Chapter 16 #2
“So my father wasn’t forced to sell me off,” I say, allowing it to sink in.
Some part of me had been clinging to the hope that my father hadn’t had any other recourse. That there had been no choice for him to go back on his word and marry me off to Priest. That little part shrivels up and dies inside me, like a plant in a drought.
“In a way, he was, and in a way, he wasn’t. The circumstances didn’t leave him with many options. He didn’t want the Animal to become don, not after finding out that he was plotting to murder him. There was only one way to keep that from happening.”
“He wanted vengeance so badly that he chose it over me.” As I say the words, a kind of icy tranquility overtakes me.
My father was dying, and even then, he put the family first. I wonder if he cared for me at all or if I was only ever a bargaining chip.
Saint’s expression is filled with pity. “Alliances by marriage are common in our world. It would have happened sooner or later for you.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen for me.” I shake my head, confused. “Why did you tell me all this?”
And why didn’t Priest? I don’t know if it would have made a difference.
If I would have seen him in a different light.
He’s still the gangster who held a gun to my head at our first meeting.
But he’s also the man who washed the blood off me like I was a child.
The man who sleeps beside me and holds me when the nightmares come.
“I told you because I know my brother won’t,” Saint says quietly, jerking me from my thoughts. “He didn’t want this any more than you did, but now he’s putting himself on the line to keep you safe.”
“By kidnapping me and locking me away against my will?”
I can’t keep the bitterness from my voice. Regardless of how I ended up where I am and who was responsible, I’m still here and I don’t want to be.
“Where do you think he is tonight?” Saint asks.
“I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.”
Saint’s blue eyes—so like his brother’s—are on me, intense and serious. “He’s meeting with the Animal.”
I hiss in a breath. No wonder Priest didn’t tell me where he was going or why. I was right to worry about him. Amedeo is dangerous. And it’s becoming increasingly clear that he was likely the man behind my father’s murder.
“Give Priest a chance, Luna,” Saint adds into the silence. “Who knows? The two of you might end up happy one day.”
“Yeah, or we might end up dead.” My stomach curdles at the thought of something happening to Priest tonight while he meets with my cousin.
“Sooner or later, we all do.” Saint shrugs. “May as well make the most of the time you have.”
It’s the careless world view of a gangster who has seen and participated in more violence than most people can even fathom. But he’s also proving my point.
“Forgive me if I don’t want to spend my time as the wife of a gangster trapped in an underground bunker,” I retort.
“You won’t be down here forever, Luna. This is temporary, and it’s to keep you safe.” His phone lights up again, and he reads a new message before tapping out a response and then tucking his phone away. “So, back to streaming. What should we watch next?”
Priest
It’s still raining by the time I slip back inside the G-Wagon. The lightning is electric, illuminating the sky above the buildings that preside over us like urban giants. My feet are wet from having splashed through puddles in the parking lot.
“Drive,” I bite out.
Rocco doesn’t waste a second. He’s on the gas, and we’re on the road, heading on a circuitous route back to the casino in case we’re being tailed.
“You okay?” Scorpion asks, his voice sharper than a knife. “What the fuck happened in there?”
“I’m fine.” I slick rain from my hair. “Nothing went down.”
He’s grim. “That was a fuck of a long talk for nothing going down. I was about ready to storm the place and burn it to the ground.”
“The Revellos had a lot on their minds.” I shrug out of my suit jacket. It’s fucking soaked and seeping through to my shirt, and I hate the sensation of wet fabric against my skin.
Unless it’s from climbing into the shower with Luna.
Now isn’t the time to think about my wife, I remind myself for at least the hundredth time today. I’m fucking obsessed with her. Even through the tense meeting between myself, Squeaky, the Animal, and a few other Revello capos, my mind kept darting back to her, like a favorite song stuck on repeat.
“What I really want to know is if there’s going to be a war,” Scorpion says, losing patience with me.
I don’t blame him. I’m distracted, and it has nothing to do with the whiskey I halfheartedly nursed for the entirety of the meeting.
“There’s not going to be a war for now,” I say cautiously, replaying everything that happened in the Diamond Club.
“For now?”
“The families are united like they once were and should have been. The overwhelming majority of the Revello family wants to put the past behind us. Tomasso getting clipped has them spooked. They’re looking for our protection.”
Scorpion whistles through his teeth. “So it’s over, then, and without a shot fired.”
I wish I shared my younger brother’s optimism in this situation.
I shake my head. “I don’t know about that.”
“But you just said Amedeo ceded power to you. The Revellos want to join forces.”
“They’re scared. Amedeo says he’s got his guys working on proof that the Bratva was behind Tomasso’s shooting.”
“The Bratva?” Scorpion’s skeptical. “There’s no way. Their hits are never this messy.”
I don’t disagree with him, and if anyone knows the Bratva, it’s Scorpion. He’s got a guy who’s high in their ranks that he can trust. He keeps the identity of his mole a tight secret, but I’m reasonably sure it’s Dimitri Sidorov, also known as Palach, or in English, Executioner.
“What did your guy have to say about Antonio and his boys?” I ask next, thinking about our cousin.
What happened to him was beyond messy.
And the note that was left behind, directly threatening Luna…
My blood runs cold at the memory, followed swiftly by rage. No one dares to threaten my wife without swift and brutal retribution.
