Vendetta (Blood for Blood #1)(76)

“It is,” clarified Felice.

“Well, why am I here now, if this isn’t about my father? I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“After the unfortunate death of my beloved brother, Jack’s activities experienced a significant decline, so much so that we believed the Golden Triangle to be finished entirely. Of course, we were always going to finish what we started with him — after the appropriate mourning period, that is. I must admit Angelo’s death took a heavy toll on all of us, the boys especially. But when we discovered our intel was incorrect and that Jack is now spearheading the entire gang from the city, we realized we would have to dispatch of him sooner rather than later. We procured a residence in Cedar Hill, and from there, we have been picking off your uncle’s key associates one by one.”

Did that explain the drowned deliveryman — was Luis part of this, too? And all the other mysterious disappearances Mrs. Bailey had been so eager to point out — the ones I had been so quick to ignore? All this time, and right under my nose, they were killing people.

“That’s horrible,” I said, feeling dazed.

“Actually it’s competence,” Felice corrected me. “And now, with Jack proving to be the final piece of the puzzle — and weakened without his most trusted henchmen — we must end him sooner rather than later, before he can regroup. It must finally come to an end the way my brother intended it to.”

I panicked at the thought of what they would do to Jack, wondering just how many of his “associates” had been killed over the past few months, and trying not to think about which ones had met their deaths at the end of Nic’s gun. “So you’re going to kill him.”

“Yes.” Felice eased himself into the chair like his bones would snap if he weren’t careful. “And that, lovely Persephone, is where you come in.”

I bristled. “That’s not my name.”

“I don’t see why you have chosen to cast it off.” He paused as if expecting me to justify something that seemed so unbearably trivial to me now. When I didn’t answer, he continued with obvious bewilderment. “Why wouldn’t you want to associate yourself with the majestic and beautiful Queen of the Underworld, the wondrous and infernal Goddess of Death? Sophie is so plain in comparison.”

“Do you really expect me to answer that?”

“The significance of such a name is amusing to me. You have even found your Hades.” He smirked, and I got the feeling he was expecting me to be impressed by his knowledge of Greek mythology. I wasn’t.

When I didn’t reply, he continued. “It was Dominico who found out who you were, when he was with that trivial British waitress, trying to gather information on Jack. By the time Nicoli realized that you were, in fact, Persephone Gracewell, he tried to pull away from you, but it was too late. Suddenly you had become the most viable way to lead us to our intended target at a time when we were running out of patience.”

I thought of Nic and frowned. All this time he was fighting his desires for my safety, and he was losing. And lying.

“But you didn’t see the danger, did you? Because you see only the parts you want to see, and you are blind to all else.”

I glowered at him. “I’m not blind to anything.” Except my uncle’s secret life as a drug kingpin. And my crush’s secret life as a killer.

“Of course, of course,” Felice replied dismissively. “How would an old fool like me know anything about that? I have no doubt you are perfectly in love and that you’ve counted all the notches on his trigger hand lovingly.” He leered at me and I hated him for it; but most of all, I hated him because he was right. I hadn’t reconciled myself with that part of Nic; I had tried to ignore it. I had even tried to justify it.

“So you see,” Felice purred on, “when Jack fled, he foolishly left you behind, the very thing that will cause his undoing. We expected you might lead us to him.

“However, since your uncle is smarter than your average deck chair and has inexplicably been able to outrun us thus far, we must move on to a more improvised plan, in which you are bait.” He clapped his hands together. “If Jack doesn’t present himself to us at the abandoned auto parts warehouse in Hegewisch before midnight tonight, then things will take a very unfortunate turn.”

“So you’re going to kill me?” I asked, feeling completely hollow inside. Was this really how it was going to end? I had fallen down a tunnel of lies, and now there was a gun to my head?

Felice stared at me impassively. “The idea of killing a teenage girl just doesn’t appeal to me, but I think you’ll really have to ask someone better qualified to answer, Persephone.”

“Like who?”

Felice rose to his feet again. “Our boss.”

My mouth dropped open. “You’re not the boss?”

“Me?” A shadow passed across his face, but before I could focus on it, he lit up, until he looked like a children’s cartoon character. “I am not. But thank you for assuming so. I’m flattered.”

“What are you, then?”

“Me? I’m just a simple beekeeper.” As he said it, one of his bees droned into my eyeline, just a foot away from my face, as though he had programmed it to do so.

“And a murderer,” I reminded him.