Page 34 of Bishop

I’d thought she’d be relieved. Potentially ecstatic. But I don’t know what the hell this reaction is. Heartbreak? Or maybe just confusion. “This was Emmanuel’s doing.”

“He wouldn’t have made a move against my brothers,” she snaps, her voice cracking. “They did this. They made plans without telling me first. Goddamnit.” She shoves her hands into her hair. “They have no idea what they’ve done.”

I keep my mouth shut as her cell darkens on the floor, the call disconnected.

“What about my mother?” she asks. “Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“But she’s alive?”

I shrug. “I haven’t been told otherwise.”

Abri glances away, staring at a random spot on the wall over my shoulder. “I need to find her.”

“Good luck. My guess is she’ll lay low for a while. If it were me, I’d withdraw a stack of cash, lose my cell, then bunker down until I could figure out what was going on. But then again, I’d never have attempted to kill the head of the East Coast Italian mafia.”

Her face pales as she continues staring at the wall, her teeth nibbling her lower lip.

“Langston was hurt,” I add. “Your Uncle Lorenzo, too.”

She flicks me a two-second glance, the shock registering for a moment, then she returns to wall gazing as if the information didn’t truly sink in.

“Abri?” I inch closer. “Did you hear me? Langston and Lorenzo were hurt. I’m not sure if your father inflicted the injuries, but it was done under his command.”

She picks at the quicks on her fingers, the movement becoming increasingly agitated, her teeth digging deeper into her lip.

What the fuck is going on with her? This chick is harder to read than Hebrew.

“Abri.” I touch my fingers to the back of her arm, her skin warm beneath my touch.

She startles, then shoves at my chest. “Get out. Just get the hell out.”

7

ABRI

My pulse thrums in my temples. My ears. My throat.

I storm for the door, each step an earthquake of upheaval.

He can’t be dead.

I run through the hall, sprinting out the panic, passing bedroom after bedroom, then skitter down the stairs. I don’t stop until I’m on the lower level on the farthest side of the house, staring into my father’s empty office, my chest heaving.

Sunlight streams in through the floor-to-ceiling window, beaming down on the antique mahogany desk where I saw him last. He’d been sitting in his luxurious leather chair, his face set in concentration, his brow furrowed.

This isn’t happening.

“Abri?” Bishop’s voice carries from upstairs. “Where are you?”

God. Why the hell is he still here?

I step inside the room and close the door behind me.

I need to focus.

Now, more than ever, I have to be strategic. I’ve feared very few things more than my father’s death, and I can’t let the panic overwhelm me.

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