I Will Make Him a Widower

ld daughter's broken body in the family mortuary.

f Whispers," claimed his intelligence division did ever

ld's corpse, he was busy comfor

ging that she had "accidentally deleted a crucial audio file

exact day my

lian slapped me across th

loodline! You are an omen of d

ze to his mistress, while he secretly wiped the server logs

ng a divorce because I still loved him, allowing him to us

ot one cruc

lie entirely powered by the secret algorithm

of my daughter from the fl

awal of all funds from Julian

pte

a's

table, the sound an unwelcome intrusion. The phone lay face down, but my hands were submerged in the basin. I let the summons go unanswered. The sting of a

er's profound chill not so much a sensation as a slow,

lligence network that made him a god in the underworld. Men who brokered death in back rooms grew silent when

rival cartel that took my daughter. Julian had personally ident

n abandoned shipyar

s being tortured in a lightl

l leg, once so straight, was now bent at a sickening, unnatural angle beneath the sheet. The men who had done this-the

, encrypted line. The calle

g the slab of chill

y throat. "The high command is demanding answers, and I am tied up in meetings. I cannot be there with you right now. The cartel bosses

But no sound would pass my lips. My throat ha

ply, I hung

ssi, a low-level associate from a minor faction a

a keyboard. Julian's large, masculine hand covered hers, h

the trace and panicked. But the boss held my hand, bypassed the system

ed audi

e exact operation wh

ver the keys, unable to descend. A pale, bloodless ring of purple had for

estify for you. It is a gentl

ssed

ter, my phone convulsed aga

nsw

rying to cause a scene? You are being passive-aggressive over a work post. Delet

hrew the phone across the room. It struck the unadorned concrete w

inst the unyielding cold of my daughter's cheek. Closi

ped. "The people who did this to you wil

ough broke the sti

t stood in the doorway, his eyes cast d

os coming to pay their respects? Or should we wai

d hollow, as if it were coming from a great distanc

something under his breath about how any father in the Cosa Nostra

. They were heavy, authoritative, and t

rs. He wore a pristine, tailored black

ble. He glanced at our daughter's body for a

ing akin to guilt crossed his features, before the muscles of

and heaved a long

ixed on the bare wall behind me. "The cartel members are madmen. Even if the locat

thing the knot

id, his voice hard. "Your comment is causin

slowly, my gaze f

our whore than you did to save your daug

gerous, volatile mix of fury

. "You sit in your corporate tower managing the family's mon

andles and white lilies I ha

y from the Capos. Have the body cremated and buried immediatel

ght, I raised my

a dull, wet crack. The force of the sl

hat the ticking of the mortician's wall cl

f his trigger finger held carefully away from her face as he cradled the six-pound weight of her against his chest, weeping with

ck at me, slowly

his voice like the scrape of metal on ston

r wearing his skin. A stranger who had no idea that everything he was-e

to burn it all