“I can’t snap my fingers and get every piece of my memory back, any more than you can snap your fingers and—” I stop myself before I say more, actually feeling bad for what I was about to say, despite the inkiness blotting his soul.
“And what?” he bites out, his dark eyes flashing with irritation.
“Nothing you don’t know.”
“Say it anyway,” he insists, his voice hard with command, and it hits me that I’ve cast a net, perhaps luring him to a confession he’s dodged and weaved, handing us knowledge we can use against him.
I nod. “Any more than you can snap your fingers and beat cancer.” The harshness in my voice has nothing to do with him, and everything to do with the past I’m slowly threading together.
His eyes darken, pupils fading into black. “What do you know of cancer?”
“Enough to know that even the mob, even you, Niccolo, cannot buy, threaten, or beg its mercy,” I say, and unbidden, an image of my mother in a hospital bed, brittle and aged beyond her years, knots my belly. “If it decides to take you, it takes you.”
There is a spike of some unnamed emotion in his stare, there and gone in an instant, right along with any hope he might make an admission. “You remember its viciousness, but not the location of the necklace,” he says, casting a net of his own.
“It seems that its brutal nature transcends all else, including amnesia,” I say, my answer giving him nothing, while cancer takes everything, before I add, “much like your desire for that necklace.”
“What I desire,” he says tightly, “is to protect my legacy. It will live on when I’m gone, but my enemies will not.”
“And that’s why you want the necklace,” Kayden says. “One last big bang.” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Well, what legacy do you have if a Jackal outsmarts you?”
“I have him contained, Hawk,” Niccolo states irritably, and then shifts to Italian before returning to English. “Do you understand it in my native tongue better than your own?”
“If I were Alessandro,” Kayden states as if he hadn’t spoken, “I’d have taken that necklace from Ella, hid it, and then done my best to destroy whatever evidence you have on me before I sold it.”
“You continue to underestimate me,” Niccolo replies dryly. “When I own someone, Hawk, I own them. I layer the many ways I control them, in ways they know they cannot escape.”
“You underestimate me if you think I couldn’t find a way to shove whatever you had on me right up your pompous—”
“Alessandro is not you,” Niccolo says, cutting him off. “On that, I think we are all quite clear.”
“If he took that necklace he can simply wait for your death,” Kayden points out.
“Those layers I’ve explained extend beyond my death, a fact on which he’s quite clear,” Niccolo replies.
“A caged man has nothing to lose, and no choice but to try to escape,” Kayden retorts.
Niccolo’s jaw tics. “Then it’s a good thing that I now have The Hawk and the best Hunter in two countries, if not more, aligned with me.”
“Only if you hand me whatever ammunition you have on Alessandro. All of it. Every last detail.”
“That would be control I’m not willing to give you.”
“Well then,” Kayden states, “as of this moment, Ella remembers the necklace being in her pocket before she was attacked. When she woke up it was gone, and the two men in suits who mugged her, who I suspect are working for Alessandro, took it. If you want her to look at photos of your men, send them to us. Otherwise, our deal is complete. She is done with you, as am I.”
Niccolo’s eyes flash with agitation, that tic in his jaw more distinct. “What happened to destroying my brother?”
“See, this is where the fun starts for me,” Kayden says. “Now Alessandro is working for you, most likely playing you and your brother, on both payrolls. I get to sit back, order popcorn the way we Americans do, and watch you all destroy each other. And as a bonus, Raul is hovering, sniffing out blood. Oh yeah. It’s going to be a good show.”
He shifts in my direction again, and Niccolo must know he means business this time because he quickly states, “I’ll give you the information you want.”
Kayden reaches over me and opens the door, giving Niccolo a dismissive half glance. “When and how?”
“Delivered to your castle, by sunset. Then we take down my brother and Alessandro together. Four men now standing that we turn into two.”
“Five,” Kayden says. “Dismissing Raul would be a mistake I won’t make. I want what you have on him as well.”
“If I agree to that,” he says, “you agree right here and now that we fight this war together.”
It’s a command, and Kayden doesn’t take commands, this I know, even before he says, “I’ll let you know where we stand when I see that delivery,” and with that, we exit the vehicle.