30. Savage
Chapter 30
Savage
Sergio has always come and gone as he pleases, but this timing feels personal.
The only sound as I pad barefoot down the hall is Bella’s ID tag rattling against her collar. I should have locked Bella inside my room with Nyx, but I’m not sure who would turn on who first.
I join father and son in the dining room. Vito sits hunched inside his robe like the air conditioning is turned down too low for his delicate constitution.
Sergio gives me a fake smile and stands, coming to meet me. You’d expect someone like him to have smooth hands. While there’s a fresh manicure on his neatly trimmed nails, my fingers brush over calluses and scars as we clasp hands.
Unlike my father, he likes getting his hands dirty.
“Glad you’re back, Uncle.”
“I’m sure you are.” Sergio’s disingenuous smile slips off his face at the soft growl behind me.
I snap my fingers at Bella without looking at her, but the damage is done.
“Get that mongrel out of my sight.” Sergio’s voice is cold and hard, so far removed from his usual warm tone that my skin prickles.
Bella’s teeth left a scar on his arm.
The only reason she’s still alive is because he can’t tell my Rottweilers apart. He thinks the ‘beast that savaged him’ is rotting in a shallow grave at the far borders of the property. It wouldn’t surprise me if he occasionally visited the grave just to smirk at it.
It happened over a year ago, but Sergio’s memory is as deep as the fucking Mariana Trench.
Back then, I’d still been training Bella to settle. I was play-wrestling with her, getting her so excited and overstimulated that she was growling and snapping at me. She’d already drawn blood from my arm, but that was my own mistake for not getting out of the way fast enough.
My uncle walked in at just the wrong moment.
Bella figured he was in on the fun, and charged him. She was all paws and floppy ears back then, but she weighed over a hundred pounds already. He put up an arm, and she must have thought we were training her attack command, because she jumped and clamped down on his arm.
Over-excited as she was, she ignored my first command to release.
I never had the chance to give her a second command, because Sergio punched her.
As soon as I’d dragged Bella off him and confined her to her crate so she could calm down and feel safe again, I turned on him. I was merely going to warn him, to explain why Bella had attacked…but he was infuriated, and backhanded me when I got close.
If one of the gardeners hadn’t walked into the shed to fetch fertilizer, Sergio might not be alive today.
That’s the day I almost killed my uncle.
That’s the day he almost had Bella killed.
As soon as Doc had arrived and treated him for three broken fingers, a fractured rib, and pulled the tooth I’d knocked loose, Sergio decreed that Bella be put down.
Thankfully, the help working at the villa then hated Sergio and loved Bella. Anyone he asked afterward confirmed that ‘the rabid mongrel’ was dead.
I had to relocate one of my Rottweilers, in case Sergio did a head count and realized they were all still alive and well. Since Bella was my favorite, her brother, Bravo, was transferred to one of father’s sicario’s properties, joining their nightly patrol.
We both left our scars on Sergio that day.
I’d smile at the memory, but he’d probably draw a gun and shoot Bella in the head.
When I leave, Bella follows me out of the dining room.
Sam and Matias are at the door, both giving me unreadable expressions. “Take her outside,” I tell Sam.
Bella throws me a lingering stare over her shoulder as she trots after Sam, her big brown eyes and tan eyebrows frowning as if she’s trying to figure out what she did wrong.
It’s impossible to explain to a creature as innocent as Bella that Sergio is Satan personified.
“…thinking maybe we should run a few tests, just to make sure,” Vito is saying as I walk back into the dining room.
He looks haggard, eyes shadowed, hair unkempt. I’d say he looks hungover, but I’ve seen him after a week long bender, and he didn’t look half as bad as he does right now.
Why do I get the feeling it’s all for show?
There’s a spread on the dining room table—croissants, bagels, muffins, platters of fruit and ham and cheese—but I head straight for the coffee. I’ve become too reliant on caffeine to kick start my brain in the mornings, but I blame it on the tiny amounts of sleep I’m currently running on.
“Did you enjoy your trip to Colombia?” I ask as I blow on the black liquid to cool it down. I don’t know where Sergio went, but I should be able to narrow it down in twenty-one questions.
“I didn’t leave the country,” he says.
“Then where were you?” I lean against the side of the long, twelve-seater oak table, studying Sergio. He’s taken the seat at the head of the table closest to me and Vito, spreading cream cheese on a bagel.
“Getting our affairs in order.” My uncle’s face is a mask, but that’s nothing new.
Ever since my grandfather handed the cartel’s leadership over to my father instead of passing it to the eldest son, as was tradition, he’s become two people.
Outwardly supporting Bryan, to keep the peace and to obey their father’s wishes…and the resentful, conniving cunt I know him to be. If it wouldn’t be the biggest faux pas known to cartel culture, I’d have accused him of having something to do with father’s critical condition.
But that would be as good as suicide for someone in Sergio’s position. No one would ever trust him again, and our cartel runs on trust.
“Hope it wasn’t all business. Man’s gotta live a little too,” Vito chimes in. He’s nursing a cup of coffee too, but I’m surprised he’s not laying into the spread, especially if he’s feeling as hungover as he looks.
I guess we’re both a little off balance at Sergio’s unexpected return. It’s almost as if he wanted to catch us with our fucking pants down.
What was he hoping to walk into?
“Are you glad the walls are still standing, Uncle?” I ask, trying for casual but sounding more coy than anything else.
