told him.

“I heard.”

“And he as he as much as killed Mary-Anne, too,” I added. “Did you know they were involved?”

“None of my business.” Billy shrugged in a way that made me think he had known.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I wondered out loud.

“I’m just trying to make my peace. Didn’t figure you needed any more heartache.”

“You’re a better man than I am, then,” I replied. “You’d think it would make me feel at least a bit better, knowing for sure. Closure or whatever. But I don’t. I feel…empty. And still angry.”

“I’m no less pissed, either,” Billy said. “It’s been six long months for both of us. I’m sad. And mad. And this douche bag facilitated my daughter’s death. And none of that is going to disappear in one instant.”

I lost my cool for just a second.

“Then what the hell is the point of revenge?!” I yelled.

Billy chuckled at my outburst and kicked Monato’s still body.

“I’ll let you know if I figure that out before you do,” he said.

“Thanks,” I replied with just a touch of sarcasm.

The older man put his hand on my shoulder.

“You’ve got a girl locked in your room,” he reminded me gently.

The dark cloud hanging over my heart lifted marginally.

Cass.

I glanced down at Monato.

“You’ll do what needs to be done with him?” I asked.

Billy nodded, and his smile was sinister. “With pleasure.”