Chapter 21
Itwitch my gun with my index finger, desperately wanting to shoot Salvatore, but I restrain myself to keep the urge at bay.
I click my tongue, my intestines twisting and feeding me the agony of not being allowed to fuck shit up. I can taste the sourness of the pain on my tongue.
I hate being or feeling powerless.
I hate making anyone think they can bend me to do their fucking bidding, or force my hand. After Salvatore, someone else will come up and want to try their fucking luck at messing with me.
It pains me to know that I cannot use him as a scapegoat to keep every other fucking idiot away.
I stroke the trigger of my gun with my thumb and glare at the nuzzle. I breathe. It’s all I can do in a situation like this. Breathe.
I cannot count how many fucking times the thought of excusing myself and going after Salvatore has crossed my mind. I cannot count how many times I had to find some string of compassion to keep my gurgling desire to end the bastard in check.
I am already too exhausted from the powerlessness of the fucking situation.
I grind my teeth and intentionally catch my tongue between them, needing something to direct my frustration at. The situation is fucked up. My mind is fucked up.
He deserves it.
It is Emanuele who doesn’t deserve the pain of losing a child, especially one he is doing everything he can to save, although he would never admit to the truth.
Salvatore’s soul is made from a different darkness; no matter how hard it tries to break through, there is no hope of any light sneaking in.
I slip my handgun into the pocket of my holster and stare at the night through the glass frame of the door in the main building.
The perfect time to kill.
I shake the thought out with a chuckle, refusing to ponder on how I got to be this man.
I take the first step down the stairs as I fish for a car key in the pocket of my pants.
We spent the afternoon planning and mapping out. By some miracle, we were able to devise a plan to give him some of our territories—some very key locations.
Salvatore has a mind of his own, and he is all for the big kill. But we are willing to try and cajole him into seeing why a war will benefit nobody. I despise that part.
The part of trying to cajole him.
I despise the fact that I have to sit with a fool like him after he dared to kidnap my son and persuade him to avoid a war when I would have loved to spill his blood for his insolence.
“Everything set?” Emanuele asks as I step out, already stomping in the direction of the garage.
“Yes,” I fall behind him, not caring to conceal my weapons for the journey ahead. He makes no mention of it, even though he should remind me that we don’t exactly need them.
I think we can both agree that anything is possible with Salvatore, which is why we are not going alone. We are not going as though we want to negotiate. We are going to him as though we are bringing war to his fucking doorstep.
“How many men are we leaving with?” Emanuele asks as he stomps into the garage and sees three other cars pull out.
“Enough,” I answer, but I have given the order for more than enough. He can see three cars, but three are already ahead of us, and three more are on standby, just in case.
Aside from wanting to get my son, I must also protect him. I won’t forget easily how Salvatore had stood beside Boris, who wanted to kill his father.
I will go in and come out with my son.
I climb into the driver’s seat, and Emanuele climbs into the passenger’s seat, not caring to strap on his seatbelt.
“You might…”
“I am not going to give you a bloody reason to drive me to my death. I have a family and a child on the way, drive like a human, Fabio,” he pulls out his cigar and lighter from the pocket of his black dress pants, and the white light from the garage bounces on the many knuckle rings he has on.
I start the car and drive out.
I am calculating the cars that I have ordered to be used, and something isn’t clicking. Something in the garage feels out of place, but I can’t figure it out yet.
“Don’t kill him,” Emanuele gruffs and puffs his cigar. “If it comes down to it, don’t kill him, let me do it,” he swallows. “That way, I have no excuse to seek revenge or hold resentment,” he inhales and exhales, the lines beside his eyes highlighted by the stress of his thought.
A son wanting to kill his father is not a new thing in our world.
I killed my father, and my only regret is that he died too easily. I should have chopped him into pieces until life left his eyes.
But a father killing his son is rarer.
I nod, saying nothing and promising nothing. All I know is, if Salvatore aims a gun at him and Emanuele is not fast enough to act, my bullets will fly. I don’t give a fucking fuck about anything that comes after that.
“You must have done something terrible in one of your past lives to get a son like Salvatore in this one,” I swerve into the street demarcating the Bratva and Teso territory.
