Catching Bianca: A Dark Mafia Romance (Shadows of Obsession Book 4)
Catching Bianca: Chapter 3

“That’s it, baby. That’s it.” The words echo through Broadway’s apartment, punctuated by Violet’s moans, the symphony hitting my ears as soon as the elevator doors open in his living room. “Such a pretty girl, Violet. Come for me.”

Fuck. My. Life. Just my damn luck.

“Don’t hold it. Let me hear you.”

It’s eight am for God’s sake. He knew I was coming over. He told me to come over.

“Almost there, almost—”

“Rise and shine, lovebirds!” I yell, interrupting Broadway’s encouraging monologue.

Violet’s mewls cease as if my greeting pressed a mute button on her vocal cords. That doesn’t mean they’re done, though.

If I know Broadway—and I do—he won’t take his dick out of her until she screams his name.

I force my feet to move, marching toward the tablet on the wall, and start the first playlist I replace, giving them a false sense of privacy. I’m also saving what’s left of my psyche.

“Cravin’” by Stileto and Kendyle Paige fills the space. He better thank me later. This is a tune you can properly fuck to. I could have blasted “Baby Shark” on loop to kill the mood.

I jab my finger into the plus sign, turning up the volume until Broadway’s “Close your fucking ears, Ryder!” is lost among the thumping beat.

Dropping my duffel bag on the coffee table, I pull out my laptop and set up the equipment requested by the currently occupied fuckboy down the hall.

It’s been a month since his last killing spree. He’s getting—rightly so—rather impatient to eliminate the remaining two men who hurt his girl. Locating them gets harder and harder with every passing day. I think they know they’re on a list. That they’ll die if they can’t hide.

And die they do in gruesome ways.

The last target died an interesting death twenty-seven days ago. The body is yet to be discovered, and considering the man’s many pieces were cremated, the cops will be looking for… well, forever.

The night I found culprit number seven, we were all sitting at Carter’s. The two lovey-dovey couples—the shit Carter and Broadway do for their girls is astounding—were enjoying a few drinks while watching a movie.

Whatever the romantic comedy was, it gave birth to another one of Broadway’s grizzly-bear moments.

A chill runs down my spine when I recall the cold-as-fuck Alaskan setting and the almost naked man face-down in the snow. He shivered in the sub-zero temperature, his nose and the tips of his fingers turning a bruising shade of purple.

Frostbite, however, was the last thing he should’ve worried about. Worse things were planned for that day.

Carter stood beside me, shoulders squared back, his grave attention on Broadway—his deranged right-hand man. Koby toyed with his knife while I crouched in the snow, much more interested in the doggies than the execution about to happen.

The freezing morning flashes before my eyes in a kaleidoscope of short clips.

Four huskies trained for sledge pulling. Broadway’s manic smile while he roped the man’s wrists and ankles. The excitement in his voice as he yelled, “Hike!”

The dogs bolted, as they do. Once, twice, thrice.

Again.

And again.

Broadway kept yelling, watching with sick satisfaction as the dogs tore the man limb from limb.

It wasn’t an instant death. Far from it. It was long, horrifically painful. Yanking an arm out of its shoulder socket isn’t easy, but after a dozen tries, the white, fluffy snow beneath our feet turned crimson.

We’re all considered psychopaths.

I’ve been called that and many different names countless times in my career as a part of Carter’s inner circle. Koby, me, even Carter—we’ve all heard psycho thrown in our general direction more than once in our lives.

While there have been moments I’ve thought the name definitely fits me, I’m nothing in comparison to Broadway. He takes the fucking psycho crown. I wouldn’t think of using dogs for a kill if I had ten years to come up with the idea, I swear.

Shaking off the memory, I set up the video clip from a surveillance camera outside a nightclub in New York.

It’s proof-of-unimportance, as Broadway calls it. A proof for Carter that Violet’s rapist, a man destined for death, isn’t someone Broadway can’t murder.

At this point, I doubt Carter would refuse a kill even if Broadway wanted to annihilate someone important. There are a few exceptions, like Dante Carrow and his men, but anyone else would be fair game, I think. Carter’s growing exponentially more worried about Broadway’s mental state the more brutal and elaborate the torture/kill sessions get.

We all hope that once everyone who rented Violet from Noretto has bitten the dust, Broadway will replace his wits again.

He better. He has a baby on the way. He needs to tame the grizzly bear inside him and fast.

I get more comfortable on the sofa as the song soundtracking Broadway and Violet’s fuck-fest changes to “TipToe” by PatrickReza.

Looks like I scared Violet’s orgasm away when I barged in here—invited, by the way—and now Broadway’s starting the time-consuming task of summoning her high from the top.

