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CHAPTER FIVE

“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” ~ Jackie Robinson

Saros

We were able to get video from Fernando. Anger boiled in my veins as I watched Marco go down and Benny get shot, but Em, he was like a balm to that burn.

He wasn’t at all sure of anything he was doing, I could see that now. I wasn’t positive, but I’d say he was almost chastising himself with every move he made. As if he knew he shouldn’t have gotten involved, but was now in the thick of it and couldn’t stop.

“You absolutely would have died if it wasn’t for this stranger,” Cosmo said once we watched the video for the third time.

“That means whoever ordered this didn’t want me walking away, even though the one guy wanted me to go with him.”

“Likely, he wanted to kill you somewhere else.” Cosmo migrated over to the couch in my office.

“Were you able to get anything on Em?”

“Is Em short for anything?” Cosmo quirked a brow.

“I don’t know, Em is all I got on him.”

“To answer your question, no. He ran faster than I’d ever seen anyone. I even got someone to hack into the CCTV feeds. He knows how to hide.” He pulled out his phone and was reading something. “Mike tracked him going toward Cove Avenue, then onto Michigan, but he seemed to slink into shadows and alleys.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose, hoping to stave off this headache. “I need to find him.”

“Saros, we’ll keep eyes out and ask around, but you really need to concentrate more on who tried to kill you.”

He was right. “Okay, was anyone able to get anything off the bodies?”

“Not much, but two of the guys had the same girl’s name and number on a napkin in their wallet. No logo on it, but Mike was able to track her.”

That was a huge something. Why wouldn’t he think so? “That’s good, bring her in.”

“There’s no guarantee she’s gonna know anything about this hit.”

“Maybe not, but we’ll talk to her.”

He nodded. “Did you reach out to Frazee?”

“Yeah, he said he’d left through the front and didn’t see anything but would let me know if he heard anything.”

Cosmo snorted. “I won’t hold my breath.”

“Make sure he gets the papers to the warehouses. And I want eyes on what he’s doing there.”

“You got it.”

After Cosmo left to do what I’d asked, I watched the video two more times, fast-forwarding to the moment Em appeared. The quality was very good—no question, Fernando didn’t skimp on security.

I paused the second he turned, and his whole face came into view. Mike had worked for me for five years and was my go-to when I needed computer help. I wondered how good he was with facial recognition software. I texted him to come to the house this evening. Then I got up and made my way to the dining room, where I could hear Dafni laughing.

Around the table, my uncle Andrew and aunt Penelope were sitting across from Dafni. There was a cookbook out, and Dafni was writing on a pad.

“What’s going on in here?” I checked my watch. “It’s lunchtime.”

“Calm down.” Aunt Penelope rolled her eyes. “Food is coming; we were just deciding on Thanksgiving dinner.”

“Deciding what? It’s Thanksgiving, all the classics.”

The holiday was a week away, and usually it was a big affair much like Christmas Eve. It was my whole family, which included my guys and their families. I always had a cooking team to handle it, but Aunt Penelope and Dafni usually added their own dishes.

“Dafni and I were thinking of changing some desserts up, and I thought looking in your mom’s cookbook would be an interesting idea.”

My parents had been killed when I was very young. My father didn’t have any family to speak of, so my uncle Andrew, from my mother’s side, had kept this family up and running until I was old enough to take over. Speaking of, I glanced at him.

“How’d you get wrangled into this mess?”

“What my Penelope wants, she gets.” He shrugged.

Dafni chuckled. “That’s survival mode right there.”

Dafni and I looked a lot alike, both with dark hair and blue eyes. Same laugh, but where I was tall and broad, she was petite like our mother was.

A minute later, lunch was being brought out and they cleaned up the cookbook and papers. Dafni caught us up on Maeve and how her recital had gone. Tucker, my nephew, was only a month old and currently sleeping in the bassinet a few feet away.

“Where’s Maeve?” I asked as I cut into my steak.

“I enrolled her in this daycare, sort of. It’s a few hours a day, where she can socialize with kids her age and get used to peer interaction.”

“What the absolute fuck?”

“Saros!” Aunt Penelope admonished. “Language.”

“Sorry.” I smiled softly at her, then turned and glared at Dafni. “She’s three. Isn’t this the time when she should be building a bond with you?”

“Wow, Saros, I didn’t realize you had so much parenting experience.”

“She’s three.”

“I know how old my daughter is, Saros. I fucking pushed her out.”

“Dafni!” Aunt Penelope sighed.

“No, Auntie, he’s wrong. It’s not his business how Cos and I raise our kids.”

“Excuse me?” I dropped my utensils on my plate. “Everything that goes on in this family is my business.”

“Not how we educate and choose to help our children meld into the world.”

“It’s not safe for my three-year-old niece to be in some daycare for a few hours a day without my knowledge. Someone should be watching her.”

Dafni huffed. “Do you think Cosmo would have agreed to this had I not compromised on her security? He has two guys watching over her. Riley and Gino. They sit outside the daycare and afterward follow me home.”

I picked up my fork and knife and started eating again. “That’s acceptable.”

“I’m so thrilled you’re fine with it. Look, Saros, I get that you have a lot to deal with and now with what happened with Marco, tensions are high, but you need to let me do what I think is best for my kids. You don’t parent them, I do.”

I glanced up and met Uncle Andrew’s eyes; he nodded slightly.

“Fine, but changes like this, I want to know.” I shoved a piece of steak into my mouth. “I still think three is too young to be away from you.”

“Duly noted.” Dafni chuckled, and soon everyone was chatting about life events.

I excused myself after lunch and returned to my office. Em’s face was frozen on my screen, still, and all I could do was sit there, whiskey in hand, and stare into his chocolate-brown eyes. There was something lurking behind them. A story. I hoped it was something wonderful, that when he’d run from me it had been to his family, to something good. But he was too familiar with the dark. He might have been afraid of those men and what was happening, but he wasn’t a stranger to it.

No, he hadn’t run back to a dream; he’d been running to something far less pleasant.