Chapter 19 #2
I lead us upstairs to the next level, and Moonface is barking and pawing at the wood before the door opens. As soon as I turn the handle, she explodes out, a muscular bundle of teeth, brindle fur, and love.
Rosa immediately kneels, holds out a hand for the dog to sniff, and is knocked on her ass by the fifty-pound slobber machine. They roll around for a minute, Moonface sticking her nose into all my woman’s nooks and crannies and getting well and truly stroked in return. Lucky dog.
Matteo calls Moonface to him, and she goes straight to his side, where she gazes up at him in adoration.
“Matteo, Rosa. Rosa, Matteo. And Moonface you’ve already met.”
Rosa straightens and looks my friend over with a cautious gaze, her hand wrapped around her amulet. Fair enough. She’s in foreign territory and has been quite literally sleeping with the enemy. It’s understandable that she doesn’t automatically trust him.
“Nice to meet you, Rosa,” Matteo says quietly, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible, which is tough for a six-foot-seven killing machine with fangs, and hands the size of serving platters.
It doesn’t help that his nose was broken when he was transformed, so it’s been stuck crooked ever since.
“You too,” she replies, nodding and gazing around the room. It’s a nice room, filling the whole level, with couches and a fully set-up kitchen that rarely gets any use.
If any of us were that way inclined, it’d be airy—the big windows would let in lots of light.
Of course, we keep them blacked out. There’s art on the walls, a big table with fresh flowers, and an overflowing bookcase stocked with literature that spans centuries.
Rosa studies the books, her fingers running over their spines, and smiles.
“Shakespeare and Danielle Steel?” She looks at me with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah, well. I’m a complicated man.”
She winks at me. “I know.”
That thing happens again—that thing where I feel like we’re the only two people in the whole fucking world. And I want nothing more than to scoop her up, carry her off to my bed, and make her come.
“Hey, asshole!” Her brother interrupts the moment, using his fists on me again. I forgot he was still dangling over my shoulder. “Are you gonna put me down or what?”
“Whatever you say, sunshine.” I drop him on the floor.
He lands with a thud and splutters as he tries to sit up. Moonface takes one look and thinks it’s play time. Deeply satisfying terror crosses Pietro’s face as the massive pit bull flies across the room, her paws scratching on the parquet floor, and I laugh when she licks his face like a popsicle.
We leave him to wrestle with his new pal, and the three of us sit at the big table. Matteo made sandwiches, and Rosa devours a pastrami on rye as I fill him in on our situation.
“So, this Tomasso guy,” he says.
Rosa corrects him. “The Grand Ball Sack, please, to give him his proper title.”
Matteo nods solemnly and continues. “So, this Grand Ball Sack guy—
the Don thinks he’s going to make a move on the Coscas? On us? Is he fucking crazy?”
“I think they’re both a bit crazy, my friend. A couple of old men who want to run the fucking world. But what Vincenzo said makes sense. He may be a paranoid fucker, but he’s stayed in charge this long for a reason. If he thinks Tom—sorry, the Grand Ball Sack is expanding, then maybe he is.”
“He is!” shouts Pietro from his spot on the floor. Moonface is lying on top of him, her paws pinning his chest as she kisses him. Pietro is ruffling her ears, so I guess he doesn’t mind too much.
“He didn’t share it all with me,” he says.
“But the man has no sense of digital security, and if he did, well, I’d get past it …
But yeah. He was expanding. Stuff that didn’t make sense at the time.
Buying up weapons manufacturers abroad, bribes to more douchebag politicians than normal.
A couple of companies with those macho names, like Summit Lord Solutions or Lethal Logistics or— ”
“Cunts-R-Us?” Rosa suggests, making Matteo snort with laughter.
“Mercenaries,” I murmur, putting some of the pieces together. “He’s building an army.”
“He already has an army,” Pietro says. “He’s building an invasion. I asked him about it once, and he brushed me off. Said it was all part of a plan for the family.”
We all now know what the plan was, and what Pietro’s role in it was supposed to be.
He falls silent, and I fight the urge to run over there and stomp his face into bloody pulp with my boot.
“So,” says Rosa, her face a little paler but her tone staying steady, “what would happen if Vincenzo and the Grand Ball Sack went to war?”
“It’s not just Vincenzo, I don’t think,” Pietro tells us. “This stuff was global. He could be thinking bigger than the US.”
He pushes Moonface away as gently as it’s possible to move an animal her size and sits upright.
His legs still appear broken, but that’s okay by me.
Easier to keep track of the asshole if he can’t walk away.
“I can help,” he pleads. “I know stuff, and I know how his mind works. I’ll be able to access his records, his calendar, whatever.
I want to help because … Well, for all kinds of reasons.
But one of them is this: If there is a war, with Vincenzo or whoever, then it won’t only be them who gets hurt.
There’s always collateral damage, innocents harmed.
I don’t want that, and I don’t think you guys do either, even if it’s only because it threatens to expose you.
Even if it’s just because it’s bad for business. ”
I can’t argue with him there. Worrying about the innocent isn’t my style.
I barely recognize innocence when I see it, and I don’t worry about protecting the poor little humans from the big bad wolf—but Rosa does.
She cares with every cell of her being, and that’s enough for me.
Plus, he’s right. A war would be bad for business.
The Cosca is all I’ve known for my entire long life, and as much as I hate Vincenzo, the Cosca itself is part of me, and I want to protect it.
“Things have gone even more off the rails since you’ve been gone, Boss.
” Matteo throws a handful of chips into his mouth.
He loves food, the junkier the better. “The Don’s been bringing in more fuckups.
Carlos is strutting around like a major general.
It’s like a war zone already. Freya’s losing her shit. ”
“Who’s Freya?” Rosa pipes up, frowning. That’s interesting … Is she jealous?
“She’s kinda hard to describe,” Matteo answers.
“She basically grew up at Vincenzo’s court.
Was dumped there as a kid. She’s, what, mid-twenties now?
Not sure. She’s human, and I can’t gauge that shit so good anymore.
She’s a little kooky, but she’s sweet, and she gets upset when new people turn up. ”
“She’s basically like Moonface in human form,” I add. “Except she probably doesn’t weigh as much. We can’t worry about Freya right now, Matteo. You know that.”
He nods, but it’s clear he doesn’t agree. His heart is as big as a planet, and he’ll always worry about the weak. It makes him a better man than me, but a worse soldier.
“Look, guys,” Rosa says, pushing her plate away and leaning back in her chair.
“It’s been a lot of fun chatting about the upcoming apocalypse and all, but I’m bushed.
I’m guessing tomorrow will be no easier than today, and unlike you animals, I need some sleep.
Luca, take me to bed.” She looks directly at me, her green eyes tired but mischievous.
Who the fuck is going to refuse a command like that? “Matteo,” I say, standing but keeping one eye on my woman. “Can you deal with the mess on the floor?”
He glances at Pietro, who has managed to crawl over to the couch and is leaning against it and staring at me as though he’s imagining running a cheese grater over my skin.
“Sure thing, Boss,” Matteo says, a grin on his battered face as he looks from Rosa to me. “Sweet dreams.”
It’s not my dreams that will be sweet. Not with a naked Rosa lying beside me.