“My guy says that wasn’t them either,” Scorpion says. “He might have a lead on it, but he has to get his ducks in a row before sharing more.”
“And you believe him?”
There’s a pause. “He’s never lied to me before.”
“But you aren’t sure if you believe him,” I dig.
“Jesus, I don’t think I believe anyone. Not one hundred percent.”
“You believed Vittoria,” I remind him.
Vittoria Barone is the daughter of another high-profile family here in the city. Scorpion fell hard and fast for her, but she did him dirty and it fizzled.
“Don’t fucking remind me,” he growls. “I told you I never want to hear her name again.”
It’s my way of pointing out that his judgment hasn’t always been stellar. I’m a prick, and I know it. But I’m not convinced the Bratva connection of Scorpion’s is telling us the truth.
“Easy. Forget I mentioned her. She’s long gone. I heard she married what’s-his-name…”
“Vito Antonelli,” Scorpion mutters.
Antonelli’s a nasty piece of work. From what I understand of what happened between my brother and the Barone girl, she and Antonelli deserve each other.
“That’s right,” I say, calmly picking up my gun and returning it to its holster.
I feel naked without it.
“Why the hell are we talking about this?”
“Because we need to be sure we can trust your fucking Bratva guy,” I snap.
“This is some serious shit we’re in. As the newly anointed don of the united Andriani and Revello families, I can’t let what happened to Antonio and his boys or Tomasso Revello go unanswered.
Heads need to fucking roll. But I want to make sure they’re the right heads. ”
And that’s the thing. I don’t trust Amedeo. The Animal was willing to murder his don and the don’s consigliere just so that he could usurp the throne. Everything, from the plot against Tomasso and Squeaky, to Amedeo’s uninvited presence at the wedding, makes him suspect.
It hasn’t escaped my notice that Amedeo could have attended the wedding specifically to throw suspicion away from himself.
He was a guest, standing relatively close to Tomasso when the shot went off.
He was calm and even friendly at our meeting tonight.
A rational man, so willing to practice forgiveness and humility, wouldn’t arrange for his don to get clipped at his daughter’s wedding.
He wouldn’t have my cousin and his boys whacked so brutally. No, it must have been the Russians.
“I’m telling you, Priest, I don’t think the Bratva were behind this shit,” Scorpion insists solemnly.
“What went down with Antonio and his boys,” I say, rubbing my jaw. “It doesn’t make sense. Why the fuck would Antonio try to start a turf war? He knows we’ve been playing nice with the Bratva and how hard-fought that tentative truce was. To do something so stupid, expose us this way…”
“He had to have known what he was doing,” Scorpion agrees. “The operation he started was nowhere near our territory.”
“It was so deep inside Bratva grounds that it may as well have been up the Pakhan’s ass. And he didn’t run it by any of us first. He was totally out of line.”
Neither of us says it, but if Antonio hadn’t been clipped, I would have had to give the order myself. Those kinds of reckless mistakes can’t happen, and if they do, they need to be dealt with swiftly. A message needs to be sent to all our capos and soldiers.
“You think someone put Antonio up to it?” my brother asks.
“It’s a possibility.”
And one I’ve been considering ever since I saw my cousin’s corpse.
“But who? And why?”
“It could be Amedeo. He put on a good show tonight, happy to sacrifice himself for the greater good of the unified families. But that could be nothing more than a front. It’s also possible that Antonio got greedy and he was trying to make a move.”
It wouldn’t have been the first or the last time that a capo decided to break ranks to show himself worthy enough to oust a don.
I’ve seen it done before, made men who work their way into a position of trust and authority, only to try to undercut the don who put them on the fucking pedestal.
Sometimes, it’s worked. Either way, it ends in blood.
“No good either way,” Scorpion says, echoing my thoughts.
“Right. We have to find out who’s behind Tomasso and Antonio and his boys.”
“I’m on it.” My brother’s voice takes on a hard edge.
I know I can trust him; my brothers and I have an unbreakable, unshakable bond. We’re all we have left.
Or, at least, we were.
I have Luna now.
The thought makes a strange burst of heat flare to life in my chest.
I rub it absently, the damp fabric cool and smooth.
“I want you to give Amedeo a security detail. We’ll tell him it’s for his own safety since whoever was behind clipping Tomasso is still out there.
But I want those men on him like hawks on a fucking mouse.
I want daily reports on everything he says and does.
I want to know when he eats, when he sleeps, when he shits. ”
Scorpion nods. “It’ll be done tomorrow.”
“And get back in touch with your Bratva connection. I want his complete assurance that the Russians weren’t behind Antonio or Tomasso. If I don’t have it, I’m going to have to strike.”
“Also done.”
I pat him on the back. “Good. Thank you, brother. I know I can always count on you.”
Feeling restless and grim, I settle into the seat and turn my attention to the nightscape passing rapidly by as Roc shoots through familiar streets.
When, and if, I strike the Bratva, it’s going to turn into an all-out, bloody war.
The Russians are fearless, and they don’t go down without a fight.
After years of brutal infighting between us and the Revellos, the last thing I want on my hands is another decade of death and violence in the streets.
I’m going to have to play this next hand very, very fucking carefully.
Because the future of the unified Andriani and Revello families is hanging in the balance, along with everything and everyone I care about.