Page 19 of Heartless (Scathing Hearts #1)

Jake

While I cut the TV out of its box, Sile sat on Sienna’s couch. “She needs to know what’s going on.”

This morning, she’d looked brittle, buried under layers of clothes while her teeth had been chattering. When she’d fallen asleep, she’d curled deep in my arms, and I could still feel the imprint her warm curves had left against my body.

I measured and leveled the wall mount brackets. “I’ll wait until she gets better. Pass me the screen.”

When he hefted the TV close to the wall, I screwed the articulating arms on one side and rounded to his other side to do the same. After testing the screen tilts and rotation, I signaled Sile, and we both stepped back.

“Cam said you stayed in her bed with her this morning. Guess when she’s asleep her eyes are closed.”

I swiped my hand over my face. “All my life, all I’ve ever wanted was to make Morrison suffer. Make him watch while I destroy everything he cared about.”

“Mission accomplished there.”

“When are you going to stop being pissed?”

“When I stop being pissed.” He jerked his chin. “Cam should be there when we tell her.”

“Agreed.”

****

Sienna had gone back to sleep. Cam, Sile, and I were at the kitchen table while I filled Cam in on Zook’s file on Sienna.

She gaped and slumped back in her chair.

“Her own father groomed her for her organs. There must be a special pit of Hell for people like him.” Fury threaded her tone.

“And this ass-sucker waited for her mother to die.” She vaulted out of her chair, slapped her hands on the table, and slanted in.

“You two keep her away from that evil bitch. You understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sile replied.

Her gaze slid to me. She opened her mouth, but a text came through. I read it and got to my feet. “Fuck.”

Sile’s chin jerked. “What?”

“Zook’s at the gate with Edo.”

Standing up, Sile swore under his breath. I’d only met Edo, the ruthless head of the Conti family in person half a dozen times. And every time he’d shown up, it had meant somebody had been about to die.

Cam gripped my arm. “Why are they here?”

“They got beef with Morrison, and Sienna’s the only person who’ll make him bend.”

Her face paled. “Jake, you can’t let them take her, she’s—”

“They won’t take her, Cam.” She didn’t know about the marker. She didn’t need to.

We all headed for the front door. Seconds after I’d opened it, two cars rolled in and stopped in the driveway. Two enforcers came out of the first car, and then two others from the second. One of them opened the back doors for Zook and Edo.

Zook was first in, followed by two enforcers. He shook my hand and Sile’s and kissed Cam’s cheek.

While a duo of enforcers moved farther into the house for a security sweep, The other two set patrol on each side of the house to secure the outdoor perimeter.

The head of The Family walked in.

After greeting Cam with a slight nod and shaking Sile’s hand, he shook mine. “Good to see you, Jake.”

We moved to the family room where the bodyguards stood on each side of the room.

After refusing Cam’s offer of drinks, Edo sat in an armchair. Zook settled across from him on the other side of the coffee table. Sile half-seated on the arm of the couch with Cam standing beside him. I lowered myself onto the couch near Edo.

The older man’s face was harder than the last time I’d seen him. “Where’s Morrison’s girl?”

Tension tightened my neck, and I chin-pointed at her quarters. “Sleeping. She’s sick.”

Edo’s jaw clenched. “Carlo died this morning. A wife is now a widow, and my four grandchildren are left fatherless.”

Retaliation was coming.

“Edo, she has nothing to do with the motherfucker.”

“She’s his child.” He signaled one of his men. “Get the girl.”

She’d been through enough, and that fucker was going to scare her. I got on my feet. “I’ll get her.”

In Sienna’s quarters, I headed straight to her bed where she was on her side under the duvet pulled up to her ear.

Sitting by her hip, I pitched my voice low. “Sienna, wake up.” She groaned and shifted deeper under the cover. I gently shook her shoulder. “Baby, wake up.”

She rolled onto her back and blinked slowly. “Jake?”

When I brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, she jolted up and tilted her eyes down. I fucking hated that habit I’d instilled in her. But now was not the time.

“Sienna, some of the people Morrison pissed off are here. They want to talk to you.”

Her chin quivered. “I don’t know anything about Nigel’s business. I—”

I cupped her cheek. “They know, and they won’t hurt you.”

Shifting away from my touch, she peeked at the door. “Where’s Silas?”

“Sile’s here with them.” I got up. “Let’s go.”

Nodding, she swiped the heels of her hands over her lids and threw the bedding off her legs.

Her hand in mine was too warm. Her temperature was spiking again.

When she clocked Sile, her nails unloosed from my skin, and the breath of relief she let out was audible.

Zook and Edo had stood up and were waiting.

Zook approached us first, and Sienna’s frame tightened.

“Sienna, I’m Lenny.”

She cleared her throat. “Hi, Lenny.”

While I led her to Edo, he watched her intently. “I’m Edo.”

“Hi, Edo.”

Edo extended his hand toward the corner of the couch closest to him. “Sit.”

Her eyes darted to Sile, who notched his chin down. With my hand on her lower back, I nudged her toward the couch. While she settled in the space Edo had indicated, he reclaimed the armchair, and I stood at the end of the couch beside her.

****

Sienna

The two older men were freaking intimidating.

The leader—the vibe around him screamed he was the boss—had a head full of white hair and a sharp gaze.

The other, Lenny, seemed more relaxed but no less perspicacious.

As for the two men in black, sharing the same tastes in tailors and luxury eyewear, I just pretended they didn’t exist.

Edo started. “Sienna, do you know why you’re here?”

Assuming ‘here’ was right now, I nodded.

“My son died last night.”

His words pinched at my chest. “I’m so sorry. I’ve lost my mother recently, and I know how painful it is to be left behind when a loved one dies.”

