Chapter 36 – Vincenzo
Ishoved the tablet toward Alexei. “Che cazzo!”
The office smelled of fish. The stench from the warehouse below permeated the space, leaching into the walls. No wonder my business partner wore such expensive cologne. Otherwise, he would reek of guts and brine.
The pakhan of the Russian Bratva nodded in agreement. “I told you it wasn’t good.”
Maksim Varga made certain dictators look like friendly teddy bears.
Hundreds died at his hand alone, and thousands from his commands.
He kept a puppet government running the small country of Karsovia, but anyone who spoke out against the tyrannical leadership was promptly silenced.
They traded in arms with some of the worst governments in the world, and Varga wasn’t above using chemical weapons on his own people to provoke skirmishes.
“Riddle me this.” Alexei scratched his chin. Several days’ worth of jet-black stubble framed his harsh face. “How does your old friend rack up that kind of debt with a war mogul?”
I snorted. “Old friend?”
“Semantics.”
A long sigh left my lungs. “I have my men looking into that. The question is, how do we kill him?”
“Well,” Alexei chuckled, “rumor has it you’re running with one hell of an assassin.”
He let the comment hang between us.
“It would be easier to kill him stateside.” I drummed my fingers against the wood. “From the emails we hacked, it seems the wedding will take place abroad.”
Varga was eager to have the matter settled. Which meant Loring wouldn’t want to delay shipping his daughter overseas. We’d blocked his daily calls, but it was only a matter of time before Amanda’s father found a way to make contact.
Something I would move heaven and earth to prevent. Boston was my city, and Loring wasn’t welcome.
She should have known that.
That I was the true king. That no one did anything without my say-so.
The fact that she hadn’t. That she pushed me away at every turn—while at the same time, she went to my brother with the details of the situation—gnawed at me. Granted, I understood why she told Cristiano. He said it was so he was prepared to protect Nicole.
But Amanda didn’t come to me.
I pushed down the surge of disappointment. It had been days, and she still hadn’t told me. We used to tell each other everything. Right now, my top priority was protecting her.
Amanda should have come to me.
Those words festered. My blood was septic, and my heart was rotten with the implications of her choices.
“Get him over here,” Alexei stated as if it were the simplest thing in the world to invite a war criminal to visit.
My phone vibrated. I flicked the screen and muttered, “How, pray tell, do I do that?”
Mandy: I need to leave. I can’t stay here. I have things to do.
Me: No leaving.
“Simple.” Alexei put his tablet back in his backpack and zipped it shut.
The ringtone blasted through the space. The caller ID was a photo of Amanda looking at a flower. She hadn’t known I was standing in the shop, hadn’t seen me pull up my phone and snap the picture. It was over a year old, but it captured her perfectly.
She hadn’t bought the flower that day.
“I’m finishing up in New York,” I answered, lifting my gaze to the swinging light fixture hanging over the desk. “I’ll see you for breakfast.”
“What are you doing, Enzo?” she demanded.
Alexei shifted in his creaky, wooden rolling chair. His head tipped to the side. The thick muscles of his neck stretched so he could try every word of the conversation.
“Working.” I hated being secretive with her. But since she was still a flight risk, the less she knew, the better. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Amanda fumed, a harsh breath that I could almost feel, flickering through the phone. “Fuck another woman behind my back, and I’ll find someone to screw. Got it?”
That jealous statement was unexpected. Shock reverberated down my spine. That was what she thought? I bristled. It would have been cute…if it didn’t send me into a blind rage a millisecond later.
I shot to my feet. My voice turned stern. “You touch another man, you sign his death warrant. Can you live with that on your conscience, fiore?”
I wanted to see her. Did my words send a thrill shivering down her spine? Was she ready to shoot me for claiming her? If I was there, I would plunder her mouth. Show her through a brutal kiss how possessive I really was.
“Don’t touch another woman.”
Apparently, she was too.
“There’s only you, Mandy.”
With a derisive snort, she hung up.
In the moment of silence, something bright cut through the poison in my veins. Jealousy was good. It meant she cared. Even if it was just a fraction. It was there.
I pocketed the device and rose. There was more work to do before I could leave—before I could go home. To her. My wife.
Letting out a strangled growl, I sat hard on the chair.
“As I was saying.” Alexei leaned forward, smile tipping up his lips. “It’s simple. You have something he wants. And if that profile picture is anything to go by, he’ll do a lot of things, crazy things, to have a taste of that sweet little pea.”
The grin on the Russian’s face was a spark to the dynamite fuse inside me. One little spark. I lunged across the desk, grabbed the fucker’s tie, and yanked him forward.
Alexei planted his hands on the desk, but otherwise didn’t make a move to stop me.
“Don’t you every speak about my wife like that again,” I snarled.
The bastard chuckled. “Got it. Message received.”
I gave him a jerk. He choked, but I released him a second later. Flexing and fisting my fingers, I walked for the door.
“V, wait up!” Alexei called, standing and slinging the backpack over his shoulder.
Pausing, I turned—
His fist crashed into my jaw. Pain ricocheted through my skull, and I put my arms out to keep my balance.
“Threaten me again, and I’ll pummel your scrawny ass.” Whistling, the pakhan sauntered past me, opened the door, and headed into the warehouse. His crew looked up, but then just as quickly, they all had better places to focus their attention.
***
If traffic was good, I would make it back to Boston in under three hours.
One of the nifty devices my wizards made for me kept the State Patrol occupied.
Not only would the piece of technology warn me of their presence, but it would forge a call to the cops, sending them away from my location.
It was perfectly safe to top out my bike on the expressways, which cut the travel time down by an hour.
There was just one stop I decided couldn’t wait.
I parked in front of the shop, stepped under the neon glow, and pulled the gloves from my hands. Opening the door, I went straight to the back, to an open booth where my favorite artist waited, scrolling through her phone.
She looked up and popped a bubble. “You’re late.”
“I’ll pay double.”
With a tinkling laugh, she sprang from her chair and plucked a pair of sterile medical gloves from the box. “Let’s go, then!”
I sat on the malleable chair, spreading my left hand over the armrest. This had been a long time coming. Did I see this moment playing out differently in my dreams? A different ambiance? Certainly. But Amanda was going to know how serious I was.
If jealousy was all she could give me right now, I would take it. But she had no reason to feel it.
As the tools whirred to life with a flick of a switch, I jerked my chin to the black backpack on the floor. “Is that mine?”
“Yep, everything you need is in there.” The artist bent over me, tipping her head from side to side as she considered my hand. “Can’t believe there’s any clear skin left on you, V.”
I grunted. “Get on with it.”
“Ass,” she teased.
The needle bit my skin as the artist took her sweet revenge.
The pain was slight, but I embraced it, closing my eyes and drinking in the feel of being marked.
Unlike the vials of ink soaked into the rest of my body, this felt different.
A holy aura. A decadent finality. There would be no divorce, and only my death would free Amanda of my presence. I was hers, forevermore.
My flower didn’t get a say in that fate. But there was part of me that waited impatiently for her to embrace our destiny, even if it took the rest of our lives.