Cameron
I didn’t know what Mr. Alfarez was sniffing, but that plan was the craziest thing I’d ever heard. There was no way in hell I’d do any of the things he said I should do. I was sticking tomyplan.
Just so he wouldn’t try to stop me when I showed up tonight at the diner, I assured him I’d listen and wouldn’t go seek the Lanzas’ help. After I saw him out, I stuffed the money in my backpack, waited for evening to come and went straight to the diner. Strangely, there were more people scattered outside it than inside, and the door was blocked by two hulks in black suits.
“Walk away,” one of them barked at me.
“I need to go in there.” My sister’s life depended on it. “I must see Mr. Lanza.”
“I said walk away.” He glared down at me, his tone menacing. “Don Lanza doesn’t want to see anyone right now.”
There was no doubt these two were Cosimo Lanza’s bodyguards, and by the looks of it, he’d kicked everyone out of the diner. Fuck.
What was I supposed to do now? Why did every time I came up with a plan to save my sister something or someone shit on it?
I wasn’t going to give up, though. I had to get in there.
Summoning my courage, I dared ask the bodyguard to move so I could go in and meet Cosimo. His gun answered me this time.
I stepped back, swallowing, but then I saw another gun. It was Cosimo’s. Inside the diner, he’d just pulled out his gun, and Bianca was shaking, mumbling something at him. “What the fuck?” I looked around for help, but everybody was pretending not to see. “Can someone do something?!”
No one answered, their eyes begging me to act as if I saw nothing just like earlier when he was threatening Mona. That was bullshit. You couldn’t just watch people you cared about get hurt and do nothing because it was thesafefucking choice.
She was my friend, and a very bad man pulled a gun on her, sending her to her knees, and everyone was turning a blind eye. Just like with Annie. They saw her on Roar’s bike and no one lifted a finger to stop him from riding away with her.
I pulled out my phone. My first instinct was to call the cops, but I remembered how useless they were finding my sister. If they were in Roar’s pocket, they were definitely on the Lanzas’ payroll, too.
No, I wouldn’t call the cops. I’d call Alfarez. He was right not to let Bianca date Cosimo, and I was wrong to even think about dragging her into a deal with the devil.
Before the call went through, Bianca was out of the diner with Cosimo, smiling, as he led her to his Mercedes. She gave me a brief glance that was void of the pleasure stretching her lips. Then when she spotted the phone in my hand, she shook her head once, before she was dragged to the car by the Mafia boss, the bodyguards surrounding them like hawks. Then the Mercedes cruised away.
Just like that, evil won again today.
CHAPTER 9
Cameron
A noisy sound boomed over the muffled beat streaming from the Belle View dance club into the street.
Dusty’s Harley.
The sound I’d been waiting to hear for hours. I didn’t mind. I’d have waited for him to show up until the end of the night. And many nights to come. What were a few more days to eight months? Could you believe it’d been eight months since Annie was taken? Eight months of pain and fear and helplessness?
It was ridiculous how things panned out. I’d spent all my life trying to be a good person, a good student, a good daughter and sister. I’d done everything in my power to protect Annie, and she ended up taken by a notorious gang. Mr. Alfarez did the right thing and tried to protect Bianca for years, yet she ended up with Cosimo anyway. They were getting married for fuck’s sake.
Mr. Alfarez was right about one thing, though. The Lanzas would have never helped me. They wouldn’t take my money, and Cosimo Lanza wouldn’t even grant his fiancée that one favor of helping her friend getting her abducted sister back. Business in millions turned out to be far more important than love or family or anything else for monsters like Cosimo and Roar.
I squeezed the steering wheel, eyes pinned to Dusty’s small reflection in the rear mirror, one thought in my head. Tonight, I’d get what I came here for.
He pulled up in front of the club and killed the engine. The bouncer greeted him with a brotherly handshake, a hug, and a little chuckle.
Lucky for me, Dusty didn’t fit the filthy biker stereotype that only went to MC bars to bang cheap whores and chug down beers for everyone to hear how loud he could belch.
Despite being the son of Roar, The Night Skulls’ fucking President, Dusty drove his bike alone, without the gang flanking him, and went to uptown dance clubs in San Francisco. I’d been watching him for months and was sure he’d show up here alone. The perfect setting for my plan. Well, the plan I’d once ridiculed when Mr. Alfarez proposed it, which now I modified, improved and was ready to implement because all the doors had been closed in my face, and it was my last shot. Tonight I got my sister back or lost everything.
I waited for a few minutes after Dusty went inside the club, and then I followed. The next part was easy. All it took was a blond wig, a skanky mini dress and makeup, and skankier moves on the dance floor to get him buzzing around me like a fly drawn to an exposed honeypot.
He didn’t recognize me. I didn’t think he would. Not unless The Night Skulls handed every member a poster of my face with a warning below. The way they’d been behaving since Annie was officially a cold case, riding around town, not even trying to threaten me or shut me up, fucking offering to help with the search for themissing girl, said they were too arrogant to bother with me. I was too insignificant.