8. Alek
ALEK
To think I’d just taken a shower before I left for the fight club, now I’m back in the shower…but it’s a far less pleasant experience. Guilt climbs my spine as I scrub the sweat, blood, and cum off my body.
I can’t believe I did that, and with Tommaso of all people. Not just the incredibly dangerous sex in the alleyway, but the fight. I could have been called out by Lucas or anyone for not really being willing to kill Tommaso.
I got lucky that Lucas left the club before the fight had really gotten started to deal with the drama back at the house.
It’s clear, though, that there’s some kind of draw to Tommaso I hadn’t expected. One that is completely unwelcome. One that makes my eyes burn and throat tight.
How could I do that? How could I just throw myself at Tommaso like it was nothing, get lost in the moment? There are many things I’m willing to do, but I hadn’t expected that to be one of them.
It can’t happen again. It won’t happen again. It’s too dangerous. We could get caught by the Bianchis, and there’s no excuse for shacking up with the enemy that I can give that won’t throw my position completely under the bus.
I stare at the water dripping down the wall of the shower for a long moment or two.
She would be so…disappointed in me. I know it.
I brush my fingers along my lips, and I can practically still taste him there. I growl out in frustration and pound my fist against the tile. The water splashes around me and I’m brought back into reality.
I have shit to do; I can’t just stay in here feeling sorry for myself. It’ll be better to get my mind off it anyway. Think about something else for a while, or forever.
After rinsing off my body and my hair, I get out of the shower, towel off, and get dressed. It’s late at night, but I need to get back to the Bianchi house before they realize I’m nowhere to be found, before Lucas finds out about the fight.
As I’m heading down one of the corridors to leave the underground hideout, several people approach me. Bec and Dante. They look like they mean business.
“Whatever it is, I do not have the time for it right now,” I tell them.
They step in front of me, clearly meaning to block my exit. I eye them from head to toe. A woman and a man. Not particularly bigger than me, or stronger. I can get them out of my way easily if I really want to; but I’m not all that interested in starting drama within the Rose.
“Are you sure abut working with the Dresvanni and being undercover with the Bianchi?” Bec asks me.
I lick my lips before I respond, trying to think of something to say other than, get out of my way. “I get the feeling that it doesn’t matter what I say, how you feel about it isn’t going to change.”
Dante folds his arms and looks at me with an irritated expression pulling at his features. “You’re risking the safety of this operation,” he says. “We don’t even know why you’re doing this.”
“I’m not the only one who wants to take the Bianchi family down,” I remind them. “I’m just the only one willing to put myself on the inside.”
I take a step to the side and attempt to step around Bec, but she puts a hand on the concrete wall and blocks me with her arm.
“Careful, you don’t want to mess with me,” I say in a low tone. “Jake should have told you that.”
“Oh, he did,” Bec admits, “But I’m not feeling peachy about you working two different guys and putting yourself and the Rose under the line of fire. Plenty of us feel the same way.”
I suck my teeth briefly. “Look, I’m not loving it either, but being on the inside is the only way we’re going to get the information about Bianchi, and the Dresvannis are trying to help us.
They have their reasons, I have mine.” I step even closer to Bec and Dante, almost nose to nose with Bec.
She smells like fireball liquor, and I have a feeling this conversation isn’t going to make much headway.
“But you’re the only one who can do it?” Dante asks.
“Why, you want to do it?” I ask him. “I said I’m the only one willing, not the only one capable, there’s a difference.
Before I showed up, you all were scrambling, trying to figure out what the Bianchis next move was.
Now, we, I, have a front row seat to it.
It might get me iced, but trust me, I’m not going down without taking them with it.
If you’re not prepared to actually fight, maybe you don’t belong here at all.
I’ve only been here a few month, yet even I know that being part of the Rose means being prepared to sacrifice your life at any moment. ”
Dante and Bec stare at me, the tension in the air lifting to something more awkward and embarrassing.
“Maybe I’m just not willing to sacrifice my life for whatever revenge plot you’re up to,” Bec insist. “But you’re right, we’ve wanted to lower the Bianchis down a peg for a few years. You’re the reason we’re as close to it as we are.”
“We just wanna make sure you’re not messing around,” Dante adds. “This isn’t a game; it’s leading to war.”
