Page 49 of Vicious Souls

45

DANTE

All I can think about is Kingsley and the stamp she’s left upon my heart. I drive myself literally mad thinking about where she is and what’s happening to her while waiting for any news on the chopper and its whereabouts. I’m certain the aircraft will give us the information we need that will lead us to Kingsley. Meanwhile, there are a few questions that have been niggling at the back of my mind as I try to sort through the mess that is what happened here this afternoon. And one of those questions is how the fuck anyone even found the house. It’s not one that’s registered to any corporation that can be traced back to us. It’s not a home that we’ve ever invited guests into. Our family ownership of the sprawling estate hasn’t been documented for anyone to even consider coming and knocking on our doors. The question of anyone following us to this property is just that – a question which doesn’t even necessitate an answer, as there’s no way we can be followed out to this neck of the woods without being spotted. I’m starting to think there’s someone on my team who has compromised our location – for whatever reason – be it malicious or without intent, when another theory burrows deep within my psyche. It couldn’t be anything as simple as someone feeding the other side information. I know this to be a hundred percent accurate because of Pietro’s superior hacking skills. He has a bead on every single phone, every single device, and every single vehicle that comes into contact with my family. If there is untoward chatter, he would’ve picked up on it.

I pick up my phone and call Pietro, who confirms that he’s picked up on nothing. And he’s been listening. Especially with everything that’s been going on lately. He’s been watching and waiting and listening, on high alert, for anything that might come up. Still, he’s adamant that nothing has been exchanged between any of our men and any outsiders that could compromise our whereabouts or our safety.

I still my mind, which is going at 180 miles an hour. It’s in overdrive. Something is tapping at my temple, telling me to look closer. At what, I don’t know. I just know that there’s a missing piece to the puzzle somewhere, and I need to find it. I replay my life in reverse, from this moment back to the moment I set eyes on Kingsley. It’s a strategy I’ve learnt over the years – that sometimes that which is not clear when you play it forward is clearer when you walk it backwards in slow motion. It’s a skill that has served me well on many occasions, and I close my eyes and step back in time, reversing each event, day by day and bit by bit.

And it’s there, as I’m standing in my wreck of a living room, that I see in my mind’s eye, the moment that I’m standing outside my cabin, speaking on the phone as Kingsley watches me from the window. The night that I saved her from the Savages. The night she was Kingsley, aka Moneybags, before she unfortunately turned into a pumpkin, donned her disguise, and became a boy again. As I replay the vision in my mind, my brain freezes over something, and I hit pause as I try to work out what I’m missing. The car is to my right, and it seems bigger in the vision, and darker. The car. Something about the car. I shake my head and come out of my trance, my thoughts running haphazardly through my head.

Something that Kingsley said slides back into my periphery. Something about the car. I replay my conversation with her over in my mind until I’m recalling word for word what she told me.

“Oh yes.The cabin. About that. What was Tate’s reaction when you turned up at home that night?”

“What’s this obsession with Tate?”

“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t relevant. Tell me what happened.”

Moneybags shakes her head and lets her arms hang loose at her sides. She flings her head up to the ceiling, as though to gather her thoughts, then tells me Tate had gone ballistic the night she came home in the early hours of the morning.

“Does he have that leeway to get mad and scream at you? Does he do that often?”

“He’s always considered me the bane of his existence. Supposedly, I’m reckless and selfish and a real threat to my father’s empire.”

“What happened then?”

“He had a go at me, I screamed back and reminded him to know his place, then I went to bed.”

“What about my car?”

“What about it?”

“You drove all the way home?”

“Yes. I left the car out on the road. That was the last time I saw it.”

“Interesting,” I muse.

“Interesting how?”

“Where did you go the next morning?”

“To the hospital. Where my dead father lay.”

We’d already founda tracking device in my car and surmised that’s how the Savages found us that day at the safe house. It’s the same scenario as now – there is no other way for them to have found us other than to have tracked us. That is the only other reasonable conclusion that one could reach. But that car is gone, as is the tracking device. They didn’t have access to any of our other cars to control them, but…

It suddenly dawns on me, like the piece of the puzzle has been sitting there the whole time waiting for me to connect the dots. Kingsley had taken my car, and she’d left it out on the road. Tate had taken the car or given it to someone to install a tracking device, then had returned the car to the cabin. But how had he known the location of the cabin to return the car? He only had access to the car after Kingsley took it, which meant he knew where she’d been all along. She herself had said that Tate went ballistic the night of her father’s death when she returned home. But Tomas Wojcak knew precisely where Kingsley would be and when in order to attack her. Which meant – Tate had prior knowledge of what she was doing and her whereabouts and fed this information to Tomas.

The picture is suddenly becoming clearer as the whole story falls into place and I get a better idea of what has been going on in the Murray household. Tate had known Kingsley would be at the club that night. He had known Kingsley was at the safe house. And finally, he’d found her in my own home. The common denominator in this equation is Kingsley. And that could only mean one thing.She is the tracker.

46

DANTE

“The helicopter is one owned by the Murrays,” Pietro says, pulling up the footage on the screen. Multiple screens play out different angles of every inch of the house. I watch as he drags his cursor on the screen to indicate the distinct markers that identify the helicopter as being one of Maddog Murrays.

“He was always fond of his toys,” my father says, from somewhere over my shoulder.

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