Sergio frowns at me. “They might be standing now, but they won’t be for much longer.”
Both me and Vito snap to attention.
Sergio takes another bite of his bagel and for once it seems he’s not just being a sadistic fuck by dragging out our meeting for no reason, but that he’s buying time to think.
“Why wasn’t I notified before you boys used cartel resources to stake out one of Mulligan’s clubs?”
My hackles rise at mention of the Irish mob’s top dog, Rory Mulligan. O’Brien might be high up in the organization, but he still has to report to the boss.
Vito looks at me, but I keep my eyes on Sergio.
I knew word would get back to him, but I’d hoped to have Nyx’s sisters before then. Now O’Brien has a contract out on Sergio, Athena and Phoebe’s lives hanging in the balance.
And the assassin on the other end of that contract is currently sleeping in my fucking bed...or trying to break down my door.
“It’s a private matter,” I say.
“There is nothing private in this cartel.” Sergio bites into his bagel, watching me, waiting.
“We were following a lead on Nyx’s sisters,” Vito mutters.
Sergio glances over at him. “They’re still missing?”
“They didn’t go missing,” I growl. “They were kidnapped by Sullivan O’Brien.” It’s all going to come out eventually, why the fuck not now?
My uncle finishes his bagel, wipes his fingertips on a serviette, and has a few sips of coffee before speaking again. I try not to grab the closest butter knife and drive it through his eye.
Nyx would be eternally grateful, as would most of the fucking world. But I can’t think of any reason good enough that would allow me to kill Sergio without incurring the wrath of my father and every other high-ranking member of the cartel.
“You know this for a fact?” Sergio asks.
“O’Brien confirmed it when we were negotiating their release.”
Sergio crosses his arms over his chest. “What does he want? Money? Arms? Drugs?”
“You, Uncle.”
Sergio raises his hand. “No, no. You obviously misunderstood him.”
“That was the deal. Your life for theirs.”
There’s a beat of silence before Sergio bursts out laughing.
He even slaps the fucking table.
Is he fucking high or something?
“This isn’t a joke,” I say.
Sergio sobers up with difficulty. “Okay.” He takes a deep breath, hand raised, elbow on the table. “What did O’Brien say? His exact words.”
This time it’s Vito who clears his throat. Sergio looks over at him, then crosses his arms over his chest again, leaning back in his chair to study first his son, then me.
“You weren’t there, were you?”
I consider explaining what happened, but it doesn’t matter. “No. I wasn’t.”
Sergio looks at his son. “You?”
Vito shakes his head.
“? Co?o !” Sergio squeezes the bridge of his nose, eyes closing like he’s praying for God to give him strength. “You let her go alone.”
Silence filters down, interrupted by the faint sound of a door slamming somewhere in the villa.
I hope to God Nyx hasn’t somehow managed to escape. I never thought to ask if she’s any good at picking locks.
Sergio huffs out a breath, empties his cup of coffee and smooths his hands down his thighs. “You might want to speak to her,” he says calmly as he gets to his feet. “Make sure she didn’t misunderstand O’Brien.”
I frown at him. “What aren’t you telling us?”
“Use your head, son. Targeting me is a declaration of war. Why would it come from that pendejo O’Brien, and not Mulligan?” Sergio frowns as if he’s genuinely annoyed by the thought.
Vito clears his throat. “Maybe we should speak to Nyx again, cousin.”
I turn to frown at him. He never calls me cousin. It’s always ‘bro’ or ‘Savage’. What the hell is he up to?
“I mean, she’s been under a lot of pressure. Maybe she did misunderstand.”
Sergio rests his hands on the table, twisting his ruby ring around his finger. “Where is your newly wed bride? I thought she’d be joining us for breakfast. Or are you planning to confine her to your room indefinitely?”
Fuck stabbing him in the eye. I want to use that butter knife to hack away at his tongue until he drowns in his own blood.
“She’s resting. Like Vito said, she’s been under a lot of pressure.”
“I hope she acclimatizes soon,” he says, sitting back and letting his hands slide into his lap. “Cartel life is not for the weak.”
“My wife isn’t weak,” I growl. “She’s devastated that her sisters are in the hands of that lecherous O’Brien.”
You’d need a chainsaw to cut the tension between me and my uncle. Not sure why Vito thinks he could simmer us down with a redirect.
“Dad, did Doc mention anything about Bryan’s test results?”
Sergio is still looking at me when he replies, “No, son. Not a word.”
My eyes are in slits. “Did he even run any tests?”
Sergio purses his lips. Gives a small shake of his head. “No.”
“Why the hell not?”
He spreads his hands. “Why don’t you ask your father, son?”
It’s been building since the moment Vito sent me that text. But the twitch of Sergio’s mouth, like he’s suppressing a smile, is the final fucking straw.
I rush Sergio, grabbing the lapels of his expensive suit and crushing the fabric in my hands as I wrench him closer. “Because he’s fucking dying, you miserable cunt.”
My body freezes in place when I hear the click of a safety releasing behind me. “Slowly, Savage,” Matias says in an almost conversational tone of voice. “We don’t want anyone getting hurt.”
A snarl bubbles up in my throat as Vito hurries around the table and carefully disengages my fingers from Sergio’s suit.
Sergio’s thin lipped smile didn’t move a fraction of an inch.
He didn’t even blink.
Just like the fucking cold-blooded reptile he is.