Where the Sun Hides (Seasons of Betrayal #1) (18 page)

Violet had just come up to the back of her building when
the phone in her purse started to ring. The sound was as insistent as it was
dooming. Answering the call, she put the phone to her ear and hoped the
background noise of the city went unnoticed.

“Hello?”

“Gee will be there in fifteen minutes,” Alberto said, not
even offering her a greeting. “Apparently, traffic is terrible in Manhattan
this morning and he’s stuck behind an accident that just happened two minutes
ago.”

Violet felt her heart finally rise back up from her stomach
into her chest. “That’s okay, Daddy.”

“Are you already outside? I hear cars.”

Shit.

“Yeah, just waiting on him out front. You said an hour,
right?”

“I did,” Alberto agreed. “You’ll be a little late for
breakfast because of the traffic, but it was semantics anyway.”

Violet’s brow furrowed as she dug for the access key that
would let her in through the back emergency door of her building. She needed
the front desk people to at least see her walk by them in case her father asked
after her at some point.

“Semantics?” she asked.

“Your friends are here,” was all he said.

She knew then what was happening. The events of the night
before involving Ruslan and Franco had not gone unnoticed by her father.
Amelia’s lies had probably been exposed.

Alberto Gallucci was not the type of man to beat around the
bush. She had told her father the truth of what happened, and there was no
doubt in her mind that he would not have sent Franco after Kaz’s brother, based
on her side of the story.

But her father didn't know that she knew.

So, she feigned ignorance. “Why are my friends there?”

Alberto sighed, heavy and angry at the same time. “You’ll
find out soon enough.”

Wonderful.

He hung up the call without a goodbye.

Violet managed to get inside her building, and took a quick
look at the screen of her phone. She had another ten minutes to be at the front
waiting, if Gee’s estimate of time had been anything to go on. The man was
known for his fucking punctuality.

His time was right and she knew it.

The decorative mirrors along the back hallway that led into
the main floor where the elevators were stopped Violet. She grabbed the small
toiletry case out of her purse, and did what she could to her face and hair
with what time she had, and what products were in the bag.

She made a mental note to keep more in it next time when
she was left with nothing more than a bit of color to her cheeks, red lipstick,
and mascara. The single black elastic in the bag was more than enough for her
to pull her messy hair back at the nape of her neck, and flip the hair up in
and around to make it seem like she had put far more effort into the updo than
what she actually had.

Messy was a style, after all.

Checking her appearance one last time, and pulling a few
strands of hair out to let it frame her face, she grabbed her purse off the
floor and headed for the front. She didn’t give the front desk a second glance,
and they didn’t seem to notice that she hadn’t come out of the elevators.

Her heart still pounded like crazy.

The building’s front door just closed behind her when Gee
pulled up.

Violet walked in on what she could only describe as a
somber mood. The dining room table was filled with people—Amelia, Nicole, their
parents, Violet’s mother and father, and her brother. There was even a couple
of other men standing in the corner of the room, gazes trained on Amelia, and
faces as blank as stone.

“Violet,” Alberto greeted, barely glancing up from the
phone in front of him.

“Morning, Daddy.”

He waved a hand at the free chair beside Nicole. “Sit.”

The command was laced with the sound of his obvious
irritation. Violet chose not to argue, and grabbed the chair to sit as fast as
she could. Her father looked her over, taking in her appearance quickly before
his attention was back on that phone again.

Silently, Violet let out a breath of relief.

If Alberto hadn’t been satisfied with the way she looked,
he would have said straight away, regardless of who was around to hear him
criticize her. She figured what with the adrenaline rush the entire morning had
been, she probably looked fresh-faced and wide awake.

Maybe she should thank Kaz for driving like a freaking
maniac.

Alberto swiped at the screen on his phone, and scowled.

“Nothing?” Christian asked from where he sat, directly
across from his daughter.

Nicole flinched at her father’s question, her head dropping
a little lower.

“I’m sorry,” Amelia whispered.

Vito shook his head, rubbing at his temples. “Boss—”

“Shut up.
Fermo, stolto
,” Alberto barked, the volume
of his shout echoing through the dining room. Even Violet dipped her head, and
she knew damn well it wasn’t her in trouble. “Do you know what your daughter
has done now?”

“I know,” Vito replied quietly.

“I cannot even get a response from the Russian. It’s bad
enough when I do have to speak to any of them, but let me just say it is far
worse when
he
will not answer a call.”

Violet’s head snapped up, finding her father seething mad,
but with a bit of panic lingering there as well.

“And for what?” Alberto asked, waving at Amelia. “So she
could make that
idiot
jealous?”

