“Any luck?”
Several of them turn towards me, either shaking their heads ‘no’ or giving me a slight chin lift. Salvatore excuses himself from the table and makes his way toward me. With a squeeze on the back of my neck, he leads me out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into his office where he shuts the door behind him.
“Take a seat,” he tells me, indicating the chair directly across from his desk.
I sit. He shifts around the desk, sitting in his own chair.
“I’m going to get right to it. No bullshit. No lies. Although I will tell you this; what I’m about to tell you is not an easy thing to hear, nor is it easy to tell. I love both of my sons. But Royal, he’s not right. That boy has some demons inside of him.”
He pauses, looking out the window for a moment, his eyes glazing over. Finally, he speaks in a low, trembling voice.
“My oldest son is a killer. And I don’t mean a killer like John. I mean, he gets a thrill out of killing people. He gets off on it.”
“Jesus Christ! You mean to tell me he kills people for the hell of it?”
An unsettling numbness wells up inside of me. Panic instantly hits. Salvatore’s not telling me everything. He places his elbows on the desk, steepling his fingers and resting them on his chin.
“We haven’t heard from him in ten years, not since the day we kicked him out and told him he was no longer a part of this family.”
He closes his eyes. I can tell this is so hard for him to say. To discuss this with me.
“Royal works for Ivan Solokov. My son is now known by the name of... Scarface.”
I stand up abruptly, leaning forward.
“You have got to be fucking kidding me? Jesus Christ! He’s known to cut people up into tiny pieces with knives. He leaves them unrecognizable, and he has my wife!”
“Listen here, goddamnit. I feel your pain. I feel it here, in the pit of my soul. That man is not my son. He may have my blood running through his veins, but he is not my child. He’s the prodigy of the devil himself. And he has my son, too. He’s seeking revenge on Lola and me. The only way he can hurt me is to take away Manny. To leave us with nothing. He knows how strongly I feel about family. That may sound like a contradiction, but that monster… Fuck, he turned on this family, all for greed. All for power. He knew when the time came, I would turn the reins of the family over to Manny and not him. As far as Calla, I don’t know what he wants with her.”
I begin pacing the room, his words crippling me.
“Do you think he will kill them?”
I stop at the window, my hands shoved deep into my pockets. My mind is wandering all over the place. I should be out there looking for them, not stuck in here. I’m no use here. Not to them. The walls in this huge house are suffocating me.
“Do you want the truth?”
Salvatore is behind me now, his hand on my shoulder.
“I already know the answer. You don’t have to say a thing.”
“Ivan’s big into drugs. He always has been.”
Goddamnit, this is going to be worse than I’ve imagined.
“The first time Lola and I suspected he was on drugs, let’s just say that shit didn’t go over very well. He was only fifteen years old. I forced that boy to do a drug test and sure as shit, traces of heroin were found.”
All of a sudden I feel sick. No wonder Manny jumped on board when I wanted that shit away from the club.
“He was regularly in and out of rehab up until he turned eighteen. We did everything we could to try and help him. Lola was a mess. And Manny, he always used to look up to Royal, until one night he came home so high, he beat the shit out of Manny. Broke his arm, busted up his jaw. A few days before that I had told him I’d had enough. If he wasn’t going to straighten himself out and prove to this family and to himself that he was man enough to beat his addiction, then we were done. He would not lead this family, Manny would. That night was the last night I ever saw my son.”
I face him now. His pain pours out of him. To lose a child to drugs and to know the kind of person they have turned into has got to destroy a man.
“Don’t pity me, Cain. I can see it in your eyes. I love Royal; he’s my son. But I will never condone the things he does. I’m no better than he is in certain ways. I’m not a law abiding citizen. Fuck, I’ve killed, too. But one thing I will never do is turn against my blood.” His eyes turn icy and resolute. “We will find them. That I can promise you.”
Standing before me is a man who has more power than anyone I know, but if I had to guess by the look on Salvatore’s face, he’s trying to convince himself more than he’s trying to convince me.
“Come sit. There are a few more things I want to go over with you, which I think will convince you I believe what I’m saying.”
Jesus, it’s like he just read my mind. We each take our seats once more. Salvatore turns on his computer. As we wait for it to boot up, he proceeds to tell me something I should have known the minute he mentioned the word drugs.
“You don’t have another narc in your club. It’s always been Emerald.”
“How can that be?” I question.
“Every bit of information she found out, she told that dirt bag Kryder, who then went back and told Royal.”
“What the fuck? How do we know this to be true? I mean, how the hell did you find all this out?”
“I have my ways. It may take time, time we don’t have right now.”
I walk around to the other side of his desk and I stare him down.
“Don’t hide shit from me, Salvatore. You’re like a father to me. How did you find out?”
“I’ve been on the phone with many people, asking if anyone has spotted Royal. He’s been hanging out the past few nights at The Rose Garden. It’s a nightclub in Times Square. I have video surveillance from the club.”
He leans forward in his chair and opens some files on his laptop, then turns it around and slides it over to me.
There they are, cozying up to each other at the bar. Another shot shows them kissing. Her back is to me in this one. It’s her though, I know it’s her. I continue to click. There are several shots of them on the dance floor, then back at the bar. The video comes to an end as they exit.
“Where is she now?”
I’m going to burn her alive. Listen to her scream.
“I’m going to assume she’s with him.”
My heart stops beating. Whatever type of revenge Royal wants on his family, she knows absolutely nothing about anything. They’ll kill her. I can’t even think straight. My wife is a strong woman. But to withstand being drugged, or even worse, beaten and tortured? She won’t be able to handle it.
“John’s due back anytime,” continues Salvatore. “I have resources everywhere, including quite a few cops who tend to turn their cheeks the other way when it comes to my business affairs. He’s here in New York, I know he is. He won’t do anything quietly; he wants my attention. He wants me to feel fear. He had my fear the moment I found out he took those two. We just need to find them before he sends me his message.”
“What message might that be?”
I swallow down the answer I already know in the back of my throat.
“He’ll torture one of them while the other one watches. He’ll video the whole thing. I know how his sick mind works.”
Chapter Twenty
Calla
“You monster!” I scream.
“Who are you?”
His ferocious, intimidating laugh would normally scare me. I see Manny looking at me through one eye. The other is badly bruised and swollen shut. He’s been brutalized. Blood is everywhere. How he can even be alive at this point is beyond me, but that one eye, the one that is barely open, is pleading with me to keep my mouth shut. There is no way in hell I am going to lie here and watch him be tortured. Or worse, killed. My head starts spinning, my stomach rolling from the sight in front of me.