A Love Most Fatal (Morelli Family #1)

33. Vanessa

33

VANESSA

Willa loves affirmations, absolutely loves them. I regard them as optimistic attempts to gaslight yourself into getting through another day without confronting the horrors of this life, but she remains steadfast.

Her favorite is: “Everything always works out for me,” and she has me repeat it to her sometimes half a dozen times when I’m having a bad day.

As I drifted to sleep tonight, heavy limbs wrapped in Nate’s arms, his soft breath on my forehead, I was inclined to believe her. Things are often, in fact, working out for me.

But it was premature. We aren’t asleep for two hours before the cold, harsh hand of reality returns, and it clutches its hand around my neck. Because of course, why wouldn’t it?

Mary crashes into the room with Leo hot on her heels, flicking on the overhead light behind them. At first, I think they’re here to tell me I shouldn’t be sleeping with Nate and I almost tell them, “no it’s okay, we’re allowed to do that now,” but neither of them look fazed as I sit up in the bed. Nate tries to stuff a pillow over his face to block the light.

“We’ve got more bodies. It’s the Washington Street project,” Mary says. She’s already digging in my dresser and tossing black items of clothes at me, a long sleeve shirt, a pair of leggings. “Get up.”

She tosses sneakers on the comforter.

“What happened?” I ask, already moving, pulling my hair up, wrestling a bra over my head. “How many?”

“Seven that we know of. Leo sent Rafael to check after the first group of guys went down, and he said it was a bloodbath. Bodies, but no sign of who left them.”

“Damnit,” I hiss.

“We leave in three,” Leo says before he and Mary stalk out of the room to leave me to finish getting dressed.

I pull on the rest of the clothes quickly and to my surprise, Nate is up doing the same. He trips while trying to get his legs into the sweats he was wearing, his hoodie halfway over his head.

“You can’t come,” I say. “It’s not safe.”

It very well may be safe, especially if the attackers have left, but he would be most safe here . Sleeping in the bed with Ranger snoring at his feet.

Nate gives me a look like I’m being obtuse. “I’m going.”

“Hurry!” Mary yells from downstairs.

I stay locked in a battle of stares with Nate for a moment longer before he speaks again. “I’m in this.”

“Okay.” I stop only to grab my chest holster hanging in the closet and two handguns and an earpiece from the top drawer before heading out, Nate’s sneakers squeaking on the stairs behind me.

“What do we know?” I ask Mary once we climb into the car.

“One of the night patrols made a call about something suspicious at the site, he was dead before backup could get there, and then the backup stopped responding shortly after. Next was Rafael, but by the time he got there, he said cars were peeling away.”

“What kind of cars?” I ask.

“He saw two vans, black, didn’t get a look at the plates because one of them shot at him.”

Well, that narrows it down to absolutely fucking nothing.

Leo’s phone buzzes from where he tossed it onto the dashboard and Mary curses when she reads the screen.

“Distress text from Rafael,” she says. “Four of them.”

“Shit,” I murmur and load the magazine into my dad’s old gun.

“Don’t you have lackeys to take care of this?” Nate asks, alarm apparent in his voice. “Should we wait for manpower before walking into what might be a massacre?”

He’s right, but if we’ve already lost seven men—possibly eight if Raf isn’t alright—then we need to get there and figure this shit out. If one of the attackers is still there, we might be able to get more information from them. It might be the best lead we have.

“Lockdown,” Mary reminds, and I bob my head in agreement. We need to take care of this ourselves.

“I’ve already called Cillian, he’s sending guys, but they’re twenty minutes out,” Leo says. He deftly moves us through the streets, by far my best driver.

As much as I want to make Nate stay in the car where he might be safer, he was the one just a few hours ago claiming to be here for whatever, for the long haul, so I fight the urge. I turn to Nate and put a gun in his hand. He no longer holds it like it’s a live fish in his hand, so that’s an improvement.

“If someone points a gun at you, shoot them first,” I say.

Mary adds her own coaching, “If they even look like they’re going to attack you, shoot them. Aim for the chest,” she says. Telling him to aim for the head would be too ambitious. “You know how.”

“What if the person I shoot is one of your guys?”

I shake my head. “None of our guys would attack you.”

“What if it’s too dark to tell?”

“If someone is approaching you, or holding a gun in your direction, you shoot,” Mary says. “Stay near one of us.”

