Chapter 34
Chapter
Thirty-Four
ENZO
My hands tightly gripping her waist, I pull her close. “You’ll stay in here with Luca until one of us comes to get you, okay?”
She narrows her eyes, suspicious of my motives no doubt.
I’m already regretting agreeing to let her be a part of this yesterday, but I’m fucking powerless to resist her.
I guess the Bertellis weren’t as stupid as I pegged them.
Using her to get to me would have been the smart move.
I would boil oceans for this woman, even if she’d reprimand me for displacing all the whales and fish.
“Rayne, baby. You can be a part of this, but let’s ease them in gently, okay? I need to figure out where their allegiances lie before I let them anywhere near you. As soon as Carmine finds out you’re here, then he knows I’m coming for him. So we do exactly like we agreed on.”
I need to know she’s safe. Because now we know the truth, she’s in even more danger. If Carmine decides to take me out, she’ll be dead too. He won’t leave any loose ends.
Her eyes tell me she’s still not entirely happy, but she nods. “Fine. I’ll stay here with Luca. But don’t be surprised if we get bored of being sat out and go stage a coup of our own, okay?”
I kiss her forehead, feeling my lips curving in a smile. So fucking feisty, and I love it. “You’re not being sat out. You’re my trump card, baby.”
She reacts exactly as I knew she would, with amusement and a little indignation. “Trump card?”
I silence her with a kiss, and she melts into it, her hands fisting in my hair.
And now I’m hard, and she’s almost definitely wet, and I wish there were time to fuck her before our guests arrive.
I can barely keep my fucking hands off her.
It’s like we’re teenagers who’ve just discovered sex for the first time.
Or maybe we’re making up for the six years we wasted.
We’re currently existing in this strange kind of limbo where we’re not together but we’ve stopped pretending to hate each other, so there’s absolutely no reason to keep our hands to ourselves anymore. It’s fun. But not enough.
We’re interrupted by a knock on the door to the den. Rafael and Luca, who don’t wait to be invited in, only knocking to let us know they were coming.
“They’re here,” Rafael says while Luca strolls inside and takes a seat on the sofa.
I untangle myself from her. “Stay here until one of us comes to get you, Rayne.”
She peers over my shoulder at Luca. “Did you draw the short straw having to babysit me?”
“No. I hate Gian Caruso. Can’t bear being in the same room as him longer than necessary.”
I cup her chin. “And it’s not babysitting. He’s here to protect you. I’m about to tell the heads of four families that the don is a scheming deceitful bastard and we’re going to overthrow him. I have no idea how this is going to go down.”
Her face is a mask of concern now. “Be careful, won’t you?”
“Of course, baby.” I’m not a man who’s been careful, certainly in recent years.
Most people would have said I had a death wish, and that’s why I’m so dangerous.
But now…now I have everything to lose, and she’s right here in my arms. So, yeah, I’ll be careful.
And with her by my side again? Well, I’m even more dangerous.
Micah has turned my dining room into a makeshift boardroom, and now I’m sitting at the head of it, telling four of the city’s oldest families that the don is a lying snake who should have retired years ago.
Gian Caruso and Ilario Viscusi brought bodyguards.
Smart, considering they’ve never stepped foot in my house before.
Rocky Benedetti and Tomasso Russo came alone.
Friends, who’ve been here plenty of times before.
Gian’s guard reached inside his jacket when he entered.
Not for a gun. For his phone. He tapped the screen once before tucking it away.
Micah watched from the corner and gave me a single nod.
He caught it too.
Gian stands at the opposite end of the table, having refused to take a seat, knuckles pressed flat against the solid wood. “Say it again,” he said, eyes not leaving mine. “Because I want to make sure I heard you correctly when you called Don Falcone a snake in his own city.”
“Did I stutter, Gian? You heard me correctly. Carmine has been keeping us all down for years. Playing everyone off against the other.” I keep my voice calm and controlled.
This isn’t the situation for aggression or emotion.
Despite the way I respond around Rayne—all instinct and emotion—in business I learned the art of keeping a cool head a long time ago.
“He had the Bertellis taken out because Oscar and Joseph knew something he doesn’t want made public. ”
Ilario shifts in his chair. “I heard a rumor that you were the one who took out the Bertellis, Enzo.”
“And let me guess where you heard that. The don himself, right?”
Ilario doesn’t answer.
“And it’s no rumor.” They all stare at me now, and I’m taking a risk admitting that aloud, but if this is going to work then we all need to know what we’re dealing with. “I did take out the Bertellis.”
Gian slams his fist onto the table and curses me in his mother tongue before taking a seat.
Rocky, always a cooler head, leans forward in his chair. “Why?”
