Page 102 of Bad Medicine

“Hello?” I asked when I had answered it.

A low chuckle sounded in my ear, causing all the small hairs on my body to stand on end.

“For a minute there, I wasn’t sure you were even going to answer,” Greg said, his tone casual and calm where mine had been anything but. “I have to say, I would have been surprised. Surely our son means more to you than a missed call.”

Hearing Greg refer to Jasper asoursonmade me want to vomit, but I took a steadying breath and swallowed down my revulsion.

“Where is Jasper?”

“Why, he’s right where he belongs, of course,” Greg replied, his voice turning hard. “With his father.”

Chapter forty-seven

Rocco

Noonemoved.Hell,we barely even breathed.

Every eye in the place was focused on Mia as she knelt on the floor, surrounded by the wreckage of her purse, clutching the phone like it was the only thing tethering her to the earth.

Getting down on the floor with her, I waited until she looked at me, then mouthed quietly, “Put it on speaker.”

When she did, the look on her face was like a punch to my goddamn chest.

Terror, pure and stark, shone from her eyes, and it was all I could do to keep my hands off her; the need to pull her to me was so strong.

But comforting her would have to wait; there was a psychopath on the phone to deal with first.

“Greg, please,” Mia whispered, her voice shaking. “Please don’t hurt him.”

“Hurt him?” Gregor snarled, and Mia visibly flinched. “The only thing that has hurt him has been keeping him away from his father.” Mia raised a hand to her mouth in an attempt to physically hold in her sobs. Placing my own hand on her shoulder, I tried to comfort her, but I knew the only thing that would fix this would be getting Jasper back.

“I’m sorry,” Mia said, and I gnashed my teeth together, hating that she felt she had anything to apologize for. “Please, just give me back my son. I’ll tell him the truth. I’ll tell him you’re his father.”

“And what?” Gregor asked sarcastically. “We’ll all just live happily ever after?”

“I—”

“Not a fuckin’ chance,” I cut in, tired of listening to his bullshit. “Where’s the kid, Belikov?”

“Ah, Enzo’s stand-in,” Gregor hissed. “I was wondering when you’d show up. Don’t think I won’t be paying you back for your little stunt outside my brothel. Ivan deserved better than to be shot in the street like a dog.”

“Like your uncle, you mean.”

“My uncle was a weak-minded fool who had no intentions of moving this organization forward into this century. When I win the election, I will use my position on the city council to clear the way for the Belikov Bratva to—”

“Yeah, yeah,” I drawled, my tone bored. “Whatever. Cut the shit, man, and just tell us what you want.”

“What I want,” he spat, his voice grating over the tiny speaker on Mia’s phone. “Is what’s owed to me. What I want is the product you and your ragtag group of losers stole from me.” He was huffing out breaths like a buffalo now, his anger palpable even through the phone. “What I want, Rocco,” he sneered, my name sounding like a curse, “is myfucking drugs!”

Looking across the room, I eyed Masi, silently asking if we even still had the product. When the guys had stolen it from those abandoned cars, the ultimate goal had been to destroy it all, but things had gotten so out of hand that I didn’t know if it had been done yet.

Masi’s affirmative nod was all I needed.

“Alright, Gregor. You got it. Just tell me when and where.”

“No,” he said decisively. “Not you. Mia.”

“No way, man. She’s an innocent bystander in all our shit. Leave her out of this and let’s deal with this like men.”