Chapter 15
fifteen
GIOVANNI
The whiskey burned going down my throat—smooth at first, then hot enough to remind me I was still alive. My brothers and I gathered in the study like war generals plotting their next move. Only our battlefield wasn’t some distant country—it was this city. These streets. This home. And the stakes had never been higher.
Dimitri sat across from me, elbows on his knees, tie loose around his neck, sleeves rolled to his forearms. Tommy leaned against the fireplace, arms crossed tight over his chest, green eyes shadowed with thoughts he wasn’t ready to say aloud. Marco was perched on the armrest beside him, tapping an unlit cigar against his knee in a steady rhythm. Tick. Tick. Tick. Like a fuse waiting to blow.
We’d just drawn Kit a bath, and she’d be soaking for a while, which meant we had the room to ourselves. We weren’t keeping secrets from her—we were buying her a little peace, holding the weight for her, just for a bit.
I took another sip, letting the heat settle. “So,” I said, breaking the silence that had turned heavy. “What’s the play?”
Dimitri’s dark eyes lifted to mine—steady, unflinching. The kind of stare that made men listen, even when they didn’t want to. “Everything’s in motion. All four suspects have their bait. Now we wait to see who bites.”
Tommy’s jaw flexed. “I fucking hate waiting.” His fingers dug into his arms like he needed something to hurt.
“Better than another ambush,” Marco muttered, lighting the cigar with a flick of his lighter. The scent of tobacco cut through the room, smoke curling toward the ceiling like a ghost. “We’ve bled enough.”
Dimitri ticked the list off on his fingers. “Bernardi got the weapons drop. Esposito thinks the olive oil shipment’s moving early. Greggs is watching for the cash transfer. And Alec... Alec got the Russian meeting.”
My mouth twisted as I swirled the whiskey in my glass. “And we’re sure Alec took the bait?”
Dimitri gave a single, brutal nod. “If Rocco shows up for anything, it’ll be that. He hates Vlad more than he hates us, and that’s saying something. Strengthening our alliance threatens his whole fucking empire.”
Marco exhaled a long breath of smoke. “Then let’s hope our boy Alec lives up to our suspicions. I want nothing more than to get my hands on the rat and on Rocco—not necessarily in that order.”
I stared at the flames dancing in the fireplace, their reflection warping in the glass as I thought about the four names. The four suspects. We’d combed through our ranks, looking for any dissension, comparing schedules, looking for motives. Most of our men were solid, but these four… Fuck. We’d bled with these men. Fought beside them. Trusted them.
And now one of them was feeding us to the wolves.
“If it is Alec,” I said slowly, “he’s been playing the long game. Pretending loyalty to Emilio all these years.”
“He was never loyal to Emilio,” Dimitri said. “He was loyal to the seat Emilio held. To the power that came with it. He doesn’t respect us. He doesn’t think we’ve earned it.”
“He’s not the only one,” Marco added. “Esposito’s been circling like a vulture, too. Still thinks the old ways were better. And Greggs and Bernardi are still too new. Too green to trust fully.”
“Call it a gut feeling, an instinct, or the fact that I’ve been doing this too damn long already,” I said, “but my money’s on Alec.”
Tommas pushed off the mantle, the movement sharp. “Agreed. And the second we confirm it, I’ll put a bullet between his eyes.”
Dimitri’s voice cut through the air, direct and firm. “No. Alec goes to Emilio.”
That hit like a punch. I blinked. “You’re serious?”
“He trusted him,” D said. “Letting him handle it sends the message we need. You betray this family, the old guard or the new, and you pay. Publicly.”
Tommas exhaled slowly, obviously trying to force his anger down. “Yeah. Okay. I get it. Save the rage for Rocco.”
“Exactly.” Dimitri’s gaze swept the room, making sure we were all on the same page. “We stay alert through every op. No assumptions. If we’re wrong about Alec, or if he’s not working alone...”
I didn’t need him to finish. My jaw clenched. “Then Kit’s still in danger.”
Marco nodded. “Which is why we should move her. Somewhere remote. Somewhere no one knows about.”
“You want to pull her from the penthouse?” I sat forward, blood rising. “She’s safe here. We’ve secured every inch of this place.”
“I want her breathing, Gio,” Marco said evenly. “That’s all I give a shit about.”
“I get that. You think I don’t? But splitting our resources weakens us.”
Tommy cut in, voice tight. “She doesn’t want to leave. She said so. You saw what happened last time we tried to move her. She doubled-down and decided to remodel instead.”
Dimitri folded his hands together, brows furrowed. As the leader of our pack, it was his call. “We stay. But we change the rules. Triple her protection. And one of us is with her, always.”
We all nodded.
It wasn’t a vote.
It was law.
Marco exhaled, staring at the cherry of his cigar for a long moment. “Fine. We don’t move her for good. But what if we get her off the grid during the ops? Somewhere quiet. No eyes. No risk of a leak.”
I paused, then nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. If one of the drops gets hit, we don’t want her anywhere near the fallout. Especially if Rocco uses the opportunity to make a move against Kit.”
Tommy’s arms stayed crossed, but his tone softened. “Only if it stays between us. No outside detail. No drivers. No chatter. No one but us knows where we’re taking her.”
Dimitri didn’t answer right away. He dragged a hand through his hair, jaw tight, eyes locked on the fire like it held the answers he needed. I knew that look—he was running the numbers in his head. Every route. Every risk. Every goddamn scenario.
“I’ll think about it,” he relented, and we all knew that was as good an answer as we’d get for now.
D didn’t make decisions easily. Not when the weight of them sat solely on his shoulders. I didn’t envy him the responsibility.
I knocked back the rest of my whiskey, the burn nothing compared to the acid sitting in my gut. “You know what keeps me up at night? Not the blood. Not the bodies. It’s knowing someone we trusted sat across from us, drank our whiskey, smiled in our faces… and sold us out.”
Marco tapped ash onto the tray. “Trust is a fucking luxury.”
“Shouldn’t be,” Tommy muttered.
The silence after that stretched long.
Upstairs, Kit was soaking in her bath, relaxed and comfortable. I hoped she was breathing easier. That the hot water was helping ease the tension from her muscles. That maybe, just maybe, she’d get a full night of sleep without jerking awake from some memory she couldn’t outrun.
Dimitri stood. “We’ve got a plan. Now we follow through. We finish this.”
I rose too, the chair creaking under my weight. My voice was low when I spoke. “D… what if it’s not just Alec? What if this runs deeper than we thought?”
My older brother didn’t blink. “Then we burn it all down. And we rebuild from the ashes.”
Tommy cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders like he was ready to go ten rounds. “I’m gonna check on Kit.”
Marco stubbed out his cigar. “I’ll come with.”
Dimitri clapped my shoulder on his way out. “You good?”
I met his gaze, knowing the answer didn’t matter. “I will be. When this is done.”
He left, and the room fell into silence behind him.
I poured another drink. The amber liquid caught the firelight before I took a slow sip.
Soon, we’d know who the rat was. Soon, we’d be done playing defense.
And if anyone came for Kit again—Alec, Rocco, or the devil himself—they’d learn real quick just how lethal love could be.