34. Obi
OBI
W hen Ciel confirmed no nefarious people waited to murder or maim us, we retrieved the flowers. A simple delivery man wearing all black and a black cap had dropped them off. The man wasn’t Volpe, and the face didn’t ping any facial recognition software, so he was most likely a just delivery man.
I looked through the vase, through each flower and every piece of Volpe’s delivery before I felt confident that this was not a trap of any sort.
They were just flowers.
Just a letter.
Leona stared at them, white as a sheet. I kissed her forehead, drawing her gaze away from the vase. “Let’s get rid of them.”
“Fuck the flowers,” Ryu growled. “Who the fuck does he think he is?”
He paced around the kitchen island, where we’d set the vase for now. Their soft smell perfumed through the space. No one could deny that the bouquet was beautiful.
“What’s the note say?” Ciel asked. He’d reset all of our alarm systems, and we’d raised the metal shutters. For now, we seemed to be safe—though everyone was still on high alert.
Leona’s name was written in a script on the front of the envelope. Part of me wanted to rip it to shreds, but if Volpe was making a play, we needed to know what it was. I handed the letter to her. “It’s for you.”
She looked up at me with fear and confusion tightening her eyes. The lust that had been there not ten minutes ago was long gone. If nothing else, Volpe would pay for that travesty.
“He’s taunting us,” she whispered.
My lips pressed together. “We won’t know unless we open the message.”
“No,” Caspian interjected. He stood next to Ryu with his arms crossed over his chest. The two of them were more similar than either realized. They’d been getting closer with their shared training time in the gym. “Burn it. Nothing he has to say can be good.”
“I agree,” Ryu said, reaching for the envelope.
She yanked it out of his reach. “Wait.”
“ Hanii ,” Ryu warned, voice dropping low. “We don’t need it. Get rid of it.”
She slipped her finger under the lip of the envelope and popped it open. Both Caspian and Ryu stiffened like the paper itself might explode. She pulled a small cardstock note from the envelope and frowned as she read it.
“It says ‘ Meet me’ with a date, time, and location.”
“Hah!” Ryu barked. “Not a fucking chance.” He snatched the note from her hand and ripped it up.
She watched as its crumpled pieces fluttered to the ground. My hand gripped the back of her neck to steady her while my brain worked to get a firm handle on this situation. What was Volpe after? Why the note? And what would he do now that he knew where we lived?
Would our defenses be enough if we were to be attacked here? I’d have to talk to Ciel. We could overhaul our systems, create extra layers of protection, call in extra security forces, but it wouldn’t change the fact that Volpe knew where we lived. We’d always be looking over our backs.
“Where was the location?” Ciel asked her.
“His house,” she whispered, looking at Cas. A glower spread across his face. He reached for her, and she stepped into his arms. “Tomorrow night.”
“No,” Ryu said. “You’re not going.”
“Don’t fucking tell her what to do,” Caspian snipped. “Or not do.”
Ryu’s eyebrows furrowed. “You think we should go? To his motherfucking house ? Are you batshit?”
Caspian smoothed the hair away from her cheeks. He spent a few moments getting control of his emotions before he spoke. “ Cosa vuoi fare?” What do you want to do?
“ Non lo so.” I don’t know .
“No Italian,” Ryu grumbled. “We’re not putting her at risk. Fuck no. Never again. Leona, I swear to the great cosmic void, I will lock you inside this penthouse.”
She pushed out of Cas’s arms, anger rippling across her face. “I’d like to see you try.”
The two of them stared one another down until he looked at me for help. His eyes glinted with an emotion I’d never seen on his face before. Desperation. When I didn’t respond, he stormed off toward his room. Moments later, the door slammed.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
My brother was struggling to come to terms with his feelings for her; that much was evident in his possessiveness and protectiveness since she’d returned home.
Despite how much I wished I could lock her away to keep her safe, all of us knew she’d be miserable.
She wasn’t meant for that. She was meant to shine, to lead.
It was the very spark I’d recognized within her the first time I’d seen her .
“I’m surprised you’re even considering this, Cas,” Ciel said, picking up the pieces of the note.
His nostrils flared. He seemed to wrestle with what to say until he sighed heavily. “I am considering it if it’s what Leona wants to do, but I’m not fucking happy about it.”
“This could be our opportunity to kill him,” Wynn said. “We should show up and take him by surprise.”
Cas nodded. “I like that idea.”
“It could be a trap,” Ciel said. “Ryu has a point. He’s trying to draw us out.”
“If this is a trap, it’s transparent,” I said. “It makes more sense that he legitimately wants to discuss something with us.”
