16. Leon
16
LEON
“ P ermission to speak freely, sir?”
The voice in my ear sounds professional, but there’s an undercurrent to the tone that already has me gritting my teeth. “No.”
He does so anyway. “You should really work on your two-step.”
I make a point of looking over across the room to where Max is lounging by the bar and flash him a middle finger.
“Real subtle there, boss,” the voice is now Dante’s from somewhere over on the dancefloor.
Teo’s second had been in the office when Mia had messaged. I should have realized he’d seemed a little too eager to help out and probably asked a few more questions about his intentions.
For the last few hours, I’ve had to watch him alternate between dancing with two very attractive women. This wasn’t a mission for him; this was his playground, and it was starting to get old.
“Stay in your own damn lane, Grasso,” I snap.
Dante presses himself up against yet another blonde. “Gladly.”
My eyes absently flick back down to the bar, to where Mia is listening to Carmen explain something with slightly too elaborate hand gestures. The debutant has been drinking solidly for several hours now, so it’s no surprise.
Mia has a lovely flush to her cheeks, one that I know isn’t the result of alcohol—considering that she’s been subbing out every drink Carmen puts in front of her with water.
It’s been a very long week. That’s the excuse I give myself. The possibility that I’m the reason behind that flush is enough to make me half-hard.
Fuck, I was ready to take her right then on the dancefloor.
I need to get myself together.
Mia gets up from her seat and pointedly doesn’t look around before beelining to the bathroom. Maybe I could…
“I’ll follow her,” Max announces. I see the man already shifting from his seat.
Good. That’s good. That’s a sensible thing to do. This is still, technically, work.
Fucking my wife in a bathroom wouldn’t be very professional.
I sit back in my seat and try my best to focus on the job. Just another couple of hours, then I can make up some kind of excuse to see her again. Maybe she’ll come back to the brownstone with me.
Maybe she’ll explain then why her father hasn’t shown up to work all week.
My phone rings, and I frown down at the caller ID. It’s almost three a.m. He never calls this late.
“Teo?”
“Where are you?” The Guild’s don barks down the phone. “The Cartel is mobilizing for fucking battle in the middle of the goddamn night. I need everyone you can spare.”
All thoughts of warmth and thighs and a bathroom rendezvous entirely leave my mind. “Where? One of ours?”
“Brooklyn, but neutral. No one’s stationed there, but they’re launching an attack on someone…”
“…and an enemy of an enemy is a friend,” I finish for him. “What’s the address?”
“The Inferno, it’s a club on Liberty. Cars have been swarming it for twenty minutes.”
No.
I stand up and immediately look toward the bathroom, where both Max and Mia have disappeared from view.
No. No. No.
“Leon?”
My voice feels dead in my throat. “I’m already here.”
The lights cut out.
The club plunges into darkness, the air vibrating with the pulse of the bass and the sudden cries of the crowd. Panicked or excited, it’s suddenly very hard to tell.
The only source of light comes from the sickly green strobes that scatter across the crowds too frequently to be of any use. This is bad.
“Did you just say you’re already at The Inferno?” Teo’s voice crackles over the phone.
“Yeah. In the middle of this fucking mess,” I growl, my hand going for my gun. “I’m going to need you guys at every exit pushing in. Expect heavy foot traffic. Dante is already on the floor. I’ll get him to link up comms with you. How many?—”
“Too many for the two of you, heavily armed.”
“Max is here too, somewhere. So is…” I swallow hard. “So is Mia.”
There’s a pause before Teo answers, his tone grim. “Shit. Do you think they’re after her?”
Gunfire erupts near the DJ booth. Strobe lights flash, casting broken glimpses of chaos: terrified faces, bodies surging toward exits, and shadows moving with purpose through the confusion.
“We’re out of time. You need to move in now,” I bark, already making my way toward the floor, toward the last place I saw her. My feet move of their own accord like she’s a magnet that I’m drawn to.
I have to find her.
“We’ll get her out,” Teo says as if sensing my thoughts. “Watch your back.”
The line goes dead as I shove my way through the panicked crowd, scanning the room through the shifting darkness for any sign of her.
Max went after her. He’d keep her safe, wouldn’t he? He’d make sure she got out.
But my instincts are too busy screaming that something’s wrong for this to be much consolation.
Something slams into my shoulder, and I turn on impact—noting the dark clothes of my assailant and the way his eyes glimmer in recognition as he looks at me. I have a split second to register his intent before his fist starts its trajectory toward my face.
My forearm is up to block in an instant, sweeping out with my leg while his momentum is carrying him forward. His legs buckle, and he falls unceremoniously to the floor, soon to be lost to the stampede of patrons rushing past.
I manage to yank hold of his collar and retaliate with a blow of my own. Once, twice. I hit him three times in the face, then draw him up to bark in his ear over the noise, ignoring the way the blood trickling from his nose smears across my cheek.
“What are you doing here?”
His response is to claw at my arm, to start struggling to free himself. Then, with one sharp movement, he turns his face to the side and ferally bites down on my ear.
The pain jolts through me as I wrench him away. It’s pure instinct to reach for his neck, the snapping noise lost in the sea of sound that erupts once more as a spray of gunfire flashes above our heads.
