3. Tommaso #2
I smirk to myself and look at the most recent update.
They’re heading for a restaurant downtown; because of course the Bianchi’s would want to show their power by coming to a restaurant in our domain like it’s nothing.
I know what Carmine will do. He will insist on keeping a low profile. Watching them from a distance. Waiting to see what their plan is.
Well, my plan is different. I have a man to get talking.
I park at the restaurant to the side of the building, and when I get out of my car, I see him.
Aleksandr.
He’s smoking a cigarette while leaning up against the wall beside the door of the restaurant. Almost like he knew I was following him.
There’s no one else in the parking lot, the sunset casting a glow over us as I shove my hands in my pockets and head over to him. I can see the car with the two guards I ordered to watch him sitting in the lot, and frankly, they’re more obvious than I am.
Aleksandr glares at me. His voice is quiet, but his accent thick. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asks me.
He looks around us for a moment.
“No one else is lookin’, don’t worry about it,” I tell him. “Unless, you want me to cause a scene?”
Aleksandr takes a step to the side and blows his smoke in my face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I’m not here to fight anyone. I’m here to have dinner with my family.”
I snort and grab the half of a smoke from his fingers and take a drag myself. I can taste his mouth on it, and it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
I toss it to the ground afterword and smash it with my boot.
“Your family, sure,” I whisper. “We can keep his quiet if you want.”
He takes a deep breath and looks behind his shoulder for a second. “You’re going to get us killed,” he tells me. “I’m not at all concerned with you, but my own life… I’d like to keep on living.”
I grab him by the front of his shirt and pull him closer.
“Then you’d better start talking. I know you know what I need to know, or you wouldn’t be here. Playing pretend with my enemy…you stupid son of a bitch,” I threaten him, and shake him up a little.
He remains calm despite my fists grasping at his shirt and my face right up in his. He smells sober right now, not reeking of alcohol like the last time I saw him.
“Get your hands off of me, or you’re going to have more of a problem than you can handle,” Aleksandr tells me, voice like ice.
I nearly shiver.
I let go of him only because there’s people walking out of the restaurant toward their cars. A family of five.
“Here to kill another father?” I ask him. “Or are you really here to have dinner with your own?” I glare at him.
Aleksandr straightens up his shirt. “You’re making quite risky moves, Tommaso,” he reminds me. “You’re going to blow your own cover.”
“No, I’m gonna blow yours and you’re terrified,” I hiss at him. “There’s one way to fix that.”
“Work with you?” he asks and scoffs. “What makes you think I’d want to after this ridiuclous display?”
I glance to the side for a moment, watching as the door began to open, slower and with more purpose.
“I could walk right in there, draggin’ you with me, and tell them you’ve been working with me the whole time. How would that go over with your big boss, huh?” I ask him.
Aleksandr’s throat bobs with a swallow and he straightens his shoulders.
“You’re crazy,” he mumbles.
“You have no fuckin’ clue.”
“Trevor?” a voice from behind the door.
Aleksander’s eyes go wide for a moment, and I have a decision to make in a split second.
I turn on my heal and head away from the restaurant and back to my car. Deciding not to blow his cover, at least…not yet.
“Done chain smoking out here?” I hear someone say, a voice I recognize as Petra Bianchi, followed by Aleksander’s voice, but without his Russian accent.
“Never,” he says. “But I’m starving.”
I slide into the driver seat and my eyes catch the ends of long hair ruffling in the breeze before disappearing inside the restaurant.
“They’ve been tailing us for how many months?” I ask. I’m standing in front of Alessio and Damian back at the family estate. In the board room I stand near the head of the table, where Carmine would usually stand. It’s a nice feeling, however brief, to feel like I’m the one in charge.
Though, I know Alessio is above me, and it seems that even Damian has more power than me at times. That’s going to have to change.
“Five months,” Damian explains. “They’ve been in and out of the city frequently, that much we knew, but they’ve been keeping an eye on Carmine’s movements since before the situation with the Fiorellis hit it’s breaking point.”
“I bet they’re watching Soren now too,” I say with a click of my tongue.
“Are they watching all of us?” My nerves creep up my spine.
