“Does that mean my son will be waiting for me at home when I get there?”
“What makes you think I have your son? He could’ve run off, for all I know, since he’s the bastard son of that bitch Cain. Maybe he couldn’t live with the shame of it all?”
Emma closed her eyes and tilted her head upward to take a deep breath. After her short encounter with the idiot sitting across from her, she realized why Cain took so many cleansing breaths throughout the day. “Merrick, please tell the driver to stop the car.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After another short tap to the window from Mook, Emma’s order was obeyed.
“Get out.”
“What about my—” Gino swallowed his smug smile when the man next to him pulled out his gun and just pointed it at the floor of the car. He didn’t doubt that one word from Emma would change its position to the vicinity of his head.
“I had come today with every intention of giving you back your grandson as a token of my goodwill, but your behavior tells me that what Cain has said all along about you is true. Get out of the car, Mr. Bracato, and be careful how you treat my son. Take a walk back to your office and call your sons, all of them, and ask what move you should make next. Once they give you an answer, call me back and we’ll talk again. Don’t take too long, though. My patience is running thin, and I miss Hayden.” Emma tightened her grip on the boy she held on her shoulder and motioned her head to the side to get the fat man moving.
Mook took the opportunity to press his gun at the base of Bracato’s head. “I believe the lady asked you to leave.”
“You’re going to pay for this, starting with your kid, lady. My son Giovanni isn’t quite as forgiving as his old man, and when he finds out you have his boy, he’ll rip that little son of a bitch of yours to shreds.”
“I’ll look forward to your call, Mr. Bracato. Mook, I did promise our guest something if he cursed again, I believe.”
Emma didn’t even wince when she heard the blow to Bracato’s head outside the car.
“You ucking astard, you knocked out my two n teeth,” the man yelled.
“It was a good way to get rid of the spinach, anyway,” she said with a straight face. “Let’s go home, guys, and introduce this little one to Carmen.”
The kind old woman took charge of the baby from the minute they arrived. When Emma handed him over, he reached for her one last time, but went quietly with Carmen into the kitchen for a bottle.
After they disappeared, Emma asked Merrick to step into Cain’s office. “I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to let me finish before you go off on me.” She sat in one of the guest chairs, not feeling as comfortable in this office as the one in the warehouse.
“How can you be so sure what you say is what it’s going to take to send me off the deep end?”
Merrick’s arched dark brow reminded her so much of Cain she had to take a deep breath before she responded. “Because it’s the same thing I shared with Hayden last night, and it sent him running into the waiting arms of Giovanni Bracato, so call it a hunch on my part.”
Merrick pinched the bridge of her nose and nodded. “Okay, I wasn’t going to ask, but since you brought it up, what was it?”
With no detail left out, she told the guard about Hannah, the secret she had kept for so long.
Merrick kept her word and didn’t say anything until Emma finished. “Does Cain know?”
“It’s why she threw up that day you went running with her. I made a mistake, Merrick, but I called my friends who are keeping Hannah, and they agreed to bring her to meet Cain and Hayden. I intend to stay in the city, even if Cain doesn’t want us.”
Merrick leaned forward and did something totally out of character. She put her hand on Emma’s knee and looked up at her with a touch of sadness. “You don’t know her at all, even after all this time, do you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Emma, she’s never stopped wanting the things you took away. The closest I’ve seen a woman get to her since you left was, surprisingly, that FBI agent Shelby. You had a baby and kept it from her, though, and I’m not sure where she begins to forgive you for that. Turning you away, I’m fairly sure, isn’t her style. Cain will always put her family first, but I don’t know if she’ll let you back in the way she did before. I have a feeling, though, little Hannah might just be your ticket.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear,” Emma said softly, as she gazed out the windows behind Cain’s desk. She and Cain had spent an afternoon in heated debate about the placement of the old family heirloom. She thought it left Cain vulnerable if someone wanted to take a shot at her, but living in fear wasn’t Cain’s style either.
“Come on, Emma. We have some idiots to move, and I have to figure out to where. Why don’t you go up and take a nap? After this afternoon’s meeting with Bracato, I’m thinking we should wait until at least tomorrow to make any moves.”
Emma laughed, and some of Cain’s expressions made sense to her now. “Make them sweat, right?”
“It’s good to see you weren’t just paying attention to her ass in those leather pants you liked so much. You’re right. We make Bracato sweat and wait for him to panic.” Merrick stopped at the door and turned around to look at her with a serious expression. “You aren’t going to panic on me, are you, Emma?”
She shook her head and fought against her alarm. She had come too far to let nerves get in the way of getting her son back. “What about Hayden?”
“The boy got himself into this, so now he knows there’s no quick fixes without Cain being here. He’ll know to sit and wait, but he also knows we won’t leave him behind.”
“What would Cain do if she were here?”
The green eyes Cain had fallen in love with pinned Merrick with their open expression. It was easy now to see why Cain had such a hard time in the past telling this woman no. “Depends.”
“On what?” asked Emma.
“If there’s one scratch on her son. He comes back without a scratch on him, maybe Bracato gets lucky. That stupid fat ass hurts him, though, and she’ll kill him even if she has to do it in the mayor’s office in front of a million witnesses.”
Emma steepled her fingers in front of her lips and thought about what Merrick had just said, knowing it was true. Finally she made her request. “Wherever you put them, Merrick, make sure it’s private.”
The answer gave Merrick another surprise for the day. In her wildest dreams she wouldn’t have guessed Emma would last this long. “You got it, boss.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The beep of the machines next to the bed was lulling Shelby to sleep. She had been at Cain’s side since she saw Emma leave earlier, wanting to sit with the mobster a while to convince herself that Cain would eventually recover. The guard Merrick had posted had searched Shelby before she entered, with her cooperation. She knew if that he was sure she wasn’t carrying in anything she planned to leave behind, he was more likely to grant access.
She had been sitting for over three hours, trying to get some response out of the still woman on the bed. Cain looked different in this totally relaxed state, more like the son she had watched for so long when he was out with his mother. For the thousandth time she wished Cain had been an accountant so they could have something more between them.
“Come on, Cain. I know you’re in there.”
Muriel filled up the door opening, much like her cousin would have. “She’ll come around, Agent Daniels. Don’t worry. The doctor just told me they were cutting down on her pain medication and moving her soon. Is this some sort of new surveillance technique I’m not familiar with?” She indicated Cain’s hand that Shelby was holding.
“I’m not here to make trouble for her, ma’am. Cain’s my friend.”