Chapter 17 Andre
ANDRE
“Are you ready?” Oleg asked when the driver stopped at the restaurant where we’d be meeting members of the Rossi family for a quick update about mutual interests.
Maintaining friendly ties with the old Italian syndicate was something that fell on my shoulders as my father’s key representative for these kinds of negotiations.
They’d asked to meet here, after the business closed.
Going to speak with them on their turf was a disadvantage, but for a decade now, they’d been amicable, and an adversary.
I slanted him a frown. “Ready?” I scoffed. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Speaking with the Rossis was something I did quarterly.
“I meant are you ready to be on? Are you ready to get your head on straight so you ain’t thinking about her?”
If he was skeptical of her and under the assumption he was looking out for me, fine. This man had my back too many times to count to doubt him now.
But if he was biased against her and doubting her for any other trivial reason, no thanks. That shit wouldn’t sit right with me.
“I’ll manage,” I retorted, reaching for the door handle.
He was starting to sound like a broken record, making comments about how obsessed I was to spend every minute I could with Sofia.
It was obvious to everyone in my building and all of my family that she wasn’t really working for me.
Not much. She was no longer a maid, not that I’d really needed someone else in that role.
She was almost done organizing my office, not that I ever spent much time there.
I only went in there to toss some things on the desk with the mindset that I’d deal with it later.
If Oleg wasn’t making comments or giving me the side eye about starting something with Sofia, then I was fielding questions about her from my father.
Roman only cared to tease me that “another one bit the dust.” Sergei didn't comment at all, perhaps because of how recently he’d been in my shoes, bringing a woman into our small group.
Sofia wasn’t a distraction. I could compartmentalize my life. But she did present herself as a source of motivation for me. The sooner I wrapped up my business, the faster I could get home to her and relish the perfection of her presence in my life again.
That was why I strode toward the Rossis’ restaurant with confidence. With a quick clip to my pace, eager to get this talk over with so I could head home.
To her.
Oleg accompanied me. A couple of others strode behind us, arriving in a second car.
Having backup generally wasn’t necessary when speaking to the Rossis.
I’d requested that they come only because it looked strong.
It seemed right to show up with equal forces, as if bragging they weren’t better off than we were.
“Let’s get this over with,” I told the three Orlov soldiers with me.
The guards at the door nodded at our approach.
Acknowledged as expected guests, we were given the right to go behind them and enter the side door.
A short staircase would lead us up to the private rooms, the space above the restaurant where the Rossis could host parties, appease and calm those who wanted an exclusive gambling room, or dictate other nefarious plans.
Granted access, we took the stairs and reached the second floor. A semi-enclosed patio on a wide balcony space was lit up with some lights hanging from the awning.
“Andre,” one of the leaders greeted kindly. “Good to see—“
Gunfire erupted, cutting him off. Bodies slammed onto the floor as agents flung themselves into the open space. They rappelled into the opening, all of them armed, firing, and protected by vests.
DEA, ATF, NYPD. A trifecta of hell.
Shouted orders for us to lower our weapons. Yells for agents to move as a unit. And the demands for us to get down.
It happened so suddenly that I almost lagged to react. Oleg and the two others who’d come were already flanking me, forming a protective circle to block any clear shot at me.
What the fuck?
What the actual fucking hell?
This was a routine meeting. Nothing illegal or fancy. Yet the goddamn alphabet agencies were storming and ambushing us like this? Now? If it weren’t so ludicrous, I wouldn't have believed it was reality.
These assholes showing up like this was the last thing I would have expected.
While I reached for my gun, Oleg and the other two doing the same, it seemed like our training and extensive experience with tense situations like this didn’t matter.
Gunfire surrounded us. Chaos filled the atmosphere as agents and law enforcement officers bellowed orders to get us.
Pandemonium ensued as the Rossis swarmed to retaliate.
They had all their guards and soldiers on hand.
Unlike how I’d shown up with only Oleg and two men, they had an outfit.
This was on their turf, and true to their violent nature, they reacted defensively.
Shooting back. Entering into combat. Threatening war.
Every one of our families had to put up with the “law and order” of the citizens’ society. Their rules didn’t extend to us. We operated under our own system of justice.
And tonight would be no different.
Thrust into the ambush and depths of the fighting, I looked out for my men. For Oleg and the other two.
Family first, always. But getting out wasn’t so easy.
Helping the Rossis hold back the assault from the agents was expected too.
We did our best, firing back, but in the end, after the rush of violence and panic, they retreated.
They withdrew, escaping with their bulletproof vests and dragging their wounded off the second floor patio.
Contingencies must have been prepared, because they all fled with too much efficiency.
Smoke hung in the space we’d defended. Dust rose up from the destruction all over the place. Windows had been shattered. Tables were turned over and busted. Blood puddled in slick pools on the floor. A buzzing hum of a snapped wire for the lights sparked with a charge off to the side.
Catching my breath as more Rossis fled out into the night, pursuing the cops and agents, I scanned the room and took stock of the damage.
I was alive. Hit and enduring the stinging aches of fresh injuries, I dismissed that I’d gotten caught in the crossfire. Nothing was broken. Everything was still attached.
Oleg was bloodied up but still standing.