“Leon!” Dante’s voice cuts through the noise, and I turn to see him sprinting toward me, blood streaking his temple. “Max is down—found him near the bathrooms, unconscious but alive.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. “Mia?”
Dante shakes his head, his expression grim.
Don’t think about it. She’s fine. She’s fine. She has to be fine.
“Teo is outside. Set up a comms link. He should have the Guild ready to intercept by now,” I shout over another scream. The gunfire is getting closer.
“What about you?”
“I need to find Mia.”
“Leon—”
But I’ve already started running. “Go. Now. That’s an order.”
Progress is slower now as I push and push and push against the current of people desperately trying to reach the exits. Flashes of faces are illuminated by the sickly green strobe lights and the erratic gunfire.
A shot goes off too close for comfort, and I drop with those around me immediately in self-preservation. The sudden space gives me a clear line of sight across the room.
A looming figure, a close-shaved head, and a leather jacket. Gesturing and barking orders at men dressed head to toe in black. They all look just like the man I incapacitated before.
Only I know this stance, know the grim line of that expression. Even in the dim light, his presence is unmistakable.
Amos Rubio.
In the flesh. In the middle of The Inferno .
The man who hasn’t been seen outside his precious mansion in months is now barking orders to the Cartel in the middle of a populated venue.
This is very, very bad.
I flick off the safety on my gun as I change course toward him. But my line of sight gets disrupted as the bodies around me begin to move again.
Some civilian with a hero complex sees my gun and tries to wrestle me for it. It’s easy to knock him aside, but the momentary distraction costs me. I lose sight of Rubio completely.
I spin around, trying to relocate the place he’d been only a moment earlier, to no avail. My movements become more agitated and desperate until…
Something cold and hard presses into the back of my neck.
“Leon Moretti,” he drawls, overwhelmingly arrogant. “Why am I not surprised that you’re here?”
My entire body tenses as Amos Rubio strolls casually into view. His grip on his gun is lazy as he circles around me.
“Teo Vitale has you doing his dirty work. I’d hoped you’d have more of a backbone, but then again, the Guild has always had a way of chewing people up and spitting them back out again.”
He steps closer, tilting his head. “You chose the wrong side, Moretti. I could have given you so much more than this.”
It’s all just games, trying to buy time or distract me.
“Where is she?” I demand, my voice low and dangerous.
“Who?” he asks, feigning innocence. “Teo’s little spy? Or my precious daughter?”
My stomach hollows out. He knows. He knows about Mia.
Do you think they’re after her?
“It’s my fault, really. I underestimated Teo. Using my darling, naive Carmen like that, luring her out to a place like this in order to what, kidnap her? Torture her for information?” Amos sucks at his teeth.
Wait. Does he think we’re here for Carmen?
“Not really his style. But then I realized,” Amos taps his gun to my chin. “It’s your style, isn’t it? Leon Natali, the man who killed his own mother in cold blood. The man who would send his wife into the field to manipulate a child.”
My mind goes blank. A faint buzzing fills my ears. He can’t know about that. How does he know about that?
It must register on my face because his face splits into a cruel smile. “You were careless, Leon, killing Ivan like that. We were on to your precious Mia before, but you were the one that made us really look. Why else would the don of the Prince’s Guild dispatch Ivan personally?”
He leans in closer. “What was it you said? ‘Tell Amos Rubio this is because you fucked with my family’?”
He’d heard everything. Probably had cameras all over that damn building, and I’d just waltzed in without thinking.
This is all my fault. Mia is in danger because of me.
I need to get out of this. I need backup. My eyes dart around us. The crowd is beginning to thin. But there are too many men in black surrounding us now, monitoring the conversation.
Teo will be here soon. I just need a bit more time.
“Where is Mia?”
The man chuckles and pulls away. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to tell you that. I want you to panic the way I did when I learned that you’d lured Carmen out here.”
“Carmen came here herself.” Something darts through my peripheral vision, and I do my best to keep staring at the man before me.
Amos shakes his head. “Carmen is a good girl. She knows what’s expected of her. She would never come to a place like this where she could be…so easily tarnished.”
Before I have time to grimace, there’s an almighty crash, and suddenly, men are bursting into the room from all sides.
Amos’ temporary distraction is the opening I need to smack his arm up. His gun goes off—as if he instinctively pulled the trigger—and the bullet narrowly misses me as it blasts into the air.
I pull back to lift up my own gun, but Amos is already there, faster than I could have anticipated. He slams down on my arm, making me drop it, and I narrowly manage to dodge a second attack by throwing myself to the floor.
Amos is on me before I can fully recover, his weight slamming into me like a freight train. I helplessly watch my gun skitter across the ground as we crash into each other, blow meeting blow as I try to get back on my feet.
He’s strong, his fists relentless as he drives me to defend over and over. But I’m faster.
I twist, using his momentum against him, and land a hard punch to his ribs. He grunts, stumbling back, but recovers quickly. His knife flashes in the dim light, and I barely dodge the blade, feeling the rush of air as it slices past my cheek.
I catch his wrist, twisting until the knife drops from his grasp, and slam him against the floor.
“Where is she?” I snarl, my forearm pressed against his throat.
Amos laughs, blood staining his teeth. “You’re too late, Moretti. She’s already mine.”