Page 26 of Scorned Beauty (Scorned Fate #5)

“Come on, De Lucci, I think it would piss off our mothers more if we leave now,” Kirill said. “You’re not escaping this circus without me.”

Neither Kirill nor I wanted to ride in the other’s car. We ended up going to Hoboken in separate vehicles. Thankfully, Trevor was assigned security during our event and I commandeered his Patrol.

Kirill came through though. Sandro was able to get into Sloane’s apartment. But the traffic backup grated on my nerves as Sandro gave me a play-by-play of what was going on.

“The man who was thrown off the fifth floor is Phil Harding. He lives on the ground level. He’s FBI. Did you know Sloane was talking to a fed?”

“Not until four days ago.”

“Fuck, man, was that why you were hauled in?”

Close family knew the FBI picked me up, but I kept the details to myself. Instead of answering him, I asked, “What else?”

“Signs of a struggle. Broken window. The fire escape gate was unlocked.” He paused. “There’s blood.”

I gripped the steering wheel. “And…”

“CSI tech said not enough to bleed out and die.”

“Where did they take Harding?”

“New Jersey Medical. He’s in surgery. I have one of my guys circling the hospital. It’s crawling with cops.”

“Do we know how badly he’s hurt?”

“No.”

My phone pinged with a message from Bianca.

Bianca

What the fuck, Dom? You and Sloane?

Ivy

That explains why she’s been hiding from us.

Sera

I was telling Matteo I suspected she had blocked us.

Bianca

I was feeling terrible because we had to keep this secret about Luca and Natalya from her and I thought that was why she blocked us. But it was you, my prick of a cousin. So what did you do?

I growled at Sandro, “You told the women?”

“Of course. I’m fucked up with guilt, and so is Bianca. But this is Sloane. We knew she understood mob business, so this whole shit was because of you.”

“You don’t have to bury the guilt any deeper.”

Sandro scoffed. “Just so you know, I want to bury my fist in your face.”

“Might I remind you that Sloane is working with a fed? She played me.”

“I haven’t mentioned that part to the women yet.”

I snorted. “So I’m painted as the bad guy.”

“Well, you’re certainly not a victim here. My hunch? Sloane didn’t have a choice. Especially with her brother who kept screwing up.”

“And she couldn’t have told us?”

“Yeah, well, she’s not around to defend herself, is she?”

Sloane’s betrayal stung deep, but Sandro giving her the benefit of the doubt while I refused to listen to her, while I wanted her to suffer for her betrayal, stung deeper and pierced an uncomfortable shard of disgust in my chest.

“I told you Grigori needed to go. I should have acted on my own and not looped you into it,” Sandro said.

Sloane and I agreed to nothing personal.

But I let my pride get in the way. I hid behind my responsibility to family.

Sandro considered Sloane a friend. Did my five months with her, fucking her in every position, spending time with her mean nothing?

It did. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have put security on her and that was why I was panicking when I lost control over Sloane’s movements.

“I have no time for this blame game,” I warned. “Kirill Zahkarov is with me.”

“And you’re all about appearances, aren’t you?”

I ignored his jibe. “Talk to you later.”

Sandro wasn’t kidding when he said the place was crawling with cops.

He met me and Kirill on the ground floor.

He and the Russian exchanged brief nods.

I wondered if Sandro had ever taken a contract from them.

They had Kolya, but he usually only did things for the bratva and didn’t contract out his services.

I wasn’t prepared for the feeling that hit me when I entered Sloane’s apartment.

The place looked like an all-out brawl had taken place.

Coffee table smashed, barstools overturned, and the couch where Sloane and I had fucked countless times was at an odd angle. Parallel chaos was roiling my insides.

Something nagged at me. I was hyper-aware. Glasses were being dusted off by the tech, and evidence markers planted.

I walked into the bedroom. The closet door was open, and the mattress was tossed. Did the Russians think Sloane was hiding something, or were they setting this up as a burglary?

