“You’ve done enough, Damon. Just stay put and don’t get involved anymore.”
“Cal, wait. What are you gonna do? Why did Vince drag Grace off?”
I hang up the phone, because fuck him.
I don’t know what I’m going to do about Damon. I’m too angry to think clearly right now, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to drive over to his place and put a bullet in his head when I’m done with everything. He never should’ve called Vince, that stupid bastard, even if he didn’t think Vince would hurt her. Clearly, something’s going on that he doesn’t understand.
God, Vince has Grace. I whirl away and Diego’s standing in the doorway.
“What’s happening?” he asks, face hard.
“That was Damon. Vince has Grace.”
He pales slightly and steps forward. “That’s not good, is it?”
I shake my head. “No, it’s not.”
“Calvino, what are you and Grace up to?”
I don’t move. I’m buzzing with nervous energy and all I want to do is drive to the Sandtrap, burst in through the door, and start killing everyone in my way. But I know that’s not the solution to my problem.
I take a calming breath and meet Diego’s eye.
“I think Vince killed my mother and my father, and I wanted Grace to prove it.”
Diego blinks rapidly and takes a step back. “Holy shit. Are you kidding me?”
“I think the accident wasn’t an accident. I think the fire was a coverup, and something terrible happened that night. Charlie’s the only person that was there who might possibly say something, and so it was Grace’s job to get the truth from her. Things were going well until I fucked it all up.”
“Well, god damn,” Diego says and slumps down into a chair, rubbing his face. “Okay, so you and Grace were trying to find out the truth about your parents dying. Why would Vince take her then?”
“He’s been suspicious from the start. I think he remembers Grace drugging him that night at the club, but he’s not sure about it. I think he’s starting to put it all together, and now he’s going to torture her until she tells him the truth.”
“That explains Juniper. She went through Grace’s phone and Grace beat the crap out of here.”
I snort once. “Yeah, she told me that.”
“I bet Juniper saw something in Grace’s texts and told Vince about it. That’s probably why he took her.”
I close my eyes and rack my brain, trying to remember what we messaged about back and forth, until it hits me: early on, she asked me questions about the fire and I answered them. I deleted those texts, but what if she didn’t and Juniper read them? It’d look suspicious as hell.
And if I were Vince and I learned that Grace was texting me about that night, the night I killed my father, I’d start to spiral.
I might start acting paranoid and angry.
I might lash out and kidnap someone.
Fuck, it’s all making sense. I begin to pace back and forth as Diego watches me.
“Bring the guys back,” I say as a plan starts to form. “Get anyone loyal to me off the streets. I can’t promise they’ll be safe right now.”
“I’ll make the calls.”
“And you’d better hunker down too. Don’t bother opening Crystal Lake. Tell the girls to stay home, keeps their doors locked, and don’t go out. Everyone except for Juniper, she can go play in fucking traffic for all I care.”
“Understood.” He raises his phone, looking grim. “What are you going to do?”
“Get Grace back. No matter what it takes.”
Chapter 26
Grace
Rella helps me up and cuts the zip-ties from my wrists. I groan with relief and rub the raw, cut skin as she hurries to the far hall and pokes her head out.
“All clear,” she whispers as she returns and takes my arm. “Are you sure you’re okay? Vince didn’t hurt you?”
I shake my head. “He didn’t get a chance.”
“Perfect.” She grins at me. “Susi’s a really good mimic.”
I look at her blankly for a second then cover my mouth to keep from laughing. “She made that phone call?”
“Damn right she did. She pretended to be one of his top Capo’s wife and made it sound like there’s some emergency. Vince is probably halfway across LA right now and if we’re lucky and traffic is bad, we got some more time. But still, we’d better hurry.”
“Susi’s helping too? Why are you doing this?”
Rella shrugs a little. “It wasn’t my call if I’m honest, but I like you, Grace. And I hate the idea of my brother torturing you down in our wine cellar. Do you have any idea how hard it’s going to be to drink wine after that? No thanks. I’ll admit this is not purely altruistic.”
“If this wasn’t your idea, then whose was it?”
Rella only grins and tugs me along. “You’ll see.” We hurry down the hall and reach the door, and climb up a flight of wooden steps. Rella’s trying to be quiet, but it’s like every board is loose and creaks with maximum volume. I cringe with fear and grimace the whole time, trying to figure out why the hell Rella’s helping me.