One of the Orlov men was leaking blood from an angry gash on his forehead.
He winced and squinted as it streaked down.
I paused to grab the handkerchief from my suit jacket and offered it to him.
He took it without a word. The other man was limping as he assisted a wounded Rossi to sit down. He grimaced at a leg wound.
“What the fuck was that?” I demanded as the senior Rossi member shook his head, letting loose a long string of growled profanities as he took in the scene.
We were all stunned.
But I was annoyed too.
“Are you trying to fucking set me up?”
He snarled, approaching me. “Me? Me?” He stabbed his finger at his chest as he approached. “You think I asked you here to motherfucking set you up on my turf?”
No, that wouldn’t have made sense.
Oleg grabbed my sleeve. “They were gunning for them.”
The Rossi boss growled. “And they won’t succeed.” He kicked a broken chair nearby, venting his fury. Another litany of Italian curses filled the air. His men helped the wounded. My soldier pitched in as well. We all gathered ourselves in this collective aftermath.
“That fucking bastard.” The boss growled and paced, eyeing the ruins.
“Who?”
“Who?” He huffed, running his hand over his hair. It smeared the blood on his hand over his brow. “Who else? Only Giovanni would pull a fucking stunt like this.”
I understood his reasoning. Roberto Giovanni had been a thorn in my side too, interfering with our drug operations.
He hadn’t been able to be one step ahead of us there anymore.
Not since Emilio was taken out. Not since I’d killed the rat I’d found in my office when Yusuf had been snooping for that drug route map.
Giovanni was the sort of asshole to set up an ambush and sting like this. He was a bigger enemy of the Rossis than he was of the Orlov name.
Yet as I took stock of how we could get the hell out of here, I worried if I was being too quick to jump to any conclusions.
This screamed of a setup. But were the Rossis the target, or were we?
We stayed only long enough for me and the Rossi to communicate the need to reschedule.
And to keep each other updated about the incident.
He was fuming, too damn mad and far from calming down.
I couldn’t blame him. I would feel the same if I’d asked him to my place and we’d been vulnerable to a sting and ambush like this.
Before I left with Oleg and the other two, Rossi thanked me for assisting.
For standing by. We weren’t true allies.
My father ruled with the principle of being friendly yet not claiming official alliances or friendships.
The Rossis fell in the general category of “not enemies”, and that remained constant tonight.
He didn’t accuse me of bringing trouble to his door. He hadn’t blamed me for those agents and cops showing up.
On the drive home, though, as we all winced and cringed through our injuries, Oleg shared the opposite sentiment.
“Someone knew.”
I furrowed my brow at him as we sped back toward my building, holding my hand over a wicked cut on my forearm.
“Someone knew what?”
“Someone knew we were going there tonight.” He frowned. “Someone had to have that intel.”
I shook my head. “But how? Are you suggesting the Rossis have a leak? A mole?”
He gave me a sober frown. “I don’t know. But we’ve had issues with it ourselves.”
“Past tense. I handled our traitor.”
“Unless someone else is spying in your building.”
I gritted my teeth. “Who? For fuck’s sake, who? Emilio was hacking. They found evidence of the hack into my systems and tracked it back to him. I killed Yusuf.”
He shook his head. “Something ain’t right.”
“No shit,” I quipped. Nothing could be right about two different families hit tonight.
“Maybe the Rossis got a leak. But maybe not. All I’m saying is this shit could have been from our end.”
I shook my head, willing the car to hurry and get us back to my building faster.
“I don’t even know how. I never message or email about the quarterly meets with the Rossis. We confirm it with a call.” I scowled at him. “You heard me on that call. No one else was at the building then.”
If he dared to suggest I had another mole to hunt down…
I bit back a growl at the potential headache. Who could be spying still? Renee? Sofia? The cooks? Any of the guards? It was laughable. I’d had all the members of security triple-checked after Yusef.
I didn’t want another liar or traitor to have to find and execute. I’d just spent months on that, rooting out the source of intel Roberto Giovanni had been relying on to fuck with us.
Another threat in my building, from someone close to me, was the last thing on my mind. The very last strain of bullshit that I wanted to focus on.
It would pull me from Sofia. It would compete with being able to explore this new thing with her, and right now, that was the only goodness I could let myself seek.
She wasn’t just the temptation I struggled to resist.
She was becoming my salvation. My precious reward.
Because when the gunfire broke out and the familiar fight-or-flight instincts kicked in at the Rossis’ restaurant, one crucial fear entered my mind.
That I’d see my men wounded or killed.
That one of us would be captured.
That… I could have died.
After a lifetime of danger, I was used to and hardened to the violence and threats of being killed. This was how deeply we swore our servitude to my father, to our Bratva, to the Orlov legacy.
For the first time, though, it wasn’t the loss I’d be for my father, my brothers-in-arms, or my family.
It was Sofia.
I’d panicked that we would be over if I didn’t make it home to her. And that harrowing thought cemented how much she had come to matter.
How much I was on the path to believing we couldn’t lose each other because one half of a soul remaining of a pair was an injustice I couldn’t allow.
Facing forward, I bore through the pain of my fresh wounds and counted down the seconds until I could hold her in my arms again.
Until I could breathe her in and feel complete once more after such an unexpected near-death incident.