*Elio*
As much as I hated leaving Cat to her own devices, I knew I needed to take this call from Franky. It was imperative that I knew what was going on at all tis and clearly his n found sothing.
I pald Cat’s face in my hand and brushed my thumb over her cheek lovingly. My stomach flipped as her large, doe eyes poured into with heavy emotion.
I wished I could take the worry from her regarding the problem with her friend. I made it my job to be optimistic about the whole ordeal, but in all honesty, I truly had no idea which way Anna was going to side with this.
I hit the answer button and held the phone up to my ear.
“What is it?” I asked evenly.
Franky’s sharp tone filled my ear, causing my nerves to freeze over.
“We found him,” he said. “He’s dead.”
I quickly pulled away from Cat and stood up from my chair. Caterina’s eyes filled with concern that I hastily defused by pointing over toward the balcony doors. My lips parted as I silently told her that I would be right back.
This wasn’t the kind of conversation that she needed to overhear at the mont. The only real thing she needed to focus on was finding a way to speak to Anna. I didn’t want nor need to trouble her with this sort of business, at least not at that very second.
Although this was one of Franky’s n who’d gone missing, the cause and effect could easily trace its way back to Cat and myself.
Once I was out on the balcony, I slid the doors shut, allowing us both to speak freely. It was imperative that I knew every detail of what happened.
“Tell everything,” I instructed.
Franky’s voice remained even and direct as he spoke. “He was found at one of the warehouses, beaten to a bloody pulp before he was likely shot.”
My expression twisted into a vicious scowl, my mouth pulled back into a tight sneer. The muscles in my chest contracted with a mixture of grief and pure anger. Again, I knew that this was one of Franky’s n, but a loss was still counted as a loss to .
I wanted so badly to think that Franky was acting pessimistic this morning when he spoke to Leo and . I thought he was just painting the picture as grim as possible to spare us from disappointnt.
Did I honestly think that the guy was going to magically turn up out of blue, completely unscathed? No.
There was a clear difference between being hopeful and being realistic.
But knowing that Franky’s prediction was correct all along didn’t exactly make feel too great either.
“Fuck,” I hissed under my breath.
He humd in agreent. “For what it’s worth, I know for fact that the guy went down fighting,” he explained.
“You examined the body,” I stated.
“Precisely. We found traces of soone else’s skin and blood under his nails on his clothing.”
I bit the inside of my cheek and pressed a hand to the side of my head. “Anything else?”
“Yeah....”
I was not favoring the pause that dangled off his voice.
“We found a note that was clearly attached to his body for us to find. It said, ‘This is just the beginning.’”
And that was the true piece of information that caused to see fucking red. The ache in my head kept from cycling through all the possible anings for that ssage as well as who could have potentially sent it.
Junior was my first and only thought. But there was nothing indicating that he was responsible for this. After all, the bastard had been floating just under the radar since the death of his father. But months had passed since that night, and part of felt like there was more at play.
Nonetheless, it didn’t leave a pleasant taste in my mouth to even think about because in the end, it only confird my concerns.
‘This was no accidental killing,’ I thought. ‘It was purely intentional and ant to send a distinctive ssage that my n and I are being targeted, which ans that Cat is being targeted too,’
I let out another indignant curse while clenching my hand into a tight fist at my side. I ignored the biting pain of nails digging into my palm and gave out a clear order to Franky.
“Call Leo,” I said. “Tell him that you two are to et at the warehouse.”
I ended the call without giving Franky a chance to ruin my mood even further. We needed a plan. I couldn’t manage to go on any further without consulting with the others and establishing so kind of strategy.
But before any of that was going to happen, it was imperative that I spoke to Cat.
This day had already gone to shit. The last thing I was going to do was make it worse by trying to intentionally keep her in the dark about this. As much as it pained , this information was vital to her life too.
I took a few deep breaths and was determined to regain my focus before letting my anger get the best of . I stuffed my phone back in my pocket and opened the door to rejoin Cat in the kitchen. I had to tell her the unfortunate news.
