Page 87 of Once A Crime Lord

That penetrated enough for her to go very still. “What?”

“I have a real job. We’re barely making ends meet. I don’t have the money to gamble. My nose is clean. There’s no reason for someone to take your mother unless it has to do with you.” Pat jabbed his burgundy-colored finger at her. “You and Pyre are up to God knows what.”

She couldn’t be responsible for her mother’s disappearance, could she? “Why has she been calling me?”

“She wants to meet your kid. Why else?”

Guilt threatened to choke her. “W-when I had Nora, she asked for money.”

“We had a rough patch, but we pulled through, no thanks to you.”

The way Pat looked at her as if he would love nothing more than to squeeze the life out of her made her body erupt with goose bumps.

“All your mother wanted was to meet her grandkid, and now she’s... she’s—”

“Why didn’t you call 911?” Blade asked her father.

Pat’s hands fisted at his sides. For a second, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Before she could scream at him, Blade released her and backhanded her father with a casual ruthlessness that told everyone without words that he would get answers by any means necessary. It happened so fast that no one had time to react. Her father’s mouth sagged as he stared at Blade with a hand pressed against his face.

“If you want your wife to be found alive, stop fucking with us and answer the question. This isn’t a pissing contest,” Blade rumbled. “What makes you think Gavin has anything to do with the break-in and your wife’s abduction?”

Her father reached into his pocket and pulled out a Post-it note splattered with blood. In beautiful, elegant scrawl, the note said,Tell Lyla I’ll see her soon.

There was a loud roaring in her ears. That sick fuck had her mother... No, this couldn’t be happening.

“Gavin will get her back, Lyla,” Carmen said.

She opened her mouth, but no sound came out. All the calls and texts from her mother she ignored since Nora’s birth came back to haunt her. The thought of her mother in Sadist’s hands made her ill.

“You’d better not be lying, Uncle Pat,” Carmen spat. “If Gavin doesn’t kill you, I will.”

“Why would I lie about this? Beatrice is missing!” Pat shouted.

There was a crushing weight on her chest. Sadist was still fucking with them. Now he branched out from the Pyres to her family. Why? What was the point? The fact that Sadist had taken her mother and not her father scared her shitless. Sadist knew her mother was her weak spot. How could he know that?

Carmen smacked the screen of her phone. “What the fuck?”

“What?” Lyla asked numbly.

“My phone doesn’t have service.”

Blade pulled out his own phone. He jabbed his finger at the screen, held it to his ear, and cursed. “Fuck.”

Lyla walked to the landline and picked it up. There was no dial tone. She stared at Blade and Carmen who watched her expectantly. She shook her head. A muscle jumped in Blade’s jaw. He opened his mouth just as a faint popping sound came from outside.

16

Lyla

“Get away from the window!”Blade shouted and shoved Carmen to the ground.

“What is it?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t what she thought it was.

“Gunfire.”

“It’s him.” Sadist was here to finish it. She pulled out her gun and rose.

“Get Nora,” Blade ordered. “We don’t have enough men to hold them off.”

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