Page 26 of Kings of Cruelty

“I did not,” I agree. I go to the bed and sit down next to her, glancing at the laptop screen.

I’m surprised when I see information about Silvano Cresci. Age, birthdate, known associates, general business dealings…

“What’s this?” I ask.

“I’m putting together a dossier,” she says vaguely. “I figured I had to start somewhere.”

“I can see that,” I tell her. “Why?”

Sierra fidgets, tapping her fingers against the side of the laptop. “He has to have a weakness, right?”

I nod thoughtfully. “He must. But why are you doing this?”

She takes a deep breath, then slowly lets it out. “I… There are a few things I haven’t told you,” she admits.

“A few?” I ask skeptically. “I am sure you have not told me many things, Sierrochka.”

Her smile is crooked, and it doesn’t last long. “I found something out the night of the party.” She doesn’t elaborate, so I beckon for her to continue. “I thought it was your men who killed Pa,” she says steadily. “It wasn’t.”

I have to think about the order of events to place the timeline. “Your father… he wasn’t there when the FBI raided the meeting. It was Petrov, a few of our men, your brother Sean, and some of his men.”

“I don’t understand where or how or anything,” she says, and her voice is surprisingly steady as she continues, “butsomewhere along the way, Silvano Cresci killed my father that day.”

I nod, because it makes sense. “He had the most to gain with your father’s death. I don’t know the exact details; Petrov was never keen to share when he was making big business deals. We were in talks with both of them, but your father was the one who reached out to us first. We didn’t care either way who we were trading with.”

Maybe I shouldn’t be telling her these things. It is better if she doesn’t know, and now more than ever, I should be keeping her safe.

My eyes fall to her belly, where my future child is. An emotion I don’t recognize threatens to overwhelm me.

More information can’t hurt her, though. She is a smart woman. The more she knows, the better chances she has of escaping bad situations.

“But you were sure Pa was hiding weapons from you,” she says slowly. “That was how I ended up in…” She grimaces. “This whole mess.”

I bark out a laugh. “Yes. Because the weapons seized at the meeting didn’t match what we expected. And it was your family’s fucking terrible security that brought the feds down on us. We need compensation for that.”

“Compensation,” she repeats, her lip twisting, but she only shakes her head. “So why was Silvano Cresci even there?”

“Why was hewhere?” I ask. “He wasn’t at the meeting between your brother and Petrov.”

“He was, though,” she insists. “He had to have been there. Then Kyran called and said Pa was… gone. But Silvano and Kyran weren’t…” She makes a frustrated sound. “Something’s missing.”

I nod in agreement, reaching out to stroke the back of her neck. “I don’t know either, Sierrochka. But maybe we can start by getting your father’s, or Don Marino’s, weapons cache.”

“I was supposed to get Pa’s phone and crack into the files,” she says, shifting uncomfortably. “Silvano and Kyran were going to give it to me. With the drive and the phone, I would’ve been able to find the weapons. But I don’t have the phone. I still can’t get into the files you need.”

“Let’s see what we can get for now.” I settle into the bed next to Sierra while she pulls up the files she’d downloaded from Don Marino’s computer.

It’s strange how long ago that feels, when it hasn’t been more than a few weeks since the party.

It’s been enough time for somebody else to have made headway with it, though.

I scowl, thinking of Victor Corvi and Lucia Bellini getting their hands on the weapons that should rightly be mine.

If I can’t turn all of this around, my father really will find somebody to replace me here.

“We can probably forget anything that’s in Benton City proper,” Sierra says, tabbing around the files. “The mob families there would have swooped in almost instantly, right?”

“Yes,” I agree. “But he had that warehouse space right outside of New Bristol. Don Marino was working closer with your father than any of us knew.”

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