CHAPTER EIGHT
LUCA
Muted conversations carry over the traditional Irish music playing in the background of Delaney’s. Blackthorn owns the bar, and we conduct a lot of business here, so I figured it’d be a good spot to start sharing the news of my upcoming nuptials with my brothers.
Enzo hasn’t officially approved my proposition, but he will.
He’s a smart man. You don’t rise to become don of an Italian mob without the brains to back up your brawn—AKA the army of soldiers inherited from your predecessor.
“Let’s play a game of pool. You owe me a rematch.” Hugo, Rafe, and I head toward one of three billiards tables and wait for the current game to finish before the guys take a hint and leave the table to us. Jonah and Mathias couldn’t make it tonight, and Dmitri is off doing Blackthorn business.
“I can’t help it if you haven’t figured out how the game works yet. It’s all about angles. Once you understand that basic principle, maybe you’ll stand a chance at beating me,” I say.
Rafe racks the balls while Hugo smirks, leaning against the wall to quietly watch our match.
He never says much. A result of being Conrad Steele’s son, I suppose.
While every Blackchapel Bastard had an absent father growing up, Hugo’s dad was very much present.
Though the murder lessons wouldn’t win him any Father of the Year awards.
“I understand the basics, asshole. I just can’t visualize a fucking protractor on the table so every shot is the exact right degree like you.”
“Yet you still put money on the line thinking you can beat me.”
“One of these days it’ll happen,” Rafe grumbles. The balls scatter across the green bombazine with the crack of the cue ball. Two striped balls drop into side pockets.
“He’s playing the long game, Luca,” Hugo says, studying the table as Rafe circles it while calculating his next move. “Waiting to hustle you years down the road when you let your guard down.”
I chuckle. “Can’t wait. We’ll be eighty, and Rafe will finally decide to make his move. A plan decades in the making.”
“You laugh, but it could happen,” Rafe mutters. His shot goes wide, and I grin at the opening.
“Tough luck, kid.” Rafe’s not that much younger than me, but as the youngest of us, he gets the little brother treatment. Chalking my cue stick, I start calling my shots and clearing the table. “So, I’ve got some news. I’m getting married.”
“What? Since when?”
“To whom?”
After sinking the eight ball, I hand the cue to Hugo, so he can take on Rafe in a more even match. “Eden Marino. I made a deal with Enzo to bring Blackthorn and The Family closer.”
“Why?” Rafe asks. “We’re already working on bringing your dad down. Marrying a stranger isn’t necessary.”
“Maybe not.” I don’t tell them that it’s absolutely necessary for me to marry Eden instead of another man, especially my half-brother.
“But it can only help our cause. Enzo will trust me more with another tie to him because this one will be legitimate. There’s a mark against me for being his bastard son, but tying myself in a legally binding contract to one of the mafia families kind of balances that out. ”
I just made that up, but it sounds right.
“And you decided to do this without any input from us?” Hugo asks, his narrowed gaze glancing at me before dropping back to the billiards table.
“We’re a team. A brotherhood. We can’t go off half-cocked when it affects all of us.
This Eden woman will surely be asked to spy on us.
We’ll have to be extra careful with what we discuss around her. ”
“Eden can be trusted,” I grit out. Enzo may ask her to report what she sees at Blackchapel Manor, and she may even agree since he’s the don, but I doubt she’ll actually follow through, especially once I make it clear that she’s safe with me.
Fallout from not following the don’s orders will never reach her.
“Wait a minute.” Rafe straightens and shoots a curious stare my way. “Is this the woman Jonah mentioned? The one you met at Enzo’s birthday party? The one you’ve been stalking most nights?”
“Are you following me?”
“No, but you just confirmed I’m right.” He smirks. “Damn, first Mathias and now you. And Jonah’s got that journalist. What the fuck is happening to us?”
I don’t get a chance to answer when the front door to Delaney’s bursts open causing everyone to stare in shocked silence as a newcomer saunters inside.
He pauses a second to survey the room before locking eyes with me and striding forward.
His companion follows behind, and that’s when I notice a hooded woman hanging limply in his arms.
What the fuck?
“A message,” the leader says as his buddy dumps the unconscious woman on the billiards table. Pinned to her torn shirt are words that have me seeing red.
You want the bitch? She’s yours.
Nausea climbs my throat as I rip the black covering off, and my fears are confirmed.
It’s Eden.
Beaten black and blue with trails of blood dried on her chin from a cut lip.
When I look up to interrogate the men who brought her, they’re already gone. Probably realized they’re dead once I get my hands on them.
“Please tell me this isn’t who I think it is.” Rafe is rapidly texting on his phone. Most likely a message to notify Jonah, Mathias, and Dmitri of this newest development.
“It is.” Carefully scooping Eden into my arms, I forge a path through the stunned crowd of bar patrons. “Call the doctor and have him meet us at the manor.”
Fabian’s a dead man.
His name was already on my list, right after Enzo’s, but now the timeline has been accelerated. My brothers and I will take down Enzo’s empire, but Fabian? He’s going down much earlier.
Because no one touches my woman and lives to tell about it.