Chapter 14
Enzo
Iwas already holding the phone when it buzzed and Luca’s name flashed on the screen. “What did you find?” I held my breath as I waited for him to tell me who on the inside of the DeRossi organization had betrayed me. And my family.
There was a long pause on the other end of the call. It was heavy and eternal, and this time it wasn’t just Luca pausing for dramatic effect. Something was really wrong.
“For fuck’s sake, Luca.”
He let out a rough exhale. “Some dumb fuck drove a truck right up to our fish processing plant.”
I swallowed. “The one in downtown L.A.?” It was a profitable business on both fronts, providing seafood to half the city while giving us the perfect way to move product in and out of the country.
“Yeah, that’s the one. Goddamn thing exploded in the early morning hours. Half a dozen casualties, way more injuries. The plant might be a total loss, Enzo.”
Fuck. Shit. “Might be?”
“The firefighters are still in there fighting the fire, so I won’t know for sure for another twelve hours or so.” Luca sounded so pissed off by that fact that I couldn’t help but smile. “If it’s a loss, what then?”
“We’ll move it to Long Beach or maybe San Diego.
What I want to know is how the fuck they knew how important that place was to our drug operations.
” On the outside, it was nothing but a smelly old fish processing plant, and we took great pains to make it appear as such, which only sharpened my suspicions about internal betrayal.
There was another long silence before Luca put a voice to exactly what I was thinking. “The call is coming from inside the fucking house.”
His words settled in my gut like a stone, heavy and gut-churning.
This feeling wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, but I hated feeling out of control.
I leaned back against the desk with my legs crossed at the ankles and stared outside at the setting sun.
My adrenaline spiked the way it always had when danger surrounded me. “Any news on that front?”
“Not yet. I was focused on making sure your location was locked down,” Luca answered with an annoyed grunt. “I handled it myself, and no one else knows where you and Mattie are.”
“I trust you, Luca.” That wasn’t the problem at all. It was clear that someone who knew the inner workings of my organization was talking out of turn. “You think this was the Russians?”
“Seems highly fucking likely,” he grumbled. “I guess we’ll see if they try to hone in on our territory while we get the fish shit settled.”
I could almost imagine him scrubbing a hand over his face. “Get some product moved up to whoever needs it in the area to make sure there’s no fucking void for them to fill.”
“Will do.” Luca paused and then asked what we were both thinking. “Who do you think it is?”
“I don’t want to think it’s anyone, but because I’m not there, I can’t fucking say for sure.” I had my suspicions, though. “Who do you think it is?”
Luca laughed. “You know I won’t say until I have proof, but yeah, I have a name or two in mind.” Despite our decades-long friendship, Luca would never speak against a DeRossi without evidence to back it up. “As soon as I confirm it, you’ll be the first to know.”
I nodded because I knew that. “I just keep thinking about that question Ren asked me. What does threatening a child accomplish? I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it because it’s an anomaly.”
“The Russians kidnap people all the time.”
“Yeah, but they just do it; they don’t threaten to do it.
And they haven’t asked for anything in exchange for leaving Mattie or Ella alone.
Why?” The bombing made sense, a lot of fucking sense.
They wanted to hurt our distribution so they could move in and take our salesmen.
That would put a dent in our bottom line—not enough to take us down but enough to annoy the fuck out of me.
“They want to create panic so they can slide in and corner our market. That shit makes sense; threatening Mattie doesn’t.”
“Exactly,” I said, a little too excited that we were on the same wavelength. “The processing plant makes sense; it was a good business strategy. Threatening my son does not.” If anything, it would piss me off enough to go after the asshole in charge, not his little henchmen.
“Yeah, I see where you’re going with this, Enzo. I’m on it.”
“Thanks, Luca. And look into everyone. Dig deep. I don’t want any assumptions; I just want to know who the fuck is compromised.”
“Understood.”
I ended the call quickly, chest pounding because I knew this was a mystery that wouldn’t have a happy ending for someone, and I was fine with that.
In this business, there were very rarely happy endings.
One side inevitably lost—the battle or the war, sometimes both—and that was just the nature of the beast. I couldn’t say what would happen with the Russians, but whoever was threatening my son would find themselves without a fucking pulse very soon.
Outside the window, Matteo’s laughter bounced off the trees and carried on the breeze, drawing me closer to the window.
