Page 7

"Send him in."

The man who enters is a mere shadow of the man I met with a few months ago. He looks shrunken, somehow. Dark circles frame deep-set, tired-looking eyes that seem to have lost all zeal. I've seen men like him before—men who have lost everything they hold dear and who are hanging on just by one fine thread of hope. Even his posture is diminished. The once proud, straight shoulders are hunched forward.

A deep sense of trepidation rises inside me. As the judge sitting over Carlos's trial, there can only be one reason for the man to look this… beaten. I was right; Carlos got to him.

Still, I'm too pissed at him right now to play nice. "What the hell, Judge? My impression of you was that you were unbribable."

Lambert straightens himself, and some of the steel I admired before returns to his eyes. "I need your help."

Vito closes the door and takes his place by it, making sure nobody will interrupt us by standing with his back to it. His eyes are filled with the same questions that run through my mind.

I motion for Lambert to take a seat. Few people manage to surprise me anymore, but he just did.

"Does it have anything to do with you letting the bastard out on bail?" I ask while sitting down in one of the leather recliners. He takes a seat opposite me on the couch, fiddling with his phone.

Curiously, I eye it. "You're not trying to trap me into something, are you?"

He follows my line of sight and puts the phone on the wooden table between us. "No, I think we're past that."

"So it has to do with Carlos?"

He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, I see he is fighting tears. Fuck. What else but family could possibly get a man like him into such a state?

"He has my daughter," he continues without preamble. Picking up his phone, he taps a few times and hands it to me.

What the fuck?

"Hit play." Lambert's voice is barely audible.

In the video, Nestor Peak, Carlos's second-in-command, comes into focus. He holds up a piece of paper with a tag. After a second, he leans forward, and when he steps back, I notice a young woman sitting tied to a metal chair. The note now pinned to her chest reads,You know what to do.

A tiny whimper escapes her. Long, brown hair hangs messily over her features, hiding her face from the camera. I clench my jaw. I know it's not unheard of to kidnap family members and torture them, but I've always tried to abstain from involving family; there are other ways to get the job done, in my opinion.One wrong decision on an objection call, and she pays the price. For each piece of evidence allowed, she will lose a finger or an ear, clear?Nestor says into the camera,hoist her up.

It's not until the chains she's bound to lift her off the floor that I realize how drop-dead gorgeous the woman is. The dark brown hair falls away from her face, and she shakes her head so her gaze can follow Nestor as he retrieves a knife. Large sapphire eyes turn toward the camera for a split second, and my heart rate picks up. I pause the video so I can study her angelic face. Even in her fear, she's beautiful beyond measure. Her face has the classic lines of an old-era Hollywood actress; Ava Gardner comes to mind. Perfect full lips, a long, elegant neck…

Something inside me tightens. She is off-limits to me, just another casualty in this war. Yet… I don’t like knowing Carlos’s hands are anywhere near her. Just the thought of him touching her raises my blood pressure.

Neither do I like where my thoughts are going, and I push play to listen to Nestor's laughter as he makes her spin on the chain that keeps her in the air.

Across from me, Lambert puts his hands over his face. Undoubtedly, he has watched the video a few times. Even for me, it's hard to watch the video as Nestor rips the back of her shirt to expose her milky, elegant shoulder blades. Slowly and with a glint in his eyes, he slices a long line down it.

I turn the phone off and hand it back to Lambert. "Why did you come to me with this? I'm not the one holding her."

Lambert's hands slide from his face, and the steely look is back in his eyes, similar to the woman's in the video. "No, but I do know that Carlos killed your father."

I stiffen. If the old coot is trying to blackmail me…

"I know that you have a very vested interest in seeing Carlos go to jail." His eyes meet mine. He knows.

He knows that Edoardo has forbidden me to lay a hand on the bastard who killed my father. What he doesn't know, what nobody besides Grigori and Vito knows, is that I've made a deal with the Bratva to have Carlos killed as soon as he steps foot into jail. In a world as black and white as Lambert's, going to jail is a just punishment.

"Then you also know that I can't touch him." I steeple my fingers as I lean forward on the chair.

Lambert nods. "I don't know why you haven't killed him yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say you have your orders." His gaze would have been challenging had it not been shrouded by worry.

"So what do you want me to do?"

"Get my daughter out of there," Lambert demands, and then a bit lower, "save my only child."