Page 7 of The Pawn

“Let’s go,” I tell Enzo.

The police officer is saying something about getting the scene under control as I slip beneath the barrier tape and hold it for Enzo to follow.

Jet comes up to us as the officer turns to another couple who pull up to the scene.

“What happened? Where’s Allegra?” he asks.

I look at Enzo, doubting having sent him. But he’d told me what had happened earlier. He’d told me how he’d followed Allegra, how the two soldiers I’d sent with her took the bribe from Jet to let him get close to her.

I push a hand into my hair, pull a handful of it. “How are you here and she’s not?” I ask him.

He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know why I’m not dead. Why they didn’t kill me. I don’t fucking know.”

Enzo staggers.

“He’s going to pass out. Get him in my car,” Jet says. I wrap an arm around Enzo’s middle, and he sets his over my shoulder. I walk him to the passenger side of the Porsche. I remember when Jet showed up with the lime green monstrosity. I’d dared him. He’d done it. How we’d laughed. Was that this lifetime?

I settle Enzo in the car. My hand comes away bloody when I pull it free. Bruises darken his face and there’s dried blood on the back of his head.

“I’m sorry, Cassian. I’m sorry. If I could have stopped them, you know I would have.”

Malek Lombardi did this. He killed Michael and took Allegra.

“Was she hurt?” I ask.

“Not before we crashed.”

Shit. Shit.

“I’ll get him to a hospital,” Jet says as I turn a circle, my hands on my head, fingers pulling at hair. Why did I let her go? Why did I fucking send her away? I was angry. Fuck. I was fucking furious. “I’ll meet you at the house, okay?” Jet says to me. “Hey.” He takes my arms and gives me a shake, making me look at him. “Get it together. I’ll meet you at the house. Got it?”

I see his bruises, those I put there, and remember his betrayal. “Did you have anything to do with this?” I bark at him, shoving him backward.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he asks, shoving me and we’re at it again. Just like we were while my enemy was kidnapping Allegra. Like we always are.

“Fuck!” I spin away, dig my phone out of my pocket and call Angelo, walking to my car as I do.

“Cassian? What is it?” he asks, and I remember he was with my dad. What a shit show tonight’s been. What a fucking shit show.

“Allegra’s gone.”

“What?”

“Michael Moretti is dead.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“They took Allegra. Malek. It would have to be Malek. Malek and Severin Blackstone. All the fucking Blackstonesmaybe, who the fuck knows? I’m surrounded by traitors. All of them.”

“Calm down, Cassian. I’m with your father. Let me step out.”

“I can’t fucking calm down! They took Allegra,” I say, scrubbing my face, not recognizing my own voice. I press my forehead into the steering wheel. Fuck. I was so fucking angry. What did I do? What the fuck did I do?

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m fucking sure! Shit!”

“Stop and think. Why would he kill Michael? And why take her? He’d know you’d go after him. Hell Michael owed you what? Eight million? Malek isn’t stupid.”