Page 41 of Unfulfilled Promises
We needed a break, and as I let my thoughts filter from my brain into the ethos, a phone rang from someone’s pocket, andI snapped my gaze to see who was getting a call. James reached into his cargo pants and pulled out his phone.
“It’s Skid,” he said and answered the call. “What did you find? What? Are you fucking kidding me?”
His eyes grew wide as he looked to Rhys then to me before announcing, “She’s at the Death Hounds compound in Portstill. She and another girl walked up a few minutes ago.”
I rushed to him and asked, “Is she okay?”
Everyone looked back and forth as James’s face grew ashen. His worried gaze met mine, and I felt sick as he replied to Skid, “Take care of them. We’ll be there in two hours.”
He disconnected the call and looked between me and Rhys before he said, “She got cut pretty bad, and Doc said she nicked an artery. There was a lot of blood loss, but he’s got her stitched up and they’re already giving her blood and fluids.”
“We need to go. Now,” I yelled.
“There’s a plane waiting at the runway near the compound. I’ll call them,” Devlin responded as I got into the vehicle with Lucian and he climbed into another vehicle with James and Rhys. Booker and Caldwell had the car meant for Regan’s . . . I couldn’t even think about what I’d planned for her after what she’s gone through. We raced through traffic, dodging the few cars on the surface roads of Atlanta at this time of night as we got closer to the airport.
“She’s alive and safe. You need to stay focused on that,” Lucian counseled as he took a turn a little sharp, and I was afraid we were going onto our side.
“Once I see her with my own eyes, then I’ll believe it. Until then,” I started, only to shake my head and turn my attention out the window.
For the rest of the ride, we didn’t speak, and I appreciated Lucian knowing what I needed at the point. Guilt was consuming me, and once I knew Regan was okay, I’d leave heralone. She was better off without someone like me in her life anyway.
She deserved a good man without blood on his hands to make her happy.
And I swore I’d watch over her and never interfere with her happiness . . . and that would have to be enough.
Chapter 20
Regan
“Happy Birthday, little one. Blow out your candle,” he instructed.
Closing my eyes, I wished for my freedom, then I opened my eyes to watch as the flame was extinguished on an exhaled breath. Looking up, I smiled at Sergey as he handed me the cupcake and retook his seat. I’d been with him for over six months and I never expected this. We’d been in three different safe houses since he took me, and I was positive my birthday was going to be skipped. But when he came home from meeting with the prosecutors, he had two cupcakes and a single candle.
“What did you wish for?” he asked as I removed the candle and unwrapped the vanilla cake.
“I can’t tell you. It won’t come true,” I replied.
He chuckled, and it was a foreign sound to my ears. He yelled, threatened, warned, and whispered, but laughter wasn’t something he’d ever shared with me. “You sound like my daughter, Stella. She believed in fairytales too.”
I went to ask something but remembered my place and changed my mind. Sergey watched me, then he suddenly said, “Ask whatever you want. That will be my gift to you.”
There was no way he was serious. For months, he’d told me things about the families, the Syndicate’s inner workings, and the few people he had placed in key positions to ensure he was always ‘in the know’. For him to let me question anything was unheard of, so I didn’t want to blow this chance.
I thought hard, and he watched me as he peeled the paper off one side of his cupcake and took a bite from his position across the table from me. He was wearing his normal black three-piece suit with a blood red tie, but his demeanor was relaxed, so he seemed . . . approachable.
“You said the original Syndicate, the one from the old country, was causing problems for the family here. How . . . how did the problems go away?”
He smiled, and I knew letting him talk about his conquests and victories made him feel special. I didn’t know everything there was about men, but I knew if you stroked their egos, they would spill their souls. And the more he told me, the more I would have to use when I finally escaped.
“When Devlin and Lucian were little boys, in the months before Stella was born, the original families wanted their piece of the pie that we’d worked so hard to chisel out of the American dream. So, the heads of the families here sent some of us over to meet with the originals. They were expecting money and documents to gain them passage, but they were met with a hail of gunfire.” He smiled as he placed the half-eaten cupcake onto the table before he continued to speak. “When the smoke cleared, there wasn’t anyone left to demand anything, and we never had to pay homage to the old world again.”
“That was a smart move. Eliminating everyone who could challenge you before they make a move kept you in power,” I remarked, and he nodded. “And after you testify, there won’t be any more obstacles to you taking charge of the family?”
“I’ve got an ace in the hole, a deal I’d made years ago when my boys were almost teenagers and Stella was proving to be an asset as she developed.” I wanted to vomit at the sideways comment about his only daughter but learned long ago to keep my face neutral to hide my disgust.
“An ace?” I inquired like I was stupid.
He leaned forward and looked over his shoulder at the open door of the office at the safe house he’d commandeered as his own. The new guards were patrolling, and when he looked back, he leaned closer and lowered his voice as he spoke. “There was a family that had a son who was set to take his place in the family, and he died in a freak car accident. And that family had no one to put in his place, so they stepped back over a decade ago. But,” he smiled, “there was a son from a mistress, and he’s the sole heir to that bloodline and therefore eligible to take a position at the head of the table as my second in command.”