I kept nothing here, not even a toothbrush. Once or twice I checked us into a hotel, but Sloane preferred I didn’t spend a dime on us, which irritated the fuck out of me. She started pushing back on groceries. Interestingly enough, she never said no to Ginger’s prissy food…

Ginger.

I rushed out of the bedroom and spotted the cat’s empty bowl. “Did you guys see a cat?”

Everyone narrowed their gazes at me as if I’d lost my damn mind.

“It’s an orange cat,” I persisted.

I got a few headshakes, mostly shrugs, and then one of the CSIs said “no” before returning to his task.

Sandro’s gaze burned a hole through me while I stalked around the overturned furniture and headed to the fire ladder door.

“Don’t touch anything!” the CSI tech yelled.

I grunted, not used to people treating me like I was dumb as a rock when it came to situations like this.

Of course I wasn’t going to touch anything unless I wanted to get rid of evidence.

I shouldered the ajar door that led to the fire escape.

I wondered whether one of the residents had Ginger or she was on the roof.

I glanced up to see if she was peering down and observing the activities like a curious cat would, but I didn’t see her. My eyes traveled down the catwalk and immediately spotted an orange blob beside the dumpster in the alley.

No.

Fuck, no.

I barged back into the apartment, out its door, and raced down the stairs. I would have looked like a fleeing suspect if I hadn’t been wearing a tux.

Once outside, the brisk air failed to displace the foreboding festering inside my chest. It only expanded and tightened its band around my lungs, making it difficult to breathe.

I ran into Bianca.

“Dom, what are?—”

I ignored her and sprinted round the building into the alley. Conflicting emotions grappled inside me…of wanting the orange blob to be there, and wishing it had disappeared because that would mean Ginger was alive.

But it was still there. I stopped two feet away from it.

“Dom…what are you doing?” Bianca asked. Then she must have seen the form I was too chickenshit to approach.

“Oh, is that Sloane’s cat?”

A lump lodged itself in my throat and roughened the single word gusting past my mouth. “Yes.”

I took one step, and then another, until I sank to my knees and, for the first time since I’d met the feisty feline, touched its fur willingly, desperately.

Ginger moved and tried to raise her head to look at me. Then she laid it down again and ignored me.

“You’re alive.”

“She’s hurt?” Bianca’s voice trembled. “You think they threw her from the fifth floor too, like that guy?”

“Ginger,” I whispered gently. “Can I move you, girl?” I stroked her fur.

She was able to move her head and gave me hope she hadn’t broken her back.

There were no signs of blood on her coat or around her, and the biggest concern was if she was bleeding internally. “I’ll give you all the tuna you want.”

The word tuna did it.

Ginger pushed up on her forelegs, struggling to lift her hindquarters, but she managed it. Her tail didn’t flick in sass, and she appeared to be hunched like an old cat rather than a feisty three-year-old. She also appeared thinner than last I saw her, and she was shivering.

Overcome with relief, I shrugged out of my tux jacket and wrapped it around Ginger. She didn’t protest and appeared to welcome the warmth of my clothes.

Cradling the bundle of fur in my arms, Bianca and I walked out of the alley where Sandro met us.

“That’s the cat?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The fuckers must have thrown her out the window.”

“Well, they say a cat has nine lives,” Sandro said.

I stared at Ginger who seemed to be content and wondered how many of those lives remained.

“Do we have any leads on Sloane?” Bianca asked.

“I’m going to ask Trevor to review surveillance footage around the area, but I need a favor from you.”

“Anything,” she said.

“Take Ginger to the emergency vet and do a full workup.” Sloane would have wanted me to take care of her cat.

Then I immediately did a mental headshake.

I was talking about Sloane like she was already dead.

I refused to believe it. Self-recrimination battled against the logical steps I had to take to make sense of what happened here.

Eventually, there’d be time to wallow in regrets, to figure out how I fucked things up so badly, but not right now. Sloane was out there and she needed me.