He was the calm to my storm, and I grasped on to him, falling to the cushions beside him and pressing my leg against his, needing the tether of his touch. “The flower.”
“What flower?” He lifted me to his lap so that my back rested against both his arm and the couch.
I turned my head slightly so that our gazes collided then lifted my necklace and pointed to the tiny chamomile flower engraved into the lower portion of the gold bar. “This one. When Ricco dumped me in the holding cell before I escaped, I noticed a sketch of the same flower where the doorjamb meets the wall. It’s in a place that wouldn’t be spotted when the door was opened. It had to be from her.”
“You think he locked you in the same room where his father raped her?” His lips pulled back in a sneer.
Bile climbed my throat, and I had to swallow the excess saliva several times before I could answer him. I was equally if not more appalled. “Yes. My jewelry box has the same flower. I think it’s a message for me.”
“But for you to see the one in the basement, she would have suspected you would be there too at some point.”
I shivered from the wrongness of it all. “I hope that wasn’t what she thought. It’s a terrible fear to think your daughter will suffer the same fate and not be able to do anything about it.”
“Perhaps she thought you would find out about what your father was doing to the others and try to stop him, not that you would be murdered there too.”
I liked that theory much better and snuggled into him, feeling drained from everything I’d learned. “I want to kill him.”
“Who? Ricco? Or your father?”
“Both.” I only hoped that I would get the chance to see it through.
* * *
Iawoke suddenly in the plush hotel bed, sensing that Nico wasn’t by my side. My hand slid along the soft sheets, encountering warmth where he must have been only seconds before. Low voices traveled through the suite’s partially closed bedroom door. A glance at the clock’s glowing blue numbers told me it was three in the morning, the perfect time to conduct anything suspect.
After slipping on the satin robe that I’d left on the chaise lounge at the end of the bed, I quietly grabbed the gun from the nightstand and crept to the door leading to the main room.
The closer I got, the more I recognized the voices, and a sense of relief swept over me as I opened the door fully. Everyone was gathered in the larger living area, filling all the available seats.
Emiliana smirked. “I told you she’d wake up. Come on.” She waved me over. “We’re finalizing the details for tomorrow.”
“Without me?” I glared at Nico, who wrapped his arm around me as I stormed by with a huff. He tugged me into his lap, pressed a kiss to my lips, then grinned.
“I didn’t want to wake you after everything that happened last night.”
Last night? Oh, right.It was technically morning, even if the sun hadn’t yet risen. I relaxed into his hold because he wasn’t wrong. The bomb that Ricco had dropped on me had been a shock, and sleep had done me good. “What did I miss?”
“Everything, girl. You slept through the first hour of us talking.” Sofia snorted at Nico’s glare. She raised her palms in defense. “I told you to wake her up. Before I forget.” She reached down and tossed me a pair of black pants.
“Thanks?” I wasn’t sure why she was giving them to me. I held them up. They looked fitted, and I took note of the pockets.
“We all have them. Well”—she grinned—“the girls, anyway. There are weapons hidden in the seams and other spots that should get by most searches. They’re a necessity, and I thought you should have a pair, too, so I made them.”
I laughed, delighted at another weapon to add to my arsenal. They reminded me of my stilettos with the blade hidden in the heel. “I love them. Thank you.”
“I’ll show you where everything is later, but you should wear them tomorrow. The rest of us are.”
I loved them all even more.
“Back to the plans,” El said from her spot next to Marco on the couch, where Nico and I had sat when I put the pieces of how Mom died together. “We decided on the location for the meeting this morning. Your father agreed to ten in the morning. We set a meeting point—”
“But that’ll change ten minutes before,” Nico said then caught the small decorative pillow El had launched at him for interrupting her. “We’ll have the area surrounded and will be able to detain his backup as he moves locations.”
“So everything’s set?” I was still angry at what I’d learned about my father. It was time to confront him. “It’s still just Nico and me at the meeting?”
Stefano spoke up. “Yes, so long as nothing goes wrong.”
His words cast a shadow over everyone. Things rarely went as planned.