“And you something good to deserve your son,” he grinds his teeth. “That is if the boy doesn’t grow up to want to kill you in the future,” he chuckles. “I guess I have always seen it in Salvatore’s eyes. And I exposed him to this life a little too quickly, needing him to step up and be all the things I thought a leader should be,” he pauses. “But I was wrong,” he flicks his lighter. “You never needed that, and you turned out to be a better leader than anyone I know,” he scratches his gray beard. “This is fucked up,” he stares blankly in front of us as I cross into Bratva territory, following the fleet of cars in front of us.
I nod, agreeing about the fucked-up nature of this situation. The one where Emanuele is thinking he might not come out of this alive. The one where he is giving me the speech like he knows he is about to die. The one I don’t want to fucking hear.
“Fabio,” he pauses as if thinking about his next line of words, and I hope he is fucking thinking about swallowing them. “Eva…”
“Needs her father, Vittoria needs her husband, and I will never fucking say this again, but I need you, and so does everyone, including my son, whom you will meet soon,” I interrupt. “My job is to keep you alive, and I am pretty good at it.”
“Don’t go emotional on me,” he drags his cigar.
“You started it,” I slow down as the cars before me slow in the front gate of Boris’ estate, which is now Salvatore and Nina’s.
Something seems out of place. The gate is wide open. No security or any of the fucking Bratvas parading the arena.
Boris was a man like some child that never grew out of loving cotton candy. His estate has no sense of power. It’s a horrendous replica of fucking Disneyland, an illusion of a playground. But we know that what goes on behind this exterior is anything but.
I step out of the car, and Emanuele does the same. I pull my gun from my holster pocket as some of our men file around the estate”s gate, taking their positions.
My mind drifts back to the garage, and I knit the missing piece together.
A car was missing. An old black sedan car.
I halt, spinning to face Emanuele as he pulls out a gun from the car and straightens his shoulders.
“I think we have a mole,” I step forward, crossing the threshold of the gate and condemning myself into the enemy’s fucking territory.
There it is.
The sedan car.
“We have a mole,” Emanuele confirms as he steps into the compound behind me, his eyes landing on the car.
“No security,” I sprint my eyes around, quickly identifying all the cameras and their angles. “But the cameras are strategically placed, and this means…”
“They are waiting for us,” Emanuele completes my sentence.
“We can either walk into the trap, or we can go back and strategize,” I offer, not wanting him to choose the former, but I know Emanuele enough to know which he would choose.
“Let’s finish this up for good, I’m aging faster because of the stress,” he sucks his teeth and cock his gun.
Situations like this are bound to happen. We should have prepared for the possibility of a mole.
I take a step toward the lofty building, cussing at whoever thought it wise to betray us like this. I will kill that person myself and take out the frustration for not being able to kill Salvatore on him.
A fucking mole has blown our cover, and I am sure he has also told Salvatore of our plans to give him some territories. And the absence of security outside tells me Salvatore is not in the mood to negotiate.
I tip the door of the main building, and it opens. I am quick to press my back flat on the wall beside it, waiting to hear gunshots, but instead, I am met with deafening silence.
I draw my eyebrows together as Emanuele lifts one of his, the same question reflecting in our expression; a question neither of us having the fucking answer to.
What is happening here?
I signal the men around us to take positions as I step in, my gun in front of me, ready to go off. But with each step I take around the interior of black and red, I sense the absence of danger. It’s a strange thing to sense in a setting like this.
I scowl and spare a glance at the ghastly framed picture of Boris on the wall like he is some god to be worshipped. I resist the urge to pump a bullet into it and alert anyone of our presence.
Then I hear it.
And I am sure Emanuele hears it, too, with how he grumbles, cursing under his breath. We both take snappy steps in the direction of hushed touches of laughter and chirping.
It’s a narrow way that leads to a kitchen.
We step into the kitchen, and my face falls flat at the sight of women.
Our women.
“Boys,” Vittoria smiles at us, then sips from a glass of juice.
“It’s about time you showed up,” Eva chuckles and throws a piece of cake in her mouth. “What took you so long?”
Okay, what the fuck is happening?