“Because the don ordered me to. He told me Oscar had been a thorn in his side for too long, taking liberties running his mouth, and he had finally had enough. He asked me to make it look like the Russians were responsible. But in fact, he’d already made a deal with the pakhan, giving up part of our territory in exchange for a partnership. ”
“A partnership with the fucking Russians,” Gian spits out. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true.”
Silence settles over the table like a held breath.
“You have proof of this.” Tomasso Russo speaks now for the first time. Not a question but a demand.
“Actually, I do. I have a recording of the don himself.” I take out my cell phone and place it on the table. I make a habit of recording all of my conversations with the don lately. It’s why I recognized what Gian’s bodyguard was doing when he first walked in here.
Gian’s jaw works. “If you’re lying—”
“Then you can put a bullet in me yourself. But I’m not lying, and you all know I’m not, because some part of you already smelled a rat. The way he’s been making reckless decisions, demanding more money, more proof of our unwavering loyalty.”
Ilario leans back, considering me with the cool, assessing look he’s well-known for. “Let’s say we believe every word. You understand what you’re asking us to do?”
“I’m asking you to choose between loyalty to a man who’d burn every one of us to save himself, and your own family.
I’m not pretending this is easy, but I’m telling you that doing nothing will be worse.
He will never be satisfied, and he will come for all of us eventually.
I have served by his side since I was old enough to hold a gun, been his second since I was twenty-one, been nothing but loyal, and this is how he repays me.
Setting me up to take the fall for murders he ordered. ”
Gian glances at Ilario and then they both look the phone screen sitting on the table like an unexploded bomb.
“Play it,” Gian finally snaps.
I press play on the recording, playing for them the full conversation I had with Carmine the day after Vinny’s death. His voice. His words. Telling me how he was working with the pakhan and how everyone would fall into line.
The recording plays for four minutes and twelve seconds, and nobody speaks for a full thirty seconds after it ends.
Gian, the don’s closest ally in the room, reacts first, shoving his chair back so hard it clatters to the floor. He’s simmering with rage, and for a second, I think he’s going to put his fist through something. But then he doubles over, hands braced on his knees, sucking in deep breaths.
“Oscar’s wife brought him lasagna every fucking day after his wife died,” he said to no one in particular. “He was Joseph’s godfather.”
Nobody speaks. Tomasso simply stares at Gian like he’s lost his mind.
Rocky chews on the inside of his cheek like he’s thinking.
It’s Ilario I’m watching intently though.
He hasn’t said much, hasn’t moved. He’s still in that way he is before he’s about to make a decision he can’t unmake. “Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody but you and my brothers. I purposely only disclosed it to the people I could trust. Nero Mancini will use this to undermine me and step into the don’s vacant shoes, and Antonio Bianchi will back whatever action Nero takes.”
Ilario nods, like he agrees with that assessment.
“So, you told us, why?” Gian snaps, having regained his composure. “Because you expect us to back you to take the don’s place?”
“No. I have no designs on the being the new don, but that doesn’t mean we sit back and let the current one play us all for fucking fools while he brokers deals with the Russians using your livelihoods.
And while we may not have been allies in the past, Gian, I know you are a man of principle. A man who would die for his family.”
That seems to appease him a little, or at least it soothes his ego. He rights his chair and takes a seat again.
Tomasso leans forward, hands clasped in front of him. “So what do we do now then?”
“Whatever we do, we do it carefully,” Ilario says. “Carmine didn’t get to be don by being stupid. If he so much as smells what we’re discussing in this room, or even that we’ve been in the same room together, then we’re the next families in body bags.”
Rocky hums. “Yeah. We need to act before he does.”
“Agreed. So we need to keep the Mancinis and the Bianchis busy. Carmine is already whispering in the right people’s ears that I carried out the hit on the Bertellis under my own steam, so there’ll be pressure for someone to take me out.
I have no doubt Nero and Marco Mancini will try.
That means we all have to play the game.
You pretend to be loyal to him—until you’re not. ”
“And who’s going to do it, actually take out the don?” Rocky asks the question no doubt on everyone’s minds.
“That will be me,” I tell them.
“So you do want to be the next don,” Gian accuses.
“He’s the best man for the job, Gian,” Rocky snarls. “He’s been running the show for years now, or hadn’t you noticed?”
Tomasso and even Ilario nod their heads in agreement.
“That’s not why I’m doing this though. Yeah, he was gonna fuck us all over, but he also ruined my life a long time ago, and now I’m looking for some good old-fashioned retribution.
I’m going to enjoy every fucking second of watching that lying piece of shit die.
” My voice drips with the kind of venom that makes them all sit up.
“What the fuck did he do to you?” Rocky asks.
“You remember I mentioned that thing the don doesn’t want made public?”
Curiosity ripples around the room. They probably assumed it was the Russian connection.
I signal to Rafael, who’s been standing guard at the door the entire time. Wordlessly, he leaves to go get Rayne. It’s time to show the world who’s my whole fucking world.