Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (16 page)

Nothing.

She was far too
good at coming and going from his life.

Before he could
dwell on that nagging thought any longer, his home phone rang a shrill tune.
Tommas grabbed the cordless phone from the cradle and picked the call up on the
second ring.

“Rossi speaking.”

“Cousin, we’ve got
a problem.”

Tommas perked at
Damian’s voice on the other end of the call. “What in the hell is that supposed
to mean?”

“Stuff about the
club. I just got word, and we need to chat before your friends from the
hospital make a trip to your house to talk about it.”

Friends from the
hospital?

The detectives,
Tommas realized.

Goddammit. What
now?

“What is it, D?”
Tommas asked.

“We need to meet
up and soon. It shouldn’t be talked about over the phone. Are you good enough
to leave your house or what?”

Nothing that
Damian said made much sense to Tommas. It only aggravated him more.

“Yes, I’m fine. Better
than I was this morning.”

At least that
wasn’t a lie.

“Good. Meet me at
your downtown restaurant. Twenty minutes?”

“Is whatever it is
that bad?” Tommas asked.

“It could be. I
don’t want to talk about it over the phone. The cops are around too much.”

“Yeah, I got it.
Also, I’ve got my cell phone back from Ella. No more calls on the house phone.
Twenty minutes, Ghost.”

“Sounds good,”
Damian replied.

The call hung up
without either man saying goodbye. Tommas made quick work of cleaning his face
in the attached bath, tossing on an acceptable suit and pair of Italian leather
shoes, and gathered his things to leave.

Downstairs, he
stilled at the sight of something missing from the hallway table. Abriella must
have taken the bandages he’d left resting on the furniture.

Smart girl. He
would have wrapped his rib the moment it started aching again. She took away
the option altogether. Abriella was dirty like that, but Tommas didn’t mind.
She kept him in check.

Chuckling to
himself and forgetting that she had left without saying goodbye properly,
Tommas opened the front door to his home and stepped outside. It was the first
time he’d left his house since he got out of the hospital the second time.

Tommas wasn’t the
least bit surprised to find Nate already waiting for him with the car.

CHAPTER EIGHT

T
he moment Abriella
stepped out of the cab, she knew that she had made a very terrible mistake. A
familiar black car was parked beside her Hummer. Her throat constricted with
panic as she grabbed onto the cab’s back door and considered jumping back
inside the vehicle.

“Miss, I gotta
go,” the cabbie shouted.

Abriella barely
heard the man. She was too focused on the driver’s window of the black car as
it rolled down a few inches. It was just enough to give her a glimpse of a very
pissed off enforcer sitting behind the wheel.

How had he found
her?

She’d been careful
and smart like always.

Right?

“Miss,” the cabbie
barked.

Abriella released
her hold on the cab door and stepped away. The cab’s tires screeched when it
pulled out onto the busy street.

Tossing another
look at her waiting enforcer, Abriella kept her expression calm. She didn’t
want the man to know that she was worried. If she acted like she had something
to hide, then he would search for it. Not that skipping out on him wasn’t
hiding something, because it was.

Excuses could be
made for that.

Something that
wouldn’t lead back to Tommas.

Abriella readied
something appropriate to say as she strolled across the parking lot and tossed
her messenger bag over her shoulder. The enforcer opened his car door and
stepped out with a severe scowl that was dark enough to send a weaker woman
running.

Trentinis didn’t
know how to be weak.

Certainly not
Abriella.

“Darryl,” Abriella
greeted.

Standing just a
few feet away from the man, Abriella was forced to look up at him. He towered
over her by a good few inches. The guy was built like a linebacker, and he
usually seemed as stunned as a football player that had taken too many shots to
the head. He wasn’t necessarily a handsome guy, but he was a mean looking
motherfucker.

Abriella still
wasn’t scared of him.

Men didn’t have
that effect on her.

“Where in the fuck
have you been?” the enforcer asked.

“Shopping,”
Abriella lied.

“Where are the
bags then?”

Abriella shrugged.
“Didn’t find anything worth buying.”

“You’re lying.”

“Prove it.”

Darryl’s lips
thinned in his frustration. “That little show on the highway earlier was ridiculous,
Abriella. You nearly got me fucking killed when the eighteen-wheeler behind me
almost introduced the trunk of my car to the back of my head.”

“Maybe you
shouldn’t drive so fast. Reaction times and all.”

“That’s enough of
your smart mouth.”

Abriella held back
her smirk. She had the guy right where she wanted him. Darryl was good for
scaring people, but he seriously lacked the wit to have an argument with
Abriella. That, or the man just didn’t have the patience.

“You know the
rules,” Darryl continued angrily. “You make sure that your vehicle is visible,
that I can follow behind at a safe distance, and that you don’t pull shit like
you did today.”

“I have no idea
what you’re talking about. I wanted to go shopping.”

“You told your
brother that you were studying and playing catch up for school.”

“Did I?”

Darryl’s gaze
narrowed. “Stop playing word games, you little—”

“Careful,”
Abriella interjected swiftly. “Your next words might very well be your last. If
I broke the rules, prove it and I will handle it, but your disrespect will
never be tolerated.”

“Oh, you think?”

“I know.”

Darryl grinned a
cruel sight. “What I know, Abriella, is that your brother has very little
patience for this sort of bullshit. I know he expects you to be above all
reproach and act the same. You stepped out of line today. As far as my
language, if you’re going to act like a bitch, then you’ll wear the title like
one.”

Abriella’s jaw
clenched so hard her molars ached. Silently, she reminded herself to play nice
with the man to keep him from running his mouth to her brother. It didn’t help
much.

