Page 70 of The Secrets We Share

Patrick stops and turns back in our direction but doesn’t move to rejoin us.

I scoff loudly. “Generous. The last time I checked, generosity included donating to charity, not removing fingers with a guillotine, and then sending those fingers to an unsuspecting wife.”

“He didn’t get a bullet to the head when my men found him. That is generosity in our world, boy.”

A firm touch wraps around my knee, squeezing tightly. The contact grounds my surging rage toward her father. Keira doesn’t move from her otherwise relaxed position, playing the mob princess flawlessly. Yet, her energy flows through our connection, and I know she’s holding firm for her own good, too.

“My father’s plan. Do explain,” I respond, now calm and collected.

“We’ve already established your father owes me. But he also has a pesky problem with the authorities at the moment. I have it in good faith from a trusted source that this could all disappear with a single phone call to the right person.”

I have no words for the diabolical man in front of me. James was right. Domenico’s been pulling the strings all along. The business accusations hitting the news at the same time my father went missing was his way of covering his tracks. A man like my father vanishing into thin air doesn’t go unnoticed.

“We want proof of life before we’ll even consider your offer,” Keira tells him.

Domenico reaches into his breast pocket, plucking a phone from its depths before tapping away. The phone slides across the table, and Keira snatches it before it can fall over the edge.

“I thought you might say that. There’s your proof. As you can see, he’s tucked away for safekeeping.”

“Turn it up,” I tell her.

Keira’s finger slips to the side, jamming the volume all the way up.

My father looks nothing like the man I know. His hair is overgrown and riddled with grease. The clean-shaven, sharp jawline I inherited is covered in a salt-and-pepper beard. His face is sallow and bruised, eyes sunken from malnutrition during his captivity. A raspy, defeated tone fills the quiet pub from the speaker.

“Harkin, I know you must have a million questions, but I need you to do this for me, son. Do as Mr. Morelli asks. You’re the right person to get this job done, and then we can move on from this.”

The video cuts off, and the screen goes black. I want to chuck the device, letting it smash into a million tiny pieces while I pull my pistol from its holster and pepper his body with bullets. He broke the once pompous man of standing into a pathetic, sniveling mess, willing to beg the son who can’t stand him for help. But something deep down refuses to let me walk away and let him suffer his own consequences. I suppose that’s the difference between us at the end of the day.

“Drop me his location pin, and I’ll help you. You have my word; I won’t make a move to recover him until the job is complete. Take it or leave it,” I offer, standing from my seat.

Keira’s quick to join me, stealing the phone from my fingers. She drops it unceremoniously across the table in front of her father.

“Do it, Domenico. We’re a packaged deal. If you want this job to go down successfully, I highly recommend you do as he says.”

My girl rounds the table, leaving before he can answer her ultimatum. Her steady strides deposit her in front of Patrick, who leans against a bar table, taking everything in. The calculating prodigy leans up and kisses her grandfather’s cheek. If Domenico thought he had a hand up in the situation, danglingly the girls in front of Patrick, Keira’s just wiped his ass off the board.

“I expect we’ll be hearing from both of them,” I whisper in her ear, her lithe body tucked into my side as we exit the pub onto the boardwalk.

“One step closer to putting this shitshow behind us.”

“You realize this will make us accessories to his crimes. Whatever this shipment is, it won’t be good if we're caught.”

“We won’t get caught,” she says, matter of fact. “He wants a planned route. We don’t have to be there. We’re not driving it. We’ll get it done, send it over, and once his truck of God only knows what it's transported, we collect your father.”

“I don’t know. It seems too easy. Why all the fuss? Why the meeting with all of us? Ten million on the table is enough incentive, even for a man like Patrick.”

We make it away from the building without being interrupted. The horn from the blacked-out SUV sounds, pulling our attention from the conversation. James is waiting for us a few cars back.

“It’s Domenico. He had to have thought he’d have more pull with Alina and me there. He was counting on Patrick having a soft spot for us. I don’t think he was wrong, per se, but he underestimated the job he was bringing to the table.”

“You’re right. Patrick was curious.”

“Do you know anything about who your father’s contact might be? What this could be about?”

“No. But the best thing about my father's system for his business and communication is that I built it. And I made it with a backdoor.”

THIRTY-TWO

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