Page 15 of King of the Cage

I had three choices: hot bathroom sex with a sexy Celtic warrior who would be inundated with offers after the fight, following my dictator brother’s commands, or grabbing a slice with my bestie.

No contest.

“Let’s get out of here.”

I was stayingat my apartment in the city that night. I didn’t want to make the long trip to Casa Nera, nestled in the New Jersey countryside, alone. Besides, now it would be home to a married couple. I didn’t think staying there as much as I used to would be appropriate.

It was an odd feeling. I wasn’t the only woman in the De Sanctis inner circle anymore. As unsettling as it was, it was a relief that the woman was Charlie. I could get along with Charlie. She was my kind of woman. Before she came to Casa Nera, I didn’t think she even owned a dress. She was a badass nurse and didn’t take any shit, except from her little sister. There was a lesson in there about letting family control you and looking the other way that I wasn’t ready to learn yet. She wore scrubs, rarely touched makeup, and never failed to speak her mind. And yet, Renato, the King of Atlantic City, was head over heels for her. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. It was a once-in-a-lifetime kind of thing, and something I was pretty sure wouldn’t be happening to me anytime soon. Sure, Charlie was strong and kick-ass, but she wouldn’t actually stab anyone. She could probably be demure on occasion, and she probably knew when to stop asking questions. Unlike me.

I kicked off my torturous shoes as soon as I got through my front door and sighed. Wearing heels for five hours straight needed to be added to the roster of the De Sanctis family’s torture methods. It was effective as hell. The greasy pizza I’d downed when we’d made it to the pizza place was heavy in my stomach,cutting through the alcohol I’d consumed. I felt tired, full, and done.

I fixed myself a seltzer in the kitchen and went to the floor-length window that framed the impressive twenty-story view. Outside, the city glowed. I sipped the tart water and let out a long breath. I’d officially reached the age where indigestion was inevitable, and a hangover was a fearsome prospect. The city twinkled below me. That girl, Alice No Last Name, was out there somewhere, right this minute. I hoped she was okay.

I wandered over to my desk and pulled aside the red velvet curtain I kept across my hobby wall.

Photographs of crime scenes and mug shots appeared, pinned carefully to the wall. Who needed artwork or photos of friends and family to decorate their apartment, when there were cold cases out there with tons of public information?

True crime was the hobby that kept on giving. Photographs of girls that the world had forgotten. But I hadn’t. I had a long, long memory, and once, quite some time ago, I’d nearly been one of them, when some long lost relatives had reluctantly stepped in to take care of me.

I snagged a piece of paper and called Alice’s brand to mind, carefully drawing it out as well as I could. Something about that macabre sight felt important. As I finished sketching it, I realized what it was. Rooting through a pile of papers, I unearthed a postmortem shot of a Jane Doe who’d died a few years before from a drug overdose in Central Park. Her death had been given little to no attention by the NYPD, but there had been something about it that had bothered me.

Now, scanning the picture, I saw just what it was.

The brand. The Jane Doe had the same brand inside her wrist.

Cold spread through me. I should have forced Alice to tell me her name or gotten her number or something. I should have done something, instead of letting her go. In my defense, I was trying to be good at the wedding. It was my version of a gift. Renato hated when I tied people up without a “good enough” reason.

I’d taken up my hobby of looking into cold cases when I’d realized that I could dig as much as I needed to without leaving the house, and maybe, just maybe, help someone at the end of the day. There was nothing, or no one I couldn’t find if I dug deep enough. No programs could keep me out. There were no firewalls too high or passwords too encrypted to be safe from my snooping.

And I’d found girls. Some alive. Most, long dead and buried in unmarked graves. One in a suitcase in a loft. Still, she’d been found.

Finding those missing girls gave my life a deeper purpose than covering up De Sanctis family shenanigans. I wasn’t wife material, as Aunt Mena had often told me, and I doubted I’d ever be a mother, so I looked after those forgotten, missing souls. The ones people didn’t care about.

Now, I stared at the brand on the Jane Doe’s wrist. One girl, it could be written off as an odd occurrence, but another one with the exact same mark? Someone was burning that symbol into these women. But who?

My phone rang as I sipped my drink. My brother calling to check up on me, like always.

“You’re not coming,” Elio stated flatly.

“Did you really think I would?” I mused. Despite our years apart, my brother knew me well. That was why he was getting increasingly worried, I supposed. Hardly a comforting thought.

“Why don’t you come out to Casa Nera now?” he asked.

“I’m tired. Ren and Charlie know my allegiance. They didn’t need me to cut my palm and kneel. It’s barbaric.”

“It’s tradition.”

I sighed. “You and your traditions. The world has moved on, brother dearest, you need to catch up.”

“Some things change, but not us. You need to stick to the rules more, be a proper part of the family.”

“My work is worth more to Ren than anyone’s, and you know it. I make the De Sanctis family safe,” I protested hotly. It was true, dammit. Just because I wasn’t out breaking skulls and burying bodies, Elio thought my contribution wasn’t as worthy as his. In reality, I kept our men out of jail, and doctored footage, and diverted funds, and planted evidence. I could make or break someone, given enough time in front of my computers. It was an ongoing source of contention between my brother and me that he didn’t seem to appreciate that.

“Did anything exciting happen after I left?”

I thought about Alice, and Aldo Sepriano. Elio wouldn’t want to get involved in that, and he wouldn’t want me to, either. He was a firm believer in not sticking your nose into other people’s business. Basically, the opposite of my life mantra.

“Not much. It was boring.”

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