Corrupted Queen - Nicole Fox Page 0,2

at the risk of his own. It’s a hard line to walk.

“Clara, I’m really worried about you,” I continue. “Are you still seeing that Killian guy?”

“Yeah,” Clara answers. “So?”

“So, you haven’t been to work in over a month and now you’re drinking again. You’re telling me he has nothing to do with that?”

I can pinpoint the start of Clara’s decline from the moment she met her new beau. Something about the stuff she told me about Killian never sat right. He sounded controlling and manipulative, and Clara grew more and more distant. Now she’s obviously drinking again, and I have a feeling I know who helped boot her off the wagon.

“Vacation,” Clara slurs simply, as though that answers everything. “Speaking of, you should come take a vacation at my place.”

“I already told you, Clara, I don’t think it’s a good idea …”

“Really, Alexis,” she persists. “You should leave wherever you are and come to my place right now.”

There is a desperate edge to her voice that makes my hair stand on end. I leave the bathroom and go to the window. There is a black SUV in the parking lot that wasn’t there before, and as I watch, two men in black suits get out and head toward the office.

I hang up the phone, hissing swear words under my breath as I shove the few clothes and toys littered around the room into my bag. Gabriel must have tracked me to Allentown somehow and then used Clara’s phone call to trace my exact location. Here I was thinking my best friend had finally started to come to her senses.

In reality, she just had a gun to her head.

I scoop Harry into my arms and hope to God he doesn’t start to cry. I peer out the window again in time to see the two men emerge from the office and head toward the far stairs.

After my run-in with Andrew Walsh, I promised that, going forward, I would always have an exit plan. That’s why I picked this motel, shithole that it is—the external hallway has a set of stairs on either end of it.

I dart out the door and keep my footsteps as light as possible as I sprint to the other stairs. I don’t think the men see me, as I hear them banging on my door a second later.

Too late, fellas. I’m out of here.

2

Gabriel

I rise from the table, collecting the papers in front of me. “That will be all for now.”

Chairs scrape back all around the table. Mirko Bernadino, one of my five capos, is the first to leave. His eternally sour grimace has been driven even further down his cheeks over the course of the meeting. I don’t blame him. It has been a long time since we have discussed good news.

The other capos follow close behind, but my lieutenant, Antonio Linetti, and consigliere Vito Gambaro hang back.

Antonio is scrolling through his phone and looks up after a second. He is nearing his fifties, but the only indication of his age is his wrinkled forehead, and the reading glasses he pulls out for restaurant menus. He is nearly as tall as me, clocking in somewhere around six foot three, with arms as thick as tree trunks. With his shaved head and heavily inked skin, he’s been mistaken for a Neo-Nazi enough that now it really pisses him off.

Vito is almost Antonio’s opposite. He’s stubby-looking, like a thumb, and his thick hair is matched by an even thicker beard that, despite my best advice, continues to grow longer and longer. Vito and Antonio are the two people I trust most in the world.

“My men will have the Marzano bomber in custody soon,” Antonio reports.

“I wish I’d known that before the meeting,” I comment. “It would have been nice to have some good news.”

“Agreed,” Vito says, pouring himself a drink from the side table.

Antonio slips his phone back into his pocket and gives me a nod. “I’m going to go pick him up and bring him back for questioning.”

“Thanks, Antonio.”

He lumbers through the door and Vito presses a glass of whiskey into my hand. He slumps into the seat at my left.

“Were we fools to think that, after dealing with Andrew Walsh, things would get better?” he asks.

Vito is usually the last to lose hope. It’s not a good look on him.

“We regained control of the docks,” I point out, taking a seat. “We would never have achieved that while Andrew Walsh was alive.”

The Bellucis used to control