Nate’s lips press into a line, but he nods in agreement. When we pull up to the property, the gates are open. Leo parks on the street by the back gate entrance, and we make our way out of the car.

The property is a huge five story office building. Structurally, it’s complete, but the exterior is still in progress. The wall length windows are slated to be installed next week. Rafael’s car is empty just inside the open gates, an old Toyota. There’s a summer chill in the air, but that’s not what’s making the hairs on my neck stand on end.

The first of the bodies is face-down in the dirt, a puddle like oil spread out beneath him.

“Split up,” I say. “You two take the basement and the first two floors, we’ll search the perimeter and floors three to five.”

Leo and Mary nod before taking off quietly behind the building.

I give Nate one more long look. He is trying not to look at the body we just passed, already looking queasy. This is monumentally fucked, but he’s the one who said he could do this, and I would like to believe him.

I incline my head to the gate. We traipse around the building until reaching the front entrance. We step through one of the empty windows and I try not to shush Nate for walking so loudly, but I do give a pointed look at his feet and he tries to move a little quieter.

“Basement is clear,” Leo says through my earpiece.

“Two of ours dead on one,” Mary reports.

We make our way up the stairwell, which is markedly darker than the rest of the building for the lack of windows. It’s only the sound of our sneakers on the concrete steps for two full flights, when we hear a stairwell door above us slam shut.

Nate curses under his breath.

I hold down the little button on the earpiece to make sure it’s on. “Someone’s on one of the upper floors,” I murmur.

Lurking around a building at night with guns and tech is the most spy-like part of the job, but it feels more like walking through a haunted house than anything else. Like the worst part of a horror movie, where you just want the main character to turn back and go home, but they don’t, and we can’t either. Nate was right that I try to avoid this at all costs—lackeys are great for this kind of thing. Eager to do it, too.

We keep climbing the stairs until we reach the fourth landing. It’s better to catch them unawares than to be caught unawares, so I shoulder the door open quickly and aim my gun ahead of me. I don’t see anyone, just piles of construction supplies on the floor and a layer of dust visible in the moonlight.

At least it’s not a cloudy night.

“No bodies on four, heading to five,” I mutter just loud enough that the earpiece will pick it up.

We do a lap of the floor and take the other stairwell to the next. Nate is still behind me, holding his gun with two hands and trying not to be obvious about how much he’s shaking. I would speak comforting words to him if I thought it would help or if I was sure that no one would hear me.

The fifth floor immediately shows more life than the fourth, not least of all the drips of red on the concrete floor and the sounds of struggle around the corner.

I use my watch to text “five” to Leo and Mary before creeping towards the sounds following the path of blood.

It smells acrid up here, something sharp that I can’t put my finger on. It fills my nose and makes it itch, and it gets stronger as we approach.

Nate stays behind me and now I really am wishing I told him to stay in the car, but it’s much too late for that now.

I take a long breath through my nose as quietly as possible before quickly turning the corner and pointing my gun at the sound.

It’s Rafael taped up, nearly hanging out of the gaping hole that should be a window. A long strip of black duct tape covers his mouth and around the back of his head, and he makes frantic noises trying to wiggle away from the window.

He’s alone.

I do a further sweep of the area, which yields no one before Nate and I grab Raf and pull him away from the window. As we do, it becomes apparent that the rope tying his middle is attached to something dangling outside the building, something heavy. When I peer over the edge, it looks like a gas canister.

Nate pulls the tape down from his mouth as I get to work cutting the rope attached to his middle.

“What happened?” I ask. Raf is bleeding from a wound in his leg, a gunshot if I had to guess, and he’s peed himself.

“I thought I was alone,” he explains, nearly hyperventilating. “No less than three cars drove off in a hurry, so I was sure that was it, but then?—”

He’s cut off by the sound of a loud bang on the floor above us, one that rings so loud in my earpiece I have to take it out for fear it’s going to destroy my hearing forever.

I turn to Nate and give him the knife I’d been using to cut the rope.

“Get him downstairs,” I say.

“What about you?” Nate grabs my wrist. “You can’t go alone.”

“Load him into the back of the car,” I say. “What do you do if you see someone?”

Nate’s mouth flounders open and closed.

“Nate.”

“I shoot,” he says.

“You shoot,” I agree. I lean in for one hard kiss against his lips.

“These guys are tough,” Raf says. “And they’re pouring shit all over the building. Gas.”

I nod at Rafael then give Nate as long a look as I can spare before taking off for the stairwell.