I had a feeling that they might be, but I’ve been taking my best precautions not to get caught doing something suspicious as I can.
Talking to Aleksandr… Well, that’s something neither my brothers nor the Bianchi want.
“We’ve got in touch with a security guard who has been watching the video feed they hacked into,” Alessio tells me. “They’ve also planted bugs around the estate.”
My eyes widen. “You better mean the kind with six legs and an interest in biting,” I tell him, glancing around the room. “How are we talking safely if—”
He interrupts me. “We’ve managed to scramble the feedback in this room for a short period of time, but we’re going to need to find somewhere else to talk for the time being. Be careful what we say.”
“Why don’t we just rip the bugs out and find out who put them in?” I insist. “Why are we just sitting on our asses like this and tiptoeing around our own house?” My voice raises a bit.
Damian shakes his head. “I don’t like it anymore than you do. I’d rather find out who is responsible for this, but Carmine—”
I interrupt this time. “Carmine doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing lately. He’s playing everything too safe.”
“That’s his prerogative,” Alessio reminds me. “He’s our leader. If he says to wait, we wait.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. What are we doing exactly if we’re not finding out who’s responsible for buggin’ the estate? Oh, wait. I know. You and the others are allowed to do their jobs, but I’m not allowed to do mine.” I wave an arm in the air.
“You have a job to do,” Alessio insists. “You’re supposed to be training Nikolas and Beau. If things turn nasty with the Bianchis, we need them to be prepared.”
“See, that’s your problem,” I point at the both of them. “You’re preparing for if things turn with the Bianchis, I’m already prepared for when it does.”
I turn around and leave the room, disinterested in listening to them try to stop me from doing my job.
Getting intel and finding out who the fuck is playing us in this house.
It’s gotta be one of the guards brought in over the last few months.
Someone that Carmine thought he could trust and hasn’t realized yet that he can’t.
I think about the guards I ordered to follow around Aleksandr. No, if they were in on this, they wouldn’t have agreed to it. They’d be too worried about blowing their cover somehow. Wouldn’t they?
Or maybe by not agreeing to it, they would’ve drawn suspicion to themselves…
I’m starting to confuse myself, but I need to weed out who might be the mole in our family. There could be more than one. Maybe we’ve already been infiltrated beyond belief, maybe it’s too late.
Damn, I need a drink.
I head for the liquor cabinet in the family room and find Tiberi sitting there per usual, with a book.
“How is it, brother?” he asks me, voice quiet and calm. Like he’s not at all interested in the conflict I’m struggling with inside and outside.
I grab a bottle of whiskey and pour myself a double before shoving it back into the cabinet and sitting down in a chair beside him. I down half of it in one go and sigh.
“Tired of this shit,” I admit. “Carmine needs me to do my job, but he’s stopping me. Why?”
“I don’t really agree with it either,” Tiberi tells me.
“You couldn’t say anything to him?” I wave a hand. “Does no one speak up when it fuckin’ matters around here?”
Tiberi shakes his short-haired head. “I also think Carmine is right. We can’t jump in without being prepared.”
“I am prepared!” I raise my voice and feel the burn of the drink as I take another sip. “I’m prepared to get intel from the Rose and kick some ass.”
“After what happened with Eivor, the mess left behind…Carmine wants to go about things a bit more delicately,” he explains. “We need to find out just how deep into our business they are before we start getting into theirs.”
“They’re pretty damn deep, I can tell you that much. I think we need to find their soft spot and exploit it as soon as possible.” I growl out my words in frustration.
“Maybe so,” Tiberi shrugs. “You both could be right, but what isn’t going to help is infighting.”
I scoff. “Do you always have to be so studious, Ti?” I ask him. “Can’t you be ready to get this war started once and for all?”
Tiberi sighs and adjusts the book in his lap. “I’m not ready to start any war, but I’ll certainly be there to end it.”
“That’s what I’m fuckin’ talkin’ about,” I grin at him. “Carmine needs more of your energy. We need to end this thing before it goes too far.”
I down the rest of my drink and start to feel the soft buzz in my head.
If only Carmine would listen to me.
If only Aleksandr would talk to me.
They both will, eventually. I’ll make sure of that.