Amelia sniffled, using the heels of her palms to press
against her eyes. Violet wanted to feel some sort of sympathy for her friend …
but she couldn’t find any. Amelia had always liked to play stupid games with
Franco, things that would draw him back to her before she pushed him away
again. Ruslan had probably been another one of those stupid games.

But it wasn’t a game.

Those kinds of lies killed people.

Amelia should have known that.

So no, Violet didn’t feel bad as both Alberto and Vito
started shouting between one another, and at Amelia.

Violet passed Nicole a subtle look at her side. “Did you
know?”

Nicole shrugged, but her expression said that no, she hadn’t
known a thing.

“Explicitly!” Alberto roared. “I explicitly forbade Franco,
and you—” He turned on Carmine. “You, I told you the answer was no because her
stories didn’t line up with the other two.”

“Dad,” Carmine started to say.

Alberto pushed away from the table, taking a single step
toward his son. “Say that again, Carmine.”

It didn’t even come out like a question.

Carmine tipped his chin down. “Sorry, boss.”

Violet blinked, confused and stunned at the same time. She
knew her brother had long been mixed up in the family business, but inside
their home, she had never heard him address their father as anything less than
“Dad” or “Papa”. Certainly not “boss”.

Alberto, seemingly satisfied with Carmine’s correction,
turned back to the table and pointed at Amelia. “A man very nearly lost his son
last night because of your lies. And if I didn’t know you as well as I do, if I
didn’t care for your father as much as I do, it would be you taking the
punishment for what happened, and not Franco.”

Amelia sucked in a sharp breath, saying again, “I’m sorry.”

Vito said nothing, and neither did his wife beside him.

Violet wasn’t surprised at their lack of a response. They
were
la famiglia,
and a blood relation didn’t have to factor into that
at all. Alberto was the head of the family, a family they were a part of, and
like he always had done, he made the calls and doled out the punishments.

This was just another one of those times where he had to
step in.

“Get out of my face,” Alberto said, far quieter than
before.

Violet was up out of her seat before anyone else.

The others sat there, looking stupid, as she made a beeline
for the exit.

Alberto Gallucci was a lot of things, but a quiet man was
not one of them. And when he was quiet, when he spoke softly through thinned
lips and clenched teeth, it was a very bad thing.

“Now,” Violet heard her father say behind her. “But do not
leave the property.”

She was already heading toward the back door.

The further she could get from her father in that moment,
the better she thought it would all be.

Standing beneath the spray of water, Kaz ducked his head,
letting the shower wash away the night before. He hadn’t minded the scent of
Violet clinging to his skin, reminding him of just how long he had spent
learning every inch of her, but business was calling, and he had to get a move
on.

He had only been upstairs for little more than thirty
minutes before he was heading back down. With his phone in hand, he looked over
the messages he had ignored earlier, but came up short when he caught sight of
Raj, one of Vasily’s soldiers, standing next to his car, his hands in his
pockets.

This wouldn’t be the first time that Vasily had sent a man
around to see him, especially when he was indisposed, but he saved Raj for
special occasions. Kaz knew all too well what the man was capable of,
especially when he was feeling inspired. And while Kaz feared no man, he still
gave
him
a wide berth whenever they were in the same room together.

Catching sight of Kaz, Raj’s expression didn’t change, that
permanent scowl he usually sported still etched firmly onto his grisly mug.
“The
Pakhan
wants to see you.”

Kaz tapped his thumb against his phone, then said, “He
couldn’t call me himself?” It wasn’t like the man was incapable of using a
phone—he had just seen him the day before. And if Vasily was going underground
for any reason, Kaz would have been one of the first to know.

But despite his inquiry, Raj didn’t offer a response—not
that Kaz was expecting one. Raj didn’t question orders, just did what he was
told and nothing more. He was a good soldier in that way.

And maybe if he hadn’t spent the night between the legs of
someone he knew was off-limits, Kaz might have been a little less suspicious as
to why Vasily was calling him in.

He was careful to keep his expression neutral as he slid
into his car, watching Raj through the windshield as the man jogged the short
distance back to his own vehicle. The moment Kaz was sure he couldn’t see him
anymore, he dialed someone he thought might have answers. While he and their
father might not have been the closest, Ruslan still heard things, sometimes
even before Kaz did.

“It’s early for you, no?” Ruslan said the moment the call
connected, sounding like he was still in bed.

“Vasily wants a meet,” Kaz explained, driving far more
cautiously than he had some hours before.

There was a sound of movement, and his brother’s muffled
voice as he spoke with whoever he was with before Ruslan was back on the line.
“What the fuck did you do this time?”