The despair. The shame. The disappointment. I’d been guilt-ridden over my sister’s death for eight years, unable to move on. The video of my twin’s torture had been tattooed into my brain cells, refusing to ease the pain.
I reached for the sketch of my sister’s face with trembling fingers.
“I wish it had been me, Lou,” I whispered, my voice shaking. I’d give anything to have her with me, to talk to her, to ask her questions. I loved her so much, and she loved me. The only person that ever did.
The grandfather clock chimed, telling me it was midnight. Once it stopped, the eerie silence of the house returned, sending chills up my spine. This place wasn’t a home; it was a prison. I’d grown up in this manor, blinded by the horrors these walls hid.
No matter how many times it was cleaned and polished, or how shiny the chandeliers and furniture were, there was no hiding the evil that lurked within these walls and hid in the basement.
A knot twisted in my gut, and soon a sob escaped my throat, followed by many more. Each one lined with loneliness and regret. I cried for my sister, for myself, and something else that seemed to be missing in my life.
Was it a mother’s love? My father’s?
I gave my head a subtle shake. You couldn’t mourn something you never had. Couldn’t miss something you never felt.
Pulling myself together, I shifted my energy to the restaurant’s surveillance. Something about that stranger with dark eyes wouldn’t let me be. Once I was inside their security system, I honed in on the right day and time. My fingers flew across the keyboard, speeding up the surveillance until I saw him again.
I studied his expressionless face. Dark eyes. His features were angular and cold—sharp cheekbones, olive skin, a dusting of semi-silver stubble, and full lips in a hard line. He had the look of a man who was drowning. A man who mourned.
Like me.
But then his face tilted, like he knew exactly where the cameras were, and he stared right at me. The screen froze, and something in the pit of my stomach tugged at me, warning me that he was someone I should stay away from. Still, curiosity nudged me to look him up.
I ran facial recognition in the FBI database. Nothing. I tried the CIA’s. Nothing. Then I tried the dark web. Still nothing.
I stood up abruptly and started pacing, agitated. Every roadblock and unanswered puzzle fueled my tension higher. I fought the urge to smash my laptop to bits before taking a deep breath and cooling my temper.
My phone buzzed and I reached for it, taking a seat again and unlocking it. My brows knitted.
Unknown number: You’re welcome.
Frowning, I clicked open the message and found an attachment. A newspaper article. My brow furrowed further as I read through the old clipping. A picture of a boy appeared on my screen. He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t quite place him.
Me: Who’s this?
Unknown number: For saving the women.
An incredulous scoff escaped me. What an odd mobster you make, Nico Morrelli. Forgetting all about him, I scrolled and began to read through an old article.
The Ashford family was hit with yet another tragedy. Kingston Ashford, age 10, has been kidnapped during a visit to the Washington Zoo.
In recent years, Senator Ashford’s rumored activities have put a target on his family.
I had to pause and roll my eyes at “rumored activities.” More like blatant involvement with underbelly criminals. I shifted in my seat and read the final line.
The youngest boy is the latest to pay the price. Let’s hope his outcome isn’t deadly like that of the senator’s wife.
Bizarre.
Why would someone send me an article on Kingston Ashford? I’d never heard the name. It made no fucking sense. But then a thought occurred to me. What if this had something to do with my mother? I had witnessed the many boys who’d been subjected to the abuse and torture in this very house. The boys they pitted against each other in those gladiator matches.
A few keystrokes had me hacked into my mother’s files. I searched through them with a fine-tooth comb, wanting the idea of my mother being involved in a child’s kidnapping to be just that. An idea. Surely she stood by some moral code.
Frustration had me dropping my face in my hands. My mother was too old-fashioned, her laptop practically empty. Maybe I was going about this all wrong though. Ivan had been on the progressive side. Yes, he was dead, but maybe my mother was still using his laptop?
“It would make sense,” I whispered to myself. He would have had everything already set up on his device.
I shifted my efforts and was inside Ivan’s database a few minutes later. Bingo. The folder was almost too easy to find. It took no time for information to start pouring in.
“Kingston Ashford,” I murmured softly. The name on my lips sounded foreign.
I read through the information as it streamed in. He was born in Washington, D.C., and had four siblings. His mother was shot dead, and he was later kidnapped. Jesus, talk about bad luck! But that was where the trail fizzled out. Kingston Ashford was presumed dead until he resurfaced a few years ago.
There was a single photo in Ivan’s electronic folder, and I instantly recognized the dark eyes. There was an unmistakable resemblance to the stranger from the restaurant, in the lines of the boy who had been turned into a ruthless man.
And deep down in my heart, I knew why. Otherwise, why would Ivan have information on him?
I wished my mother’s late husband had kept more information. I was curious, although knowing what he and my mother put people through, I shouldn’t want to know.
I released a shuddering breath, the hatred radiating off the man in the restaurant suddenly making sense. It would also totally explain that blank look. I often saw the very same in the mirror.
I shook my head and diverted to another site that might have more information. The one belonging to Nico Morrelli. I might not be able to penetrate his walls when it came to safeguarding the victims of human trafficking, but it shouldn’t be the case with someone like Kingston Ashford.
I typed his name in and more information trickled in.
Connections to the Bratva, Cosa Nostra, Irish and Greek mafias, the Syndicate, the Omertà… The list went on and on. Jesus, maybe the Ashfords were in deeper than it seemed.
I read on, scrolling from screen to screen, when it went blank.
Dammit!
Frustrated, my palms came down on the keyboard, my laptop beeping in protest. I really had to up my game in the technology department if counter-tracing kept targeting my own barriers.
I shoved away from the table and stood up when the sound of clicking heels echoed through the hallway. The unmistakable sound of Mother’s Jimmy Choos. I wiped my bed clean of sketches, shoving them underneath my mattress. She hated seeing my drawings, saying it was a reminder of my twin. I also shoved my gun and knife under my mattress, a habit my sister and I had developed living under the same roof as monsters.
I caught my reflection with puffy eyes and tearstained cheeks in the vanity and rushed into my bathroom, splashing my face with cold water just as a knock vibrated against my door.
Taking a deep breath in, then exhaling slowly, I padded barefoot across my cold floor and opened the door.
“Hello, Mother,” I greeted her in a voice that hid all my turmoil. Stepping aside to let her enter my only haven in this building, I watched her strut into my room, her eyes roaming over every inch of it.
“I’m glad you’re awake.” I turned to face her, standing and studying her blonde hair, the same shade as mine. Except hers was dyed and there were grays hiding in her mane, indicating her age, which her face refused to show. She’d had so much plastic surgery done—albeit quality work—that she could pass for being two decades younger than she really was. Until you looked in her eyes and spotted the bitterness and loss that no amount of surgery could erase.