“What are you
going to do, run to Joel and tell him how you can’t manage to keep up with
little old me?” Abriella asked sweetly.

“No.”

“I didn’t think
so.”

Darryl shrugged,
and his smile deepened. “I don’t have to, Abriella, because your brother called
me. You fucked up today. You left your phone inside the Hummer.”

Abriella stiffened
in the cold air. “So?”

“Didn’t you
realize?”

“Realize what,
Darryl? Stop messing around.”

“When you had your
phone updated to the newest version last month, Joel paid for an added locator feature
in the apps on the account. Because he has control over the account, the app
can be downloaded wirelessly without him even needing to touch the phone. It
could have downloaded while you were sleeping. You probably didn’t even notice
it since it just looks like a regular preloaded app in the list that you would
scroll right on past.”

Abriella’s heart
stopped. “He didn’t.”

GPS on her Hummer
was one thing.

She had never let
her brother touch her phone. She would go to the store, pick out a new one, and
the account would be charged.

Jesus Christ.

How could she be
so stupid?

Quickly, Abriella
went over her travels for the past month. Darryl had said the GPS app had only
been on her phone for that amount of time. She had a habit of leaving her phone
in the Hummer when she left the vehicle. It was one thing in her favor. The
night she had gone to Tommas’ club, she had left her phone in her bag in the
Hummer parked at her sister’s apartment.

She was positive
there was nothing else.

Right
?

Fear choked
Abriella silent.

Oh, God.

“Yeah, that’s
right,” Darryl said. “It’s not so hard to find you now when you pull stupid
stunts, Ella.”

“You’re an
asshole,” Abriella spat.

“Maybe so, but I’m
not the one in trouble. I hope whatever you did today was worth it, sweetheart,
because you won’t have another one like it for a long while.”

Abriella kept her
mouth shut, but it was goddamn hard. She wanted to scream and lash out at the
enforcer. More than anything, she wanted to rip her brother’s throat out for
tricking her like he had.

Steeling her spine
and refusing to give the enforcer the reaction of anger and fear that he
clearly wanted, Abriella stood straighter. “Let’s go. Home, I take it?”

“Straight home.”

“Fine.”

“In my car,”
Darryl added.

Abriella opened
her mouth to argue, but Darryl’s lifting hand stopped her.

“Not a word,” he
said. “You lost the right to have an opinion and to drive yourself around when
you disappeared today.”

“I am not a damned
child,” Abriella hissed.

“Your brother
thinks that your actions today disagree.”

“Fuck you both.”

“What did you do?”
Abriella’s mother asked.

Abriella glared at
the enforcer standing beside her. “Nothing. I took a little detour and went
shopping.”

“Keep saying
that,” Darryl muttered. “No one believes it.”

Standing outside
of her brother’s office, waiting to be allowed inside like Joel was a wanted
man, Abriella’s frustration grew to epic proportions. The drive back across
Chicago to her family’s mansion had been tense at best. Darryl continued to
question her about where she had been all day. Abriella wouldn’t give the man a
damn thing.

Let them search.

They would find
nothing.

Turning back to
her mother, Abriella asked, “Why are you here?”

Sara frowned.
“Your brother was on a rampage. We happened to be one of the people he called
when he finally got word that you were found.”

“We?”

“Me, too,” a voice
said from behind Abriella.

Her father came to
stand at Sara’s side.

“Dad,” Abriella
said quietly, avoiding her father’s stare.

Peter had always
been a good father. He rarely, if ever, raised his voice. He had never hit his
children, treated them badly, or acted like they were anything less than loved.

Abriella knew that
as she and her siblings grew up, her father had mostly been a bystander in
their life. While he adored them and cared for them, he had been forced to
stand on the sidelines while other men in their family took control. Men like
her now deceased grandfather, Terrance, and now, Joel.

Peter never had
much of a say with his children. He allowed family decisions to be made without
his input, even when it came to his own offspring. It was one of the things
that Abriella disliked about her father, although she did love him.

She just couldn’t
help but wonder why he didn’t care
enough
.

“You worried your
mother,” Peter said.

Abriella let out a
soft sigh. “I was fine. I’m twenty-two, not sixteen. I have a license and a car
for a reason. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You told lies,”
Darryl put in. “You acted like a fool.”

“Would you shut
up?” Abriella snarled at the man.

Darryl shook his
head and said, “I have had just about enough of your attitude, Abriella.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, so cut it
out before I—”

The office doors
opened, interrupting the enforcer before he could finish. Joel stood inside his
office, sporting his usual scowl and with a cell phone in one hand. His rage
filled gaze landed on Abriella, and for a brief second, she wished she could
disappear.

Just as fast as
that feeling had come, it left.

Her brother didn’t
frighten her. He could take her things away, call her names, abuse her with his
words and choices, but he still couldn’t own her. Fear was a possession to
Abriella—one she wouldn’t ever hand over to her brother.

“You,” Joel said,
still glaring at his sister.

“Yes?” Abriella
asked.

“Get in my
office.”

Abriella strolled
on past her brother. Joel reached out and snagged her messenger bag off her
shoulder. Immediately, he began to dig through the bag. When he couldn’t find
whatever it was that he was looking for, Joel dumped the bag upside down and
the contents spilled on the floor.

Her notebook,
laptop, keys, makeup, tampons, and everything else that was inside her bag
clattered across the hardwood. The rolled up bandage that she had taken from
Tommas was also added into the pile, but Joel didn’t seem to notice it. Cursing
under his breath, Joel tossed Abriella’s purse on top of the rest of her
things, too.