Storm's Cage by Mary Stone (uplifting novels .TXT) 📕

voice cut through the buzz of the ringtone before Joseph had even cleared the intersection. “Yeah?”

“I’m returning your call.” Joseph shifted the device to his other ear and tightened his grasp on the steering wheel. “Did our friend arrive?”

Dalessio cleared his throat. “Yeah. Found him out by the fishing hole. Everything is safe and secure here at the Englewood house. You know the one, right?”

Easing down on the brake, Joseph flicked on his turn signal. “I’ve been there a couple times. I’m headed there now. ETA fifteen to twenty minutes.” Englewood was in the opposite direction of where he lived, but he was eager to knock out his conversation with Russel Ulmer before he officially ended his day.

“He doesn’t know you’re coming. And to be honest, I don’t know why you would want to, but I’ll allow it this one time. What do you want me to tell him?”

Joseph almost laughed aloud at the haughty reply. These mobsters and their huge egos. He didn’t doubt that Joe felt he was truly being magnanimous. If the sorry prick only knew what was coming. But seeing as Joseph wasn’t on the Leóne payroll, he owed the man no deference and felt no need to reveal anything. Joe could enjoy the surprise right along with Russel. “Just tell him someone’s coming to help him disappear.”

The line was silent for a beat before Dalessio replied. “Okay. I’ll do that. See you soon, then.”

“Yeah, thanks.” With the succinct farewell, Joseph pulled the phone from his ear and snapped the device shut.

He and Joe Dalessio had never been friends by any stretch of the imagination, but Joe was one of the few Leónes who’d ever interacted with Joseph face-to-face. The seasoned capo ran a tight ship.

Or, at least, he had, until his younger cousin had opened up a kiddie porn ring right under his nose.

Despite the reassurances from Brian Kolthoff and the Leóne family alike, Joseph was unconvinced that Joe had been as blind to the operation as he claimed.

As the old saying went, “Money talks and bullshit walks.” Plenty of perverts on the dark web would pay a premium for the type of content Alton had provided.

Cursing under his breath, Joseph clamped both hands around the wheel and pressed down on the accelerator.

He kept company with all manner of unsavory characters—everything from drug traffickers to organ harvesters—but he drew the line at predators who preyed on the very young.

Twenty-eight years earlier, when Joseph was only eight years old and his brother was eleven, his mother had brought a man named Sawyer Kastner into their lives. They’d been dirt poor at the time, and Joseph’s mother, Jennifer, worked two to three different jobs just to keep a roof over their heads.

Sawyer had been a successful real estate agent in a nearby city, and Jennifer had been so consumed by his ability to elevate her lot in life that she’d neglected to take notice of the man’s peculiarities.

Even almost thirty years later, Joseph still didn’t know why Sawyer had targeted Dan instead of him. Dan was only three years older than Joseph, and they’d frequently received comments on how much they looked alike.

Dan had suffered in silence for two years. In that time, Jennifer and Sawyer married and were about to have their first daughter. Their household was well-furnished, the pantry was full, and their back-to-school clothes were new. With Sawyer’s income to support them, Jennifer had even obtained an associate’s degree in accounting.

To an outside observer, their family’s lives had taken a turn for the better. But no one had a clue as to what kind of hell had been created for an innocent twelve-year-old boy.

If Joseph hadn’t confided in his older brother about their stepfather’s creepy midnight visits, he doubted Dan would have said anything at all. But the damage had already been done.

Three years later, after their mother had divorced Sawyer and tried to have him sent to jail, Dan overdosed on prescription pills.

The pain and shame were too much for him to overcome. His brother had killed himself. All because of that prick, Sawyer Kastner.

Tightening his grasp on the steering wheel, Joseph pushed aside the recollection. He’d told Dalessio that he intended to talk to Russel Ulmer, but he had nothing to say to the sick bastard.

Russel was a loose end, and Joseph specialized in tying up loose ends.

After another ten minutes of uneventful driving, Joseph pulled into a rundown parking lot beside a playground that wasn’t in much better shape.

The flickering light of a ruddy orange streetlamp caught the face of his watch as he shoved the driver’s side door closed. With a cursory glance to ensure no would-be assailants lurked in the shadows, Joseph set off for the sidewalk at a brisk walk.

A couple voices drifted over to him from the courtyard of a decrepit apartment building, but neither person’s comment was directed at Joseph. Residents in the neighborhood knew that a white man walking alone at night could only bring trouble.

He hurried past a condemned duplex to the two-story Victorian on the corner lot. Even though much of the glow from the streetlights was blocked by a towering maple, Joseph could still see the spots where paint curled off the splintered siding. Cracks crisscrossed the sloping driveway like fault lines, and tree branches had scratched away almost half the shingles on the roof of the garage.

Leaves crunched beneath Joseph’s dress shoes as he strode up the crumbling sidewalk. The wraparound porch was a patchwork of different types of wood, each mismatched board reminiscent of a hasty repair to keep the entire structure from collapsing.

A sliver of light pierced through the gap between a set of heavy curtains that covered the picture window next to a broken bench. Creaks of protest accompanied his footsteps, and he gritted his teeth.

If I fall through this damn floor, I’m going to burn this entire house to the ground.

To his relief, he made it to the doorway without incident. Pulling open the rusted screen door,