Sometimes, though it happens rarely for me, female orgasms are the most annoying things known to mankind. I remember the few times I had a girl on the verge of falling apart, only for her orgasm to play peek-a-boo with me because she heard a sound that took her out of the moment, or I changed the pace oh-so softly.

Another three minutes of my fingers tapping the couch go by and still no sign of Broadway. I lean over my laptop indulging in the ritual I adopted two months ago: checking hospital databases and police reports for any sign of Hailey’s half-sister and deadbeat father.

That’s task number one on the long list I tick off every day trying to locate Charles Vaughn and Bianca Annabelle Davis.

So far, no luck.

Wherever they’re hiding, they’re doing a great fucking job. I’ve hacked into the surveillance systems of almost all the larger cities in America. Vaughn’s number plates are running non-stop through the system. Face-recognition software is scouring millions of cameras around the clock, waiting for a hit, but the United States is a hell of a big place.

I’m basically looking for a needle in a haystack. A needle accompanied by an ex, but—unfortunately—great, cop.

Hailey told me where Vaughn hid her and her mother over the years when things were getting too heated at his job. Every spot is under surveillance, including Hailey’s grandparents in Idaho.

So far, nothing. It’s like they fell off the face of the earth.

And I’m the one tasked with replaceing them, which means spending more hours in front of my laptop than ever before.

I love the job, but after two months of staring at the screen almost non-stop, of staring at a picture of her in the top left corner of the screen, I’m fucking tired.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s not unpleasant to look at. Quite the opposite, actually. I know every feature of her face by heart. I know how many freckles pepper her cheeks, how many dark specks are in her honey-colored eyes, and the precise angle of her full lips curling into a smile.

Though there are less than a handful of pictures where Bianca’s smiling. Her facial expressions have slightly more range than a teaspoon.

Anyway, looking at her is the highlight of this entire endeavor. My inner stalker has been growing more attached to her day by day. More attached and more bold in how it summons inappropriate fantasies. I’ve imagined Bianca naked, panting, moaning more times that I’d have the courage to admit.

Still, I’m tired of staring at the screen non-stop.

I haven’t had time for a night of drinking, getting laid, or even a good night’s sleep because Hailey’s agitated and impatient, which in turn means Carter’s acting out.

The man is a tantrum-throwing child when his girl is upset.

And judging by my Bianca obsession, getting laid needs to be on my agenda, some girl to help me fuck her out of my system. The last thing I need is Hailey chewing my head off because I’m too attached to her sister.

Another three songs end before the music dies down and the bedroom door at the end of the hallway swings open with a whoosh. I don’t have to look to know that’s Broadway.

Not only do I know his rhythmical footsteps off by heart, but I know Violet won’t show her face until I leave. She’ll avoid me for the next few days until her embarrassment dies down.

This isn’t the first time I’ve walked in on them fucking. It seems they hardly do much else these days.

“You said eight,” I tell Broadway when he enters the living room, hair disheveled, arms scratched, a half-empty bottle of water in hand. “It’s twenty past eight.”

“Hormones,” he says, a high-wattage grin almost tearing his face open from ear to ear. It loses some brightness when I don’t share his enthusiasm.

Was he expecting a high five?

Koby would.

Looks like they’re spending too much time together.

“I woke up with her hand wrapped around my dick.” He plops down beside me, running his hand through the rat’s nest sitting atop his head. “What would you have me do?”

“Fuck your girl on your own time.”

“I did. We would’ve been done in about ten seconds if you hadn’t shouted. You had to open your mouth, didn’t you?”

“Excuse me for offering you a heads-up and some privacy.”

His big hand lands on my shoulder, squeezing once. “Next time, I’ll send you a text.”

“No.” I grab the keyboard, tapping away to show him the footage he’s interested in. “Next time, you’ll come by my place.”

“Yeah, that’s fair.”

Of course, it’s fucking fair. I haven’t had time for a proper jerk-off session in two months. My balls are bluer than blue. Sparing me the mewls, moans, and gasps accompanying his sex life is the least he owes me.

I don’t need to hear them in the act while I can’t hook up because I’m on the lookout for the men Broadway desperately wants to kill.

For the purpose of this rant, we’ll pretend that locating the fuckers on his list fills the majority of my time, not the multitude of surveillance feeds I’m watching for any sign of Bianca.

“So? Who have you got this time?” Broadway asks, looking at the screen over my shoulder.

“Does it even matter who he is?”

“Makes no odds to me, but Carter needs details.”

“He’s a nobody. Deals drugs for one of Dante’s associates. Expendable.”

