Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Alejandro
I emerge from the bush behind which I’ve hidden for the last five minutes. I settled myself there when I spotted Patrick approaching the gazebo. I creep forward, ensuring I’m at an angle where neither Vita nor Patrick can see me.
Half of me is proud of Vita’s interrogation tactics. The other half of me wants to haul her over my shoulder and spank her ass all the way to the car, then take us straight back to our condo where I can spank her some more.
As I listen to Patrick ramble about his bizarre obsession, it’s hard to believe he could be so fucked-up. But if any woman could drive a person to distraction—to the point of believing that if they can’t have her, then nobody can—it would be Vita.
I force myself to remain silent and out of the way as the conversation progresses.
There are so many times I want to intervene.
However, I know that would destroy the progress Vita’s making.
I hate the danger she’s in, even if I’m aware it’s nothing new to her.
Just because she can handle herself in situations like this doesn’t mean I want her to.
I fully recognize the hypocrisy of that, considering what I do for my family. I can’t imagine her as a mercenary once this is over. But I must accept she may want to continue this occupation. I hope she won’t, since what she does is a choice, as opposed to the life I have no choice but to live.
“What do you have against Alejandro?”
“You want him.”
It shocks the shit out of me as Vita draws the information from Patrick, and we learn who’s actually after me. I reach into my pocket and withdraw my phone, opening the group text that all the men in my family are on.
ME
Can you believe this shit?
While all the men here are wearing earpieces that are recording and transmitting to Tío Enrique, Tío Luis, and Papá, none of us can speak. We must rely on text to communicate.
JAVIER
Ese cabrón está realmente loco
That fucker really is crazy.
PABLO
She’s good at this.
It tempts me to type back “too good,” but I keep that thought to myself. Instead, I send a different message.
ME
I want to know how he found out where to be and when. Did someone tell him, or has he been hacking?
Since there’s no immediate answer, I lock my phone and slide it back into my pocket.
“Patrick, you know you’re breathing your last breath. Explain to me how you know so much about where we would be and what my aunt and ex-boyfriend were up to.”
“Zorzi hired me to watch you.”
He’s practically wheezing at this point. Blood’s still streaming from his gunshot wound as he presses against his belly.
“Why? What did any of this matter to them?”
“Since Pasquale only has daughters with his wife, Cosima convinced Zorzi that Pasquale would finally acknowledge him as his son and make him underboss.”
I nearly snort with laughter. Vita actually does.
“There isn’t any chance on God’s green earth that Pasquale Borruto would ever recognize his bastard as his heir.”
While I don’t know him personally, I know enough about him. The guy is obsessed with his image of being the perfect gentleman Mafioso. That he’s some kind of Robin Hood. It’s not a well-guarded secret that he’s had affairs, but they’ve gone unacknowledged.
“Okay, so I understand Zorzi’s motivation, but what about my zia? What on earth did she have against me? Why target me?”
“You accepted a job that killed her illegitimate son.”
“What? When the hell did my zia have a baby nobody knows about?”
I swear, Vita’s family secrets could shock the devil.
“When she was nineteen, she claimed to study abroad. Instead, her father banished her for the semester to Marathia.”
“Where the fuck is that?”
“An obscure little village of like forty people in the middle of Greece. She put the baby up for adoption. Turns out, he wound up with a syndicate family in Thessaloniki. Her father arranged it. It wasn’t until seven years ago that she learned where he was and what he’d become.
Ten months ago, you took that assignment in Ankara. You took out the Greek representative.”
“What?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I listen. I’d close my eyes to picture this gnarled family tree, but I won’t take my eyes off the scene lest Patrick somehow overwhelms Vita.
“That was her son. She found him because she told Zorzi to search. When he discovered who and where her son was, she kept an eye on him.”
“Do you mean she plotted my demise for months?”
“Yes.”
“And instead of working with her, you were in a race to the finish?”
“Exactly.”
Vita’s shoulders slump as she exhales.
“Do you know what my parents might’ve known about my cousin?”
“I don’t believe they knew much beyond he existed and lived in Greece.”
I watch Vita press her shoulders back and lift her chin, her relief obvious.
However, her saddened expression tugs at my heart.
I can’t imagine how her mother will receive this information.
She already knows Cosima intended to kill Vita.
But this is far more twisted than I’m certain the woman expects.
Then again, maybe not.
