Bloodbound: The Alliance
Chapter 26 - 30

Chapter 26: Chapter 30

Avara POV

Two weeks have passed since my secret abduction. And for the past two weeks, I have been living life on the edge of a blade. Luciano hasn’t come back. And Silas is furious with me and won’t let the guards let me out of their sight. Which makes me equally as furious because I’m not sure what I’m being protected from. The Yakuza aren’t a threat to me personally and I think my father and brothers know what. It’s more than just a precaution. There is something else they’re not telling me.

I just don’t know what would be worse than my current situation.

"You said you were coming back soon?" I say, putting three slices of pizza from the box to a plate. "That was a week ago." I slot it inside the microwave, reheating last night’s pizza for breakfast.

"I know, but something came up," Vance says with a sigh, then adds a flair of melodrama to his voice. "I promise I’ll be back home as quick as I can, honey."

I smile humouredly, playing along. "Good, because you promised Gregory you would watch his soccer match."

He bursts into a fit of laughter. A tantalizing sound. "Gregory?" he repeats with another roar of laughter.

"What? That’s the name of our fictional son."

"There’s no way you’d name him Gregory? Even I would bully him."

"Okay, okay, I get your point."

"There’s another reason I’m calling—"

The microwave blares an obnoxiously loud bleep.

"What is that?"

"My pizza."

I take it out.

"Isn’t it about.... eight or nine in the morning back home?"

"Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not having a healthy avocado toast for breakfast." I lift one slice to my mouth, tearing off the point. "Been going through some stuff."

"Really?" A tincture of concern. "Well, you will have more than enough time to tell me about it on holiday."

I pause with a mouthful of pizza still in my mouth. I chew quickly, then swallow.

"What holiday?"

"Landen’s behavior enraged my father... yours told him about the fight with your brother. So my control-freak of a father wants to alleviate tensions by taking us all out to one of his many villas. I suggested the one on lake Como in Italy."

I push the plate aside. "And he thinks spending time in close proximity is going to make things better?"

"It’s his hope. They want to do it the week before Bahadur’s party, but after some event that Governor Adler is hosting that your father doesn’t want to miss."

I perk up. "Bahadur... it’s that time already?"

"It is," he says grimly. "Your proposal is pending. I know it’s hardly romantic, and it sucks the thrill of a surprise to know when it’s happening."

"Being told I’m having an arranged marriage is surprise enough."

"I suppose." A smile in his voice. "If I’m forced to do this, forced to marry someone I don’t love. I’m grateful it’s with someone I at least respect."

A warm feeling flutters through my chest.

"Vance, I—"

Another call comes through. I pull the phone away to check my screen.

I put it back on my ear. "Vance, you precious bastard, I’m going to have to call you back."

I end the call before he can say anything. I answer the other call.

"I hope this is urgent."

"We have to meet."

"You do know I’m followed everywhere I go. If they see you with me—"

"They won’t. I’ll send you a location."

***

I come to a widespread park, populated with people.

The instructions were clear. The southeast of the park and sit at the middle bench in front of the pond. I stroll to it, two guards tailing me from a few meters away. My eyes jump to every runner that rushes past me, a gaggle of children or a couple. Eventually, I reach the bench and I sit down, viewing the grandiose pond through my brown-tinted frames. I pretend to be fascinated with the green-turned-ochre scenery, however, I’m too fraught to feign admiration.

"Go to the bridge."

I frown and I glance to my left. A glimpse of an elderly man.

"Don’t look at me."

My head snaps straight.

"Don’t say anything, just go to the bridge and walk under it."

I rise slowly and pass him. He scatters breadcrumbs for the birds. I walk onwards, keeping an unrelenting pace, winding through clumps of people until I reach the dark underpass beneath the overarching bridge. A man wearing a cap pushes a bulky ice cream cart, and he stops it right next to me. He goes to its side and slides open the flank, then nods at it for me to get in.

"No time. If you want to meet him, get in."

I scramble inside quickly, fitting my long-legged self into a box. Thank God I’m not claustrophobic. My legs are pressed against my chest, my back hunched over. The door shuts, and the cart trundles forward, quaking as it rolls onwards. After five minutes or so, the cart jerks to the side and comes to a complete standstill. It opens and I pour out of the cart. The man opens the door to the backseat of a random Volkswagen car.

"Your Uber, Miss."

I fumble into the backseat. He closes the door behind me.

"Your phone," he demands.

I meet Simon’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

Out of choices, I hand it to him. He removes the cover to take out the sim card and battery and drops it on the passenger seat to lay bare. He moves out of the parking spot and the car cruises down the road.

"What’s with all the cloak and dagger? An ice-cream cart, really?"

"Avara—"

"And who was the old man?"

"No one important," he interrupts with a hot spike in his tone. "I’ll answer your questions when you answer mine. What happened after you lost your father at that fake restaurant?"

"It wasn’t fake... I saw people there, workers, servers and cooks."

"They were using that place as a front. Forensic accounting would ascertain to places like checking exchanges, pawn shops or car dealerships, using high-volume cash flow business to launder money. I’m guessing that was what the restaurant was. A front."

I meet his gaze again. An eerie sense of suspicion lingers in them.

"What happened?" His hands white-knuckling around the wheel.

"I told you."

"A lie. I just wanted you to do me the courtesy of lying to my face."

I release a whooshing breath, falling forward to snatch off my sunglasses, dropping them on my lap to plough my hands through my hair.