Page 64 of Convenient Mafia Vows

Victoria mimics me, her breathing slowly regulating as tears collect on her eyelashes.

“Now tell me slowly what happened.” I don’t release her. I’m still worried that she’ll bolt if I let her go.

“There was a man … dressed in black. I spotted him over there.” She raises a trembling hand and points towards Madison Square Garden. “He was following us. I ran into the station and tried to hide. But then he came in, and I needed to get Abigail out of there. I couldn’t let him take her…” She’s sobbing now, and I pull her against my chest and hold her close.

Her heart thuds against my ribcage, out of sync with my own heartbeat, which has slowed to a steady da-dum, da-dum, while I manifest a violent ending for the guy who did this to her. Above her head I gesture for Martin to send a couple of men inside the station.

I don’t know how she did it, but I’m going to quadruple the protection around her and Abigail. She won’t be able to make a slice of toast without me knowing whether she likes it just with butter or with strawberry jelly too.

When she is calmer, I hold her at arm’s length. “Can you describe him to me?”

“Dark hair. Olive skin. He wore black clothes. I don’t know…” She shakes her head as Martin’s men come back empty handed. “Maybe I overreacted,” she adds in a small voice. “Maybe he was just catching a train.”

“Victoria, I want you to listen to me. If you thought that you were being followed, then I trust your instincts.”

“You do?” She peers at me from beneath those goddamned thick lashes, and I have to stop myself from marching inside the station myself and ripping the place apart.

“Why didn’t you call me?” I want to ask her why she gave Martin the slip, but it can wait for later.

“I ditched my coat. My phone was in my coat pocket.” She covers her face with both hands. “Sienna won’t be able to get hold of me now. I don’t know where she is. I was looking for her…”

Something cold and slimy settles in my stomach. Mason Callahan, Brailand Voth, and now Sienna. “We’ll find Sienna.”

She lowers her hands and glares at me. “Have you found Mason?”

I flinch. “No.”

“How did you know where to find me, Caleb?”

“I gave Abigail a phone, so that I could track her.”

She squeezes her eyes shut briefly; when she opens them again, her eyes are filled with accusations. “You were tracking Abigail?”

“It’s for her own protection. If you’d stayed with Martin and Kev, I wouldn’t have needed to track her.” I feel my own voice rising a notch but I’m powerless to tone it down. The thought of losing Victoria to someone who has a beef with the Murrays sets my thoughts on fire.

“I got a picture of the man.” Abigail’s voice jolts me back to reality.

“Abigail?” Victoria furrows her brow. “What are you talking about? Which man?”

“The man who was following us.” She slides a slim phone from the pocket of her overalls and offers it to me rather than Victoria.

“How did you know the man was following us?” Victoria asks while I unlock the phone and find the image.

I zoom in. It’s grainy, but it’s better than nothing. I send the image to Terry, and hand the phone back to Abigail. “Good job.” I high-five her, and she knows exactly what to do.

“You kept looking at him,” Abigail says in response to Victoria’s question. “Then you told me to hide. I waited for him to come through the doors and then I took a picture.”

“Caleb, what is going on?” Victoria drags her eyes away from her niece. “Do you know who that man is?”

“No.” It isn’t a complete untruth.

I’m hoping Terry will come back with a name, but even with a hazy photograph snapped by a five-year-old, I can hazard a good guess at what is going on here. I think the guy works for the Petrovs. Ivan’s unscheduled visit the evening before hot on the heels of the shooting incident is more than just a coincidence. I think that he and Olivia are in this together, and whatever gamethey’re playing, the only outcome they’re looking for is one that will benefit the two of them and no one else.

I need to warn Kyle. I was already uncomfortable with him volunteering to take Olivia on, but now it can’t go ahead. I’m almost certain that Don Dragonetti has no idea what his daughter is up to; if he did, he’d have shut it down before it even crossed the starting line. I’m equally certain that Olivia has convinced herself she doesn’t need her father’s protection. Perhaps she is replacing Daddy with Ivan Petrov.

An image of the two of them together, racing around the city in Olivia’s Lamborghini and blowing up the other mafia families fills me with a sickly sense of dread. They’re both volatile. Their behavior is erratic at best. They probably imagine themselves as a modern Bonnie and Clyde, armed and dangerous, and laughing at the other families as they ride off into the sunset.

“Caleb?” I’ve known Victoria for less than a week, but it already feels like she can see right through me. “Who is he? Do you think he might know where Mason is?” She catches on quickly.

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