Page 37 of Kidnapped By the Boss

Chapter Twelve: Katya

I laid in bed staring at the ceiling and waiting for Vincent to come back to the bedroom, but he never did. My stomach was twisting with frustration at the fight we’d just had, especially because I knew I was the one to blame for it. I’d promised myself that I’d come up with a better excuse to continue postponing our honeymoon than just claiming the regular old stuff, but in all honesty, I was hoping Antonio or the remaining Wreckers would make a move so that my excuse was valid.

The truth was, I believed in my heart that Antonio was waiting for us to leave.

Everything had been a little too serendipitous. At the time, it just seemed like the Costellos’ well-organized raid had overwhelmed Antonio, but the more I thought about it, the more that little voice in the back of my head started to scream at me that something wasn’t right. It was the same one I had when Antonio cut off my ride home when I was leaving The Marketplace the first time—like he was always in total control of the situation.

I probably shouldn’t have gone and spoken with Lyn at all, but I just needed to know a little bit more about the kind of man that Antonio was. I needed to know how realistic it was that he’d be there with no backup and let us totally get the jump on him the way we did.

Not only did she confirm my fears, but she quadrupled my anxiety.

“I didn’t think anyone was supposed to visit me,” Lyn said. “Only to bring me my one meal a day?”

I held up the tray of food I had in my hand so she could see it. “I have your meal.”

After opening up the latch, I slid the food through, and Lyn studied me with an uncertain gaze for a long time before she finally lifted up off the bed and walked over. Maybe it was because I was a mom now, but when Devrick, Vincent and I were interviewing her before, I heard so little of what she said because I was so distracted by how she appeared. She was certainly beautiful, with short blonde hair, green eyes that I imagined were at one time nice and vibrant, and a petite frame that put me in the mind of a pixie or fairy. She didn’t have a wrinkle or age mark on her.

This girl was a baby.

And yet here she was, locked up in a cell on the estate of one of the most notorious mafia dons in all of New York City, and all because she got mixed up with some guy that clearly took advantage of her. She spoke about Antonio like he was a saint, but anyone who heard her story would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that her naivety had been used against her. I assumed that her poor parents had to be worried sick about her, but after we interviewed her, I checked in with Mitzy to see if there was a missing persons record for her and there wasn’t. I asked him to reach out to the parents and see if they mentioned having a daughter they hadn’t seen or spoken to in a year, and he said when they did, they only mentioned having one daughter—the sister that Lyn had mentioned. This poor girl hadn’t been given a fair shake since the day she was born.

The story sounded familiar.

“Hey, can I ask you a question?” I said as Lyn pulled her tray of food through the small window and walked back to the bed.

“Do I have a choice in the matter?”

I set my back against the wall opposite her cell and slid down to sit. “You always have a choice.”

She gave me that angsty, teenager look and motioned to her confinement. “Well that’s obviously not true, is it?”

“Is it like Antonio to travel without backup? Or to let a known enemy go without killing them or even attempting to?” I asked.

Immediately, she shook her head. “No. He’s way smarter than that. The family he comes from would kill him if he did any of that stuff. He would never.”

“Not even for a supposed Queen?” I asked. “Like you or me?”

“I’ve known Ant over a year now, and I’ve never seen him do one stupid thing. Even when he did something that appeared to be stupid at first, I would later see that it was just one step in some thirty or forty step plan.”

That was the fear that had been bubbling inside of me since we first raided The Pharmacy. It wasn’t until we found Lyn in that trunk that everything started to twist into perspective for me. If Antonio wanted Lyn dead, he could have killed her right at that moment before we got into the room, he had plenty of time. For that matter, she weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, he probably could have taken her with him easily. In truth, if he’d let her out of the trunk, apologized, and told her to go with him, she probably would have gone willingly.

It was almost as if he wanted us to find her. Like he was anticipating that we would save her and she’d spill her guts because she didn’t have the life experience to do anything other than that.

What I hadn’t figured out yet was, if that was his plan, what exactly was he hoping Lyn would accomplish by being in our presence? Hoping we wouldn’t ever kill her felt like a huge risk for him to take, which meant he was likely hoping that she’d say something she’d already said to us—I just didn’t know what. She hadn’t given us any real information on where to find him or what his master plan was. Did he just hope that she would lead us to the other Wreckers and take them out? But then why pull them away from the only locations she knew?

The more I thought about it, the less sense it made, which was why I didn’t think I could bring my concerns to Vincent yet. He was a man that dealt in tangible evidence. He relied on his gut feelings, and if something didn’t feel right to him, he would listen to that instinct, but my sense that something seemed slightly off about a situation I wasn’t even entirely clear about wasn’t enough of something for Vincent to act on. I needed concrete evidence for Vincent to realize that Antonio’s silence was in no way indicative of him having given up.

It didn’t sit well with me, though, that Vincent had those opinions about me as a wife. Even if they weren’t coming out the way he was intending for them to, it sounded like he was unhappy with me as a wife, which was frustrating because between being a new mom and being one of his capos, I felt like I was doing everything I could to be the best wife. Yeah, work and parenting served as obstacles to our new marriage, but wasn’t that true of anyone in this situation?

How could I love him so much and still not have that come across?

After three or so hours, I heard the door creak open and could see Vincent moving through the darkness. I didn’t make any attempt to appear as if I wasn’t asleep, and instead just watched as he walked into the bathroom. I heard the shower start up and listened to the water running for about five minutes before it cut off and he came back out dressed for bed.

Once he got into bed, I turned over and curled in his direction. Just like any other night, he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close to him. He didn’t say anything, and neither did I—it was almost like we were pressing pause on this little disagreement so we could sleep in peace. Regardless, once I was in my husband’s arms, staying up late overthinking finally started to wear on me and my eyes got progressively heavier until I couldn’t keep them open anymore. Vincent sealed the deal by giving me a soft kiss on the forehead, and I inhaled against the feeling of his lips on my skin. By the time I exhaled I was fading out.

I caught Vincent early the next morning trying to slip out of our bedroom before I woke up and said, “Headed to work so soon?”

He looked down at me, and it felt like he was forcing himself to swallow back something that he wanted to say, but thought he shouldn’t. “Since things with The Pharmacy are picking up, I need to meet with Annie and discuss our next steps.”