Volpe was highly intelligent. A formidable foe. He wouldn’t invite us into his home without a plan, I was sure of that, but it made little sense that he’d try to kill us there. If we accepted this meeting, we would prepare for a betrayal, but by now I was certain: he did not want to hurt Leona.
I still wasn’t sure why that was true, especially with his actions, but the way he looked at her…my hands fisted at my sides.
He looked at her like we did.
I tried not to let my visceral rage twist my features as my memory flipped through every interaction we’d had since we’d rescued them both. If I said that thought aloud, at least three of my brothers would have a mental breakdown. Ciel might be the only one who’d react with a level head.
He was a threat, but not to her. If we took this meeting, perhaps we could learn something that would turn the tables on him.
“I was thinking the same thing, Obi,” Leona said quietly.
She paced around the kitchen, ticking her statements off her fingers one by one.
“Here are the facts. One, both of us could have killed each other by now, but we haven’t.
Two, we’re both trying to eliminate the Albanians, and it’s personal.
Three, he’s wrapped up in the Camorra, and we don’t know how or why.
Four, he still has Chiara somewhere, and we need to get a message to her. ”
Despite my buried rage, the more calculating part of my brain was turning alongside Leona’s. It was possible that this meeting could prove more beneficial to us than to Volpe…as long as we could guarantee her safety.
“What could he possibly want from us?” Wynn asked.
She braced her hands on her hips. “Information, maybe.”
I stepped in front of her to stop her pacing. She looked up at me. “It is to his benefit if he has to fight enemies from all sides?”
“No.” She chewed on her lip. Caspian had just updated us on the fact that our men were becoming a problem for him. We were also one step ahead of him when we went after Orik Vokshi, and he came out of that mess with less than we did. “A truce, then?”
I nodded. “He would want to control the aggression against him.”
“Which is us, especially if our guys continue to bleed his on-the-ground forces. We’re putting strain on his men and his hold on his empire. He needs that to stop.”
“Yes.”
She pulled her hair back into a ponytail. “I enjoy knowing we’re a nuisance.”
I smiled. “Indeed. If this were a chessboard, what would be your move?”
“I’d use our pieces to force him into a corner,” she said carefully. “If he wants something from us, we have leverage. There’s nothing we want from him, so that puts the power dynamic in our favor.”
“But do we need that? If we’re creating as much of a problem for him as we think we are, then maybe we don’t need this. Maybe we’re closer to taking him down than we think,” Caspian added.
“Maybe,” she murmured. She looked up to me and me alone. “Is it stupid that I need to know what he wants? ”
“No,” I said, my palm on her cheek. She’d already expressed to me some of her complicated feelings surrounding Volpe. They were only bound to get worse. But if we could tackle this head on, beside her, she could get what she needs and focus again. “It’s a risk, but it is not stupid.”
“Can we manage the risk? Can we make sure we can walk out of that house safely if we need to?”
I looked to Ciel, and he shrugged. Then, to Wynn, and he closed his fist around his brass knuckles. Ryuji would be armed to the teeth regardless, ready to defend her to the death.
“I think we can,” I answered her.
She exhaled a breath before turning to Caspian. “Is this a good idea, Cas? What do you think?”
He was quiet for a moment before he picked her up and set her on the island counter.
His palms found her thighs, and she parted her legs to give him space to press forward.
“I want to kill him, but I support you. If you want to go, we can form a plan and make it work. You and I know that house just as well as he does. We grew up there, too.”
“But he hurt you so badly?—”
He tucked a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Yeah, and I’ll get my revenge for that one way or another. Actually, I think I already did, since I get to be the lucky bastard that sleeps beside you every night. He is a blip in the greater scheme of our lives. He means nothing to me compared to you.”
She blushed. “I love you.”
He touched his forehead to hers. “I love you.”
It wasn’t the first time I had found myself jealous of the ease of their touches, their intimate familiarity. Leona and I were still building that. But I was a patient man.
“If he asks for help, ángel, what will your answer be?” Ciel asked.
“I guess it depends on what we can gain from his offer,” she replied .
My chest bloomed with pride. Now, she was thinking ahead. We could take control of the power dynamics in this meeting. It was a risk, but it could pay off.
I’d thought Volpe was a roadblock on our path to power. Perhaps he was a stepping stone instead.
If he had ties to the Camorra, he could be our answer to taking them down.
“All right,” I said. “Tomorrow night, then. Let’s put an escape plan in place. Caspian, Leona, will you please work with Ciel to get an understanding of Volpe’s house and the surrounding area? I need to make a phone call.”
They both nodded, and the three of them plus Wynn began working through all the ways this could go wrong.
If it went right , however, we could have everything we needed to take out two birds with one stone. Volpe and the Camorra.
I left them in the living room while I headed to my room to call Ryuji’s realtor. I needed to make a purchase.