I thought his penetrating gaze softened, but I couldn’t be sure, so when he slanted back, I kept my back straight.

“Your father recently connected with you and made sure you were financially comfortable.”

My heartbeat gathered speed, and I cleared my throat. “Yes.”

The man leaned in. “Did you know he was ill?”

Nigel was ill? During dinner he’d looked sick but...I must have shaken my head because he continued, “His most optimistic doctors give him a couple of months at best. He needs a lung and a liver transplant, and you’re a match.”

Blood drained out my face, and pressure pounded against my eardrums. “W-what?”

Lenny’s voice filtered through my mashed brain as he frowned at Jake. “You haven’t told her?”

Whipping my eyes at Jake, whose jaw was clenched close to snapping, I dug my nails into my palms. “You knew?”

His hard gaze cut to mine as he notched his chin down in a curt nod.

I slumped in the corner of the sofa. Nigel’s behavior had felt off, sometimes creepily so. But this... this was... heinous. ‘Call me, Dad’, he’d said. ‘Move in with me’. ‘We’re family’.

All this forced affection. Because he... Oh. God. Bile rose from the pit of my stomach. I cleared the tightness in my throat only to swallow the bitter taste in my mouth.

“I didn’t know,” I said to Edo.

He inched closer, and I held my breath. This man was dangerous. Lethally dangerous.

Edo’s steely voice sliced through the room. “Sienna, your father had my son killed. I could kill him myself, but I want him to feel death coming, knowing I have the one person who can save him.”

My heartbeat echoed through my whole body. A sound came out of my throat, and I clutched my chest. “I don’t... I don’t understand.”

The man’s gaze hardened. “You will stay out of reach, and you will let him die, or you’ll die with him. You can do this here, or I can take you to—”

Jake’s growl cut in. “Edo, she’s mine.”

“For now,” Edo snapped.

As the dangerous man’s icy stare set on Jake’s equally cold gaze, I cleared my throat, which did nothing for my hushed voice. “I want to stay here. Please.”

The man’s eyes shifted to mine. “Can you give me your word you will do nothing to help your father?”

Trying to catch my breath, my gaze instinctively searched for Silas, who nodded—albeit with a stony expression—while Camila threw me a tight smile.

Then, I turned back to the man who’d just threatened my life. I could give him plenty of assurance. In fact, I could show him. “Edo, can I show you something?”

For long seconds, his unsettling gaze drilled into mine. When his chin tipped down, I jumped on my feet. One of the men in black moved toward me, and I gasped as Silas stood in his path.

Unable to hide the tremors in my voice, I said to Edo, “I just need to grab something from my room.”

“Go,” he said, and I hurried to my quarters.

I went straight to the trunk at the bottom of the wardrobe. After retrieving the old, bulky, once-white photo album with shaking hands, I opened the door and froze again. Jake and one of the men in black were there. When the bodyguard’s gloved hand reached for the album, I moved closer to Jake.

“They’re p-pictures,” I whispered to Edo.

When he waved me forward, I went back to him as quickly as my legs would allow and knelt by the coffee table at his feet.

I placed the album on the coffee table and flipped it open.

****

Jake

I crouched by her side, positioning myself between her and Edo. Sile and Cam moved to stand on the other side of Edo’s armchair, and Zook settled in the seat Sienna had previously been in.

Once the album was spread open, she turned to a page where several pictures of an infant with a mop of dark curls were displayed on both sides. She flipped to the next page.

And fuck. The same infant was in diapers lying down in one of those glass hospital cribs.

Its chest bore an angry scar from its upper breastbone to a few inches above its navel, covered with a see-through dressing.

There was more gauze around the baby’s nose, an array of tubes attached to both its arms and hands, as well as electrodes on the too small chest.

In the faded picture on the top left, the infant had its eyes open, and there was no mistaking those eyes.

Cam gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, baba...”

Zook swore in Italian. Sile did it in English.

The next pages displayed more pictures of the baby’s harrowing journey.

She paused a few pages forward where the baby had grown into a toddler, who was swathed in her mother’s arms and smiling.

Caitlin Winslow had been a beauty, and Sienna might have her father’s eye color, but she’d taken everything else after her mother.

Twisting at the waist, she knelt up, facing Edo, and hooked two fingers around the neckline of her top. She pulled it down, showing the edge of a thin, slightly discolored scar running vertically in the center of her chest.

“My mother used to say I was born with a broken heart,” she murmured.

A weight parked on my chest. I didn’t know. Because I hadn’t fucking asked.

Sitting back on her calves, she continued. “I was born with a congenital heart defect, and I had three open heart surgeries. The first one when I was six days old, then when I was four months old, and the last one at sixteen months.”

Edo leaned in. “What does this mean?”

She flipped the album closed and clasped her fingers in her lap. “CHD is a heart disease, which I read somewhere disqualifies me as a living organ donor. So, even if I wanted to help Nigel, which I definitely don’t, I wouldn’t be able to.”

Edo locked his speculative gaze on her. “What would happen if you went through with the surgery?”

Sienna paled. “I... uh. In theory, the surgery would be too taxing on my heart.”

“So, you would die?”

Tears filled her eyes. “I... I think so. I won’t help him, Edo. I promise. I won’t.”

He studied her, then on a curt nod, he signaled his men before getting to his feet. “Bene.”

I pulled Sienna up and tucked her to my side. When they turned to leave, she whispered, “I’m sorry for your loss, Edo.”

“Me too, child.”

Sile and I walked Zook and Edo to their cars. After they’d cleared the driveway, Sile grunted. “Born with a broken heart. We’re fucking going to Hell.”

“I’m the one who hurt her, brother.”

“But I’m the one who found her.”