Not surprisingly, she was exactly where I left her before my call. She picked her gaze up from the table when she noticed coming into the room.
“What is it? Has sothing happened?” she asked.
Her features were pinched with worry, and I hated knowing that I was about to make it ten tis worse by explaining everything to her.
I need to protect her. And I had absolutely no intention of letting her co with when I left to head to the warehouse.
But I wasn’t going to lie to her.
Cat was right. If I wasn’t going to allow her presence at so of these etings, the very least I could do was tell her the truth about the current state of our situation.
I sat down and reached out to take her hand between my own.
“You rember when I told you about one of Franky’s n going missing a little while ago?”
Cat slowly nodded her head. “Yes.”
“Well, Franky and his n finally found the guy.” Her brows raised in surprise. “He’s dead.”
Her mouth fell open as a sharp gasp escaped her throat.
“I have to go et with Franky and Leo now to figure out what we’re going to do from here,” I told her.
She closed her mouth and gently tilted her head downward.
“And I take it that you don’t want to co with you right now,” she said.
I could see from her sullen expression that she was upset that I was purposely leaving her behind, but I didn’t have a choice. There was no way I was going to risk her safety now.
Slowly getting up from my chair, I leaned down to press a chaste kiss to her head.
“I promise I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Leaving her like this felt like a punch in the gut, but I needed to go. I didn’t have any other choice.
***
When I arrived at the warehouse, I was quick to notice that Leo managed to get there before .
‘Good,’ I thought briskly. ‘There won’t be any ti wasted waiting around.’
All I wanted was to form and plan and return ho. The less ti we spent waiting, the better.
Once I made it inside, I saw that both Leo and Franky were standing around a table waiting for . Two n were stationed outside of the main doors, and the rest of Franky’s n were spread out around the place.
I ca up to the table and slamd both of my hands down. The shattering noise echoed throughout the warehouse, capturing everyone’s attention almost instantly.
“Well, sobody had better tell just how the fuck this happened!” I shouted.
Many of the n dropped their eyes to the floor like they were unwilling to look at for fear that they’d magically combust. With all that had gone on that day, I honestly wished I possessed such an ability. Maybe then I wouldn’t have felt so powerless.
Of course, I didn’t expect an answer to that, and Franky seed to realize that as he spoke next.
“Elio, the plan is simple,” he said. “It’s best that going forward, we all stick together and find out who’s responsible.”
“No more individual stakeouts,” Leo clarified. “We won’t run the risk of losing soone else, should the need arise where we need to fan out and search an area.”
I nodded my head in agreent. Yes, at the very least we weren’t going to make the sa foolish mistake of letting our n work alone. It was best to have them paired up, but it wasn’t enough to ease the distress in my chest.
“What else?” I prompted.
“Aside from the body, we had his car brought on as well,” Franky ntioned. “I currently have a few n looking over the car as we speak given everything we know about the disappearance. I also have another team looking for any sort of hidden caras around the area to see if we can find anything at all that might link this to soone directly.”
I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose.
“Sothing is going to turn up, Elio,” Leo said with confidence. “It has to. There’s only so much that these bastards were capable of dealing with at the ti of the kidnapping.”
That was true. What were the chances of them tampering with every single surveillance cara in the area to cover their tracks? Not very likely, especially if the cara just so happened to be hidden.
So once again, we were back to searching for anything that could be of use, which ant that I was, once again, in wait mode.
I nodded my head, wishing I felt better about the current plan than I did. But what else could be done?
It sucked that all we could do was hope to find even a trace to follow. And in the anti, I felt utterly helpless on the sidelines.
But I wasn’t about to tell Franky that.
“Okay, that’s the current plan then,” I confird. “Have your n search over everything and let know as soon as anything is found.”
Both Franky and Leo nodded their heads before we all split to leave in our own direction. I turned back toward the main entrance with the clear intention of heading straight ho to Cat.
I was more than ready for this day to be over, but so many thoughts and concerns were running through my head at too quick a pace. Were Franky’s n capable of finding what we needed? Who was behind the violent attack and threatening note?
One of our guys was dead.
Would soone in our family be next?
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