It would have to be a pretty fucked-up situation for a Mafia woman to go after her niece when they both are well-known members of the upper echelon’s family. But it’s the sort of rivalry that’s made the Mafia infamous enough for movies.
“Is there anything else?”
Vita points the tip of the blade at the hollow between Patrick’s collarbones. From the way he swallows, I know she is applying increased pressure.
“To find you, I dug into Alejandro further. I saw the way you watched him at the gala. I didn’t like it.”
“What did you learn and how?”
“I bribed—a—fuck ton of people. It—allowed me—to leapfrog until—I found the—origin.”
I want the man to hurry. His halting explanation grates on my nerves.
However, the typical person would’ve passed out a long time ago.
It’s clear this isn’t his first gunshot wound, and he has a higher pain tolerance than most. It makes me wonder how long he’s been a mercenary.
My guess is he’s approaching his late thirties, so a few years older than me.
“Spit it out, Patrick, and I’ll put you out of your agony. I know you’ll never beg for mercy, and your window to ask already shut. But you can decide how much worse it’s going to get before the end.”
She twists the knife against his throat as though she were drilling a hole. It doesn’t break the skin, but I’m certain it feels like she’s about to puncture his windpipe. Or press his Adam’s apple out through the back of his neck.
“Who’s after Alejandro?”
“Seems your fuckboy pissed off Sergei Andreyev.”
My brow furrows.
When don’t I piss off Sergei?
He’s the NYC bratva’s sovietnik—chief intelligence officer—and maternal cousin to the Kutsenko brothers. But there’s no chance in hell he ordered this hit, nor did any member of his family.
“What did Alejandro do to make Sergei put a hit on him?”
Patrick tuts, then splutters.
“It wasn’t Sergei who ordered the hit, but he’s the reason for it.
Alejandro pissed off Sergei because of some plan he came up with that enabled Joaquin to sabotage Sergei’s intel on a major deal in Portugal.
No one in the bratva reads, writes, or speaks fluent Portuguese, but Alejandro does.
He intercepted and translated communications between a Brazilian cartel and a Portuguese importer.
The Diazes swiped the deal right out from under the bratva’s feet.
It hurt Sergei’s pride. What he believed was so thoroughly encrypted, Joaquin hacked so easily. ”
That’s easy to imagine.
“Cool story, bro.”
Patrick’s face could curdle milk if he had it in him. He’d probably attempt to wrap his hands around Vita’s throat, but he’s fading fast.
“It’s a little Boston-New York rivalry going on.
The Volkovs are on Anton’s shit list because they fucked up a deal that outed a Ponzi scheme Anton has built for the past year.
Now they all have the FTC breathing down their necks.
Dmitri Volkov hoped to get back into the New York bratva’s good graces by doing Sergei and Anton a favor.
He believed offing Alejandro would be restitution for the problems he caused. ”
“Is he fucking stupid?”
“Yes, incredibly. He wants to mutiny against his nephew, the current pakhan. He’s in way over his head, both the jobs his nephew entrusted him with and this rogue scheme.”
“And does the Ivankov branch know what the Volkovs have done?”
The Kutsenkos may run the bratva now, but their branch’s still known for Vyacheslav Ivankov, who founded it when he was sent from Russia to establish the bratva in the States. Apparently, he killed too many people there, so they exported him to the U.S.
“Your guess is as good as mine on that. Even if Joaquin successfully hacked their shit, they’re far more tight-lipped than the Volkov branch.”
That’s something for my family and me to consider. Once I can get Vita the fuck out of here and back to the condo, I’ll need to meet with my tíos and cousins to figure all this shit out.
It’s like a fucking onion. Too many damn layers, and all of them stink.
“Any last words?”
Vita keeps the knife against Patrick’s Adam’s apple, but now she puts the gun’s muzzle to his forehead.
By now, I’m certain she senses I’m here.
Patrick’s too weak to react, so I approach the gazebo’s steps.
Vita doesn’t bat an eye as she pulls the trigger, blowing a hole straight through the center of Patrick’s forehead.
His body tumbles backward, blood pouring from all his wounds, his eyes entirely sightless.
I slide my arms around her waist, drawing her back to my chest. She leans against me as I kiss the top of her head.
As we hug, I turn off my earpiece. I don’t need my family listening to our private conversation.
“Seems like such a waste.”
“I know, chiquita, but if he hadn’t gotten involved, we wouldn’t know what we do now.”
“True.”