“You think I don’t know that?” I ask. “You fuckers have no idea what a real war is like. But don’t worry, I’ll be the one that shows you.”
Bec steps out of my way. “Just go do whatever it is you need to do, and don’t get caught.”
“I don’t plan on it,” I say as I step around them. I sigh as I finally walk away from them and toward the exit. The last thing I feel like doing is defending my position here, but not everyone is happy about me even being here. Clearly.
As I make my way up ground, I adjust the collar of my shirt and prepare myself for putting on the mask of my alter ego.
“Tonight, must go perfectly,” Stephan Bianchi tells me and the others that stand in his office. I’m standing in front of his desk with my hands behind my back, dressed up in my best suit and tie, prepared to pretend to help them wage a war that I’m secretly on the other side of.
Petra stands at my right, and Raff at my left.
The two assassins who are expected to take out Carmine tonight.
I’ve managed to convince Stephan that I should be there as well, as a distraction and another gun.
To them, I’m a ruthless killer who knows no bounds.
If they were smart, they’d have seen through this by now, but they’re not.
Not nearly as much as they think they are.
“I don’t want a single person who sees what happens to come out of there alive,” Don Stephan Bianchi says. “If they even so much as hear a peep from Carmine while he’s being detained, take them out. We can’t risk witnesses or some bystanders trying to stop the damn mission.”
“Yes, Sir,” I agree, just shortly after the other two do.
“There shouldn’t be any problems, but if you get the feeling that they’re onto us and you can’t get the job done…
pull out,” he orders. “I don’t want any one of you deciding to be the hero and dragging Carmine Dresvanni out of there while the entire gala is looking.
That includes you, Trevor. Do you understand me? No showing off.”
My jaw tightens and I look to the side as though I’m annoyed at his order.
Of course, I don’t give a fuck about it.
It’s not going to come down to any of this.
The Dresvanni know what their plans are, and by the end of the night, the majority of this little crew going to the charity ball, gala, whatever the fuck you want to call it, will be dead.
“Got it.” I look him in the eyes and place my hand on my gun for a moment. “I will do what it takes otherwise.”
“I know you will, but we have to be smart about this, we can’t go in guns blazing at a public event like this. I have a reputation to uphold,” Stephan insists.
If I wasn’t trying to maintain my composure and appear completely serious about all of this, I may have snorted in response.
The reputation Stephan Bianchi thinks he has to uphold isn’t long for this world…and neither is he.
“We’ll get things done right, boss,” Raff promises him.
Petra nods in response, her face stiff and serious.
She’s the one who wants to do this the most out of everyone.
I know that just by the way she holds herself, and the way she’s been talking about this for weeks.
She wants to be on the front line of the mission, and if she isn’t the one who wraps him up in a pretty pink bow for Stephan, she’ll envy the one who does.
Too bad for her there won’t be a gift to give.
“Get out of here before I change my mind on this whole thing,” Stephan waves us away. “Kidnapping…twenty years ago I would have simply set a meeting with him and killed him right then and there.” He shakes his head.
I can’t help but ask. “Why don’t you?”
He glances up at me from his desk, as if I’ve dared to do such a thing.
“Things are different now, boy,” he hisses at me. “In order to get what I want, we need to make them sweat. Not just take them out.”
I simply nod my head at him before turning around and following Petra who was already leaving the room.
I watch as she adjusts her purple and blue gown, not because I’m interested in the body underneath.
No. Because I’m interested in the weapons she’s hidden under the billowing layers of soft fabric.
As we walk down the hallway and toward the front entrance, I decide that she probably has two weapons on her. One gun holstered to her thigh, and a blade, probably a dagger, somewhere on her person. Perhaps stowed away in a special pocket of her cleavage or in a hidden pocket of her skirt.
Either way, I know she has something; we all do.
Given that she is going to be the hardest for me to take out, I need to know more specifically before we arrive. So, I make it my mission to ask her as we’re getting into the black car, her and I in the back, and Raff in the passenger seat beside the driver.
“What pieces do we have on?” I ask the both of them. “We should know how we’re all equipped.”
Petra eyes me suspiciously but then clicks her tongue and answers. “My gun, my switch blade, and a throwing star. She reaches into her clutch and pulls the throwing star out.