I think it’s time to change that.
“Papa, baby girl. I am your papa.”
“Papa.”
“Yes, baby girl, Papa.”
She touches my face like she understands, and I wish she did. As her little eyes sparkle, hope sparks in my heart.
I don’t have to be her father in my dreams anymore.
I can be that man in both our realities.
“Lucia, mermaid.” She pouts, a sign she wants Lucia. That makes two of us.
But when I thought of Lucia, the dreamer in me wanted to be with her forever.
It just wasn’t meant to be.
By the timethe sun rose, the Chicago crew were successfully able to infiltrate my father’s home in Boston and retrieve William Ferreira.
The table in my meeting room has three quarters of the Syndicate sitting around it.
Massimo sits next to his brothers, Tristan and Dominic, and Eric is next to Aiden and Maksim, Aiden’s cousin.
These are the strongest men I know
We focus our attention on the worn-down image of William before us on the computer monitor on the wall. We’re doing a video conference call with him. Behind him I can see the other members of our Syndicate. Claudius Morientz and Vincent Giordano—the two Chicago bosses.
The plan is for them to stay with William.
He looks like he’s barely hanging on, and it’s clear he needs medical treatment. The man is covered in blood, and his face is battered. Fuck knows what they did to him.
He’s supposed to be sixty-two, but he looks more like a hundred.
He’s just managed to give us the rundown of what’s been happening and an explanation of the systems he set up.
“Thank you for rescuing me,” he says again, focusing on me. “I really am sorry for the trouble I caused. I had to do as I was told. I was trying to make sure they didn’t kill my girl. My reasons don’t make it right, but I didn’t want her to suffer for my mistakes. These people will kill, and they have no heart.”
His shoulders sag, and he looks worse.
“It’s okay, Mr. Ferreira. You can apologize later,” I reply, and he looks a little more at ease. “Now that you’ve explained things, we need to start planning. Are you okay to stay where you are? You look like you’ve lost a lot of blood.”
The skin around his bruises is so pale he could pass for a ghost.
“I’ll be fine. Please don’t worry about me. I’ll do what I have to then get medical treatment after,” he assures me.
“Okay, here’s what we need,” I begin. “We need you to carry on everything as normal.”
He nods.
The guys in Chicago took out everybody at the house except the guard who reports to Thiago on a daily basis. He’ll help us in exchange for his life.
Of course, we don’t think he’s just going to play along, so whatever we do, we have to work fast.
“I can do that. I report to Thiago on the hour, letting him know where everyone is. He checks the system, though, so he can see who he wants to see and activate my virus to hide himself and the others. El Diablo is with him now. I imagine he’ll be using that a lot.”
“I imagine so. I need you to remove anything blocking us from tracking but keep everything else going until I say when to switch things up. Then I’ll need you to disable the whole system.”