We watch said expendable, soon-to-be-dead dealer standing on one of New York’s many street corners last night. He clutches a bottle of liquor in one hand while toying with a small bag of white powder in the other. The image is grainy, as it usually is on city cameras, but clear enough that face recognition caught him.

That’s more than enough for Broadway.

“I traced his journey and got his home address.”

I don’t bother filling in the details. I learned in no time that neither Broadway, Koby, nor Carter care about the how. They don’t give a shit that I metaphorically crawled out of my skin for hours on end while staying with this guy while he navigated Queens in his car.

They couldn’t care less that his street is not under surveillance. That I hacked his neighbors’ door cameras to pinpoint where he lives.

They want results. So, results they get.

Another pat and squeeze of my shoulder. “You’re the man, Ryder. You got a personal file on him?”

“Already emailed to Carter.” I switch the screen back to the program running Bianca’s details through hospital databases. “Got another horror-movie-worthy plan for the kill?”

“I’m sure I can think of something interesting. If I remember correctly, he’s the guy who duct-taped Violet’s mouth, then used a lot of objects on her that weren’t fit for purpose,” he says, his brows meeting in the middle. “She didn’t give me many details, never does, but she mentioned a wine bottle, a knife, a big wrench… If that’s him—”

“Let me guess. You’ll return the favor?”

“Call me crazy, Ryder. Call me a psycho and you’ll be right, but no way am I shoving anything into a man’s ass.” He chuckles. “Arthur, on the other hand, has been asking for a promotion into our ranks for a while now.”

“Arthur? The bartender at Scarlett?”

Broadway nods. “It’ll be a good way to check how much he can handle, don’t you think?”

“Run it by Carter first. Somehow, I don’t think he’ll approve of testing new soldiers with your sick ideas.”

Although given how much he wants Broadway’s wits back about him, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe he’ll green-light whatever the hell Broadway wants to speed the process.

He’s still level-headed on the job, but he’s also restless. As if he expects one of the still-breathing rapists will barrel through the door, looking for Violet.

No one would get near enough to lay a hand on her, but I think Broadway’s afraid any encounter with her past will set her recovery back.

“Any news on Bianca?” he asks, jutting his chin at her face occupying the top left corner of the screen.

“Not yet.”

Broadway groans, even though I bet he expected this answer. If I had anything, they’d know immediately.

“Carter’s becoming more exhausting by the day,” he says.

That he is. Whenever Hailey’s on edge, he’s not far off standing on his head to ensure she’s comfortable and calm again. It’s not easy when the half-sister she never met is on the run with the unpredictable ex-cop.

“He’s worried Vaughn’s using her the same way he did Hailey and Violet,” Broadway adds.

It crossed my mind, too, but I’m not sure how that would work. “He never physically hurt either of them.”

I click into the software running through the nationwide surveillance cameras I hacked. There are thousands, and Bianca’s face is being fed to them all, but so far, not one hit—not even a false alarm.

“Agree to disagree,” Broadway says. “He let Alex into Hailey’s life, didn’t he? Look how that turned out. Maybe Vaughn didn’t hurt the girls with his own two hands, but that doesn’t mean he’s not responsible. Facilitating Grey’s ventures for so long meant Noretto’s business flourished. Violet wouldn’t have made it to America if Noretto’s trafficking venture hadn’t taken off the ground, correct?”

“You wouldn’t be here, about to become a father and planning how you’ll propose if Violet never made it to America.”

Broadway nods, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She’s my everything. My reason. But I’d rather never have met her if it meant she hadn’t lived that nightmare.”

I get what he’s saying. It’s understandable. Violet did go through fucking hell, but Broadway’s forgetting she was already living a nightmare back in Slovakia.

Granted, a different kind of nightmare, but still.

“Everything happens for a reason,” I say.

“Yeah… seems the reason’s always Vaughn. Someone should kill the guy already.”

There was a time when I had Vaughn’s accidental death planned in the smallest detail. Carter couldn’t pull the trigger as it would destroy Hailey, but I had the perfect solution.

Too bad Carter didn’t let me follow through with it, even though I could tell he loved the premise.

Unfortunately, no matter how Vaughn dies, Hailey will be devastated. He’s a sorry excuse for a father, a vile human, a cop fallen from grace… but he’s still her father. Carter’s incapable of causing Hailey any distress, so for the longest time, Vaughn remained untouchable.

Thankfully, things change. After what he did last month, his immunity died a sad death. Even Hailey’s not protecting him as fiercely anymore. She doesn’t want him dead, but she no longer considers him a part of her family.

Vaughn lost himself somewhere along the way. He’s not the man he once was, and Hailey can see that.

Maybe I can revisit the accident idea with Carter…