To their happiness. My son stared at Ren like she was the love of his life, his smile bright and his eyes clear and filled with joy.
And Ren? She was soft and genuine, so loving as she gave him her full attention.
They looked like a picture from a life that only existed in my mind.
I’d given up that life for family.
More accurately, for The Family.
Because it was family first, right?
Except now I had to look a little deeper at my own fucking family.
There was Aunt Valentina. She was old school, believed in all that shit like blood, order, and family hierarchy.
She’d been furious when my father planned to let me walk away from the family business, convinced birthright mattered even more than choice.
She had supported me fully when I stepped in, called it “destiny correcting itself.” She was still a supporter and a sounding board.
She would die before betraying the family.
Her daughter, Luisa, was a college professor on the East Coast. She ran in academic circles, visited history conferences, and spent her time researching Victorian economic history or some shit.
She only visited the family on holidays or when we gathered for weddings and funerals.
She was always polite and always distant.
Her life was completely separate from the family. Intentionally far removed.
The way mine was supposed to be.
Valentina’s husband, Dante, was half-senile, forgetting his name more days than not. He lived in a luxury care home that overlooked the ocean in Malibu, guarded more by nurses than loyalty. He wasn’t a concern.
Which narrowed the field considerably.
There was David, my cousin. He was an accountant who spent his days buried under numbers, spreadsheets, and ambition that didn’t match his work ethic.
He’d never shown any real interest in the family business other than occasionally throwing his opinion out during family dinners, which no one ever took too seriously.
He’d never wanted leadership, only the benefits he received because he was born a DeRossi.
Lena, David’s ex-wife, was a wild card. She was sharp and bitter, but none of that mattered unless she knew more about the business than she should.
And the only way that would happen was if David knew more than he should.
She hated David but still maintained a good relationship with Valentina, which still put her in the category of potential threat.
Finally, we had Ella, David and Lena’s daughter. She was in college right now, and honestly, I had no clue how much she knew about the family fortunes. She wouldn’t be the first girl in love to attempt to scam her rich family out of a few million dollars, except the request for money never came.
I picked up the phone again, and Luca picked up on the second ring. “Enzo.”
“We need to dig into Lena and David,” I said without preamble. “I mean really dig. Deep. If either of them has complained to a coworker, a book club, anything, I want to know about it.”
Luca let out a long, slow exhale. “David,” he asked on an incredulous laugh. “You think he’s got the balls to be behind this?”
I huffed a short laugh. “Everything is easy when you don’t have to execute it yourself. Giving an order is a lot easier than pulling the fucking trigger.”
David didn’t have the stomach to run an organization; that much I knew. He was good at numbers, but he wasn’t capable of management. That didn’t mean he couldn’t be useful to someone who only wanted to take down the family.
“Just to be safe,” I added. “I don’t want to eliminate anyone based on my gut or yours.”
“Got it,” Luca said. “So how are things going with Ren?”
I closed my eyes. “Getting harder every fucking day.”
He laughed loud and hard. “That’s not what I asked.”
“She is every-fucking-where,” I admitted. “In my house. In my head. With Matteo.” I watched her brush crumbs from Matteo’s shirt, heard his laugh through the glass. “And every instinct in me is screaming that she is a fucking liability.”
“But?” he added, because he’d always been able to read me so well.
“But I can’t stop thinking about her, and I want her as bad as I ever have.”
Luca kept quiet for a long minute, and when he finally spoke, he was careful. “You know how that ends.”
“Yeah,” I knew exactly how it ended. “But I didn’t love Sofia, and it ended that way anyway.” And I’d had to deal with a heartbroken toddler, which wrecked me. “Knowing that doesn’t make me not want her, Luca.”
“Didn’t think it would. That’s why it’s a liability.” Luca wasn’t a man for lectures, just practical advice. “Just make sure she knows the danger and takes every precaution. No shopping trips because she’s tired of being stuck inside.”
Fuck. “Yep.” That was the last word I said before ending the call, returning my gaze out the window where Ren and Matteo had packed up and were probably in the kitchen making a mess they would happily clean up afterward. Together.
Joining them was tempting, but temptation was dangerous.
Fuck that, hope was worse because hope disappointed.
And with two possible threats against my family and my business, I couldn’t afford to let hope or temptation in right now.