•KINLEY•We had viewed all the houses and I was pretty much sulking in the car."So, which one should we take?" Gianni asked me."They are all nice, so I don't mind."He sighed, "I know you're upset about the other house, but we can't do anything about that right now.""I know. I'm just... I feel like I've lost a part of me with that house. We have so many memories there." My vision blurred with unshed tears, the emotions getting too much for me."Baby, we made those memories. They go everywhere with us. They aren't in that house. And we have the rest of our lives together to make many more memories." He leaned over and kissed me, "I love you.""I love you too," I sniffled and wiped my face with my hand, "But really, any of the houses we looked at are fine. They're all really nice."We hadn't looked at any mansions, but that was fine with me. The houses were big enough for us without being too big. Each house also had a pool in the backyard.I wondered how Gianni planned on coping wit
•KINLEY•My nerves were bouncing through the roof as Gianni and I walked into the home of Noah O'Clery.A woman with a large protruding belly greeted us immediately with a warm smile on her face, "Hello, Gianni," she turned to me with the same smile, "You must be Kinley. Welcome."I smiled back but didn't trust myself to speak. I was still reeling from the fact that I had handed one of Noah's brothers over to King.A man cleared his throat down the hall and I had to fight the urge to hide behind Gianni as he walked toward us.He was older than I imagined, Fiona looked to be in her early thirties, but Noah looked to be in his fifties.His auburn hair had whisps of grey in it.His mouth was in a tight line when he greeted Gianni. When he turned to me, his eyes narrowed slightly."Kinley, my brother has told me a lot about you."I forced myself to hold his gaze, "Good."He smirked before turning back to Gianni, "Why don't we leave the women to tea while the two of us discuss business?"G
•KINLEY•"How did it go?" I asked as soon as we got into the car to leave."He denies being part of the fire. He does however claim that Jodie is behind it with no help of theirs. She does have a connection to Callum, the brother you didn't arrest.""Lovely. And is Callum involved in the fire?""We suspect so, yes. He has been avoiding Noah.""So what is the plan going forward?""Find Callum and Jodie. Eliminate them. Then we go ahead with our original plan for Noah and the rest of his crew.""What about Fiona and their son?"Gianni frowned, "I would prefer to leave no loose ends. But I don't feel comfortable killing a child.""Good, you shouldn't. I exchanged numbers with Fiona, we're meeting for lunch later this week."Gianni sighed, "Gattina, why are you doing this? These people are our enemies.""Noah is our enemy. Fiona just goes along with everything he tells her. The doting housewife. If I can get through to her, I don't see why she needs to die."He shot me a look, "You just w
•KINLEY•I stood in the kitchen of our new home unpacking boxes of plates Gianni had ordered.Renato was playing on his play mat on the floor.Gianni was pacing between the rooms while on the phone and I was trying to hear what he was saying because he looked worried, but I wasn't able to hear what he was saying."Baby, I need to go and meet Barney. Luca is on his way to wait here with you.""Is it about Jodie?""We think that he may have an idea of where Callum is.""Okay, let me know?""I will." He kissed me goodbye before leaving.A part of me wanted to go with him, but I also wanted to spend more time with Renato and bond with him more than what I had been.I finished unpacking the kitchenware and made Renato something to eat and was busy feeding him when Luca walked in."Sorry, I'm late. We had an incident and my son's school.""What happened? Is he okay?""He's fine. He fell off the monkey bars.""Oh gosh, taking after his father, I see."Luca chuckled and took the spoon from me
•KINLEY•I was in the kitchen plating breakfast of eggs and bacon when Gianni walked in."Morning. Are you in a better mood now?"I shot him a glare, "No.""Right." He took a seat at the table, "Are we going to talk about this, or are you just planning on treating me like shit?"I put my plate down before getting the coffee pot, "I'm not treating you like shit.""Yes, you are. You asked for a divorce and left me. We weren't together when I was with Jodie. I didn't cheat on you.""Did you ever hear me saying that you cheated on me? But if you want to go there, fine. We never divorced, so yeah, technically that's cheating."Gianni looked at me as if I had lost my mind, "You left me, Gattina."I sighed, "Can we please not do this right now? I'm trying to cope with everything, and I'm not in the right frame of mind.""What must we do to fix this? I don't like this arguing and tension between us.""I don't know, Gianni. I think we've already established that I don't have a clue on how to h
•GIANNI•Sitting in Euphoria with Kinley felt strange after so long.After Luca had picked up Renato I took Kinley out for dinner before she decided she wanted to dance.In all truth, I wanted to go home, but being in this environment was becoming an issue for my drug problem.I sipped on my drink while keeping my eyes on Kinley who was dancing. I was sitting at a table near the VIP room."Hey, I haven't seen you here in a while." Janet was standing beside me suddenly, her hand leaning against the back of my chair.I guessed she must have been on duty dancing for the night judging by her attire of sparkly underwear."Yeah, Kinley wanted to come by," I motioned to my wife."I heard rumors that she returned, I had no idea they were true. We didn't think she would be back."I nodded, but I wasn't really interested in having this conversation with her.Kinley and I were already having enough issues, I didn't need to make it worse by entertaining a woman I used to sleep with."She looks li
•KINLEY•My eyes felt heavy as opened them, my body aching.I looked around the whole room in despair, everything coming back to me in a rush as I realized I lost the car.Gianni was gone.My body protested in pain as I forced myself to sit up before I ripped the various tubes from my body and got to my feet.It felt like I had been run over by a train.I slowly made my way over to the mirror in the room and gasped at the sight.My forehead was bandaged and the nose and side of my face were a mix of black and purple bruising. My bottom lip was split open.Despite looking like something out of a horror movie, I made my way to the door and walked out, wincing in pain with every step I took."What are you doing? Mrs. Esposito, you need to get back to bed." An elderly nurse said as she came over to me."I need to find my husband.""Kinley!"I looked over to see Barney coming toward us with concern etched on his face."Did you find Gianni?"He shook his head, "Not yet. Luca went over to No
•KINLEY• I paced the warehouse while waiting for Fin to return. "He's crossed us and now he's run off," Barney said. "No, he's late that's all." Just as the words left my mouth the door opened and Fin walked in. I shot Barney an 'I told you so' look. "Noah hasn't had any contact with Callum, but I gave him a call." "And?" "He's meeting me tomorrow morning. I asked if he was involved with Gianni being taken and he laughed and said we would talk about it tomorrow." I turned to Luca, "You're coming with me to that meeting." Luca made a face, "With? Wouldn't you rather wait here while we go? We'll bring him back here." I shook my head, "No. I'm going." Barney gave Luca a pointed look, "This is why he locked her in a room." "Barney shut up," I exclaimed with a roll of my eyes. Fin took a seat, "So what's the plan, temp boss?" "Where are you meeting him? Is it secluded or public?" "Public." "Okay, try and get him into your car. Luca, you hide in the backseat and when he's in,