Chapter 15
MASSIMO
Alonzo storms down the hall, and I know he’s intent on getting to Rori, but that is definitely not a good idea.
I saw the way he reacted when he heard Rori all but confirm that her father abused her and has some kind of deal with the Russians he’s doing dirty shit for.
It’s another mess we don’t need, and while I know Alonzo wants to find out what’s going on, he might just push her completely away.
I grab him by the arm, and with all the force I can—fucking giant—I spin him around and shove him against the wall.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” I grunt, staring up into his furious face.
“She is not going to welcome you going in there and trying to demand shit from her. We have more shit to figure out, and you need to do that.”
“Get the fuck out of my way,” Alonzo rages, pushing me back.
Only having done this more times than I can count has me not falling away or on my ass.
I groan as I hold him back. “Stop it,” I grit out between clenched teeth.
“We’re meeting in Nico’s office to make a plan.
You can be pissed off in there. If you follow her, she’s going to sic Hades on you and we can’t have you down right now. ”
“You don’t know shit.” Another grunt as he shoves me harder this time, tossing me aside. I pant a little as I try to pull up more strength to go after him.
“Alonzo, Nico’s office. Now.” Aurelio’s voice is like steel as it barks down the hall.
Alonzo looks like he’s about to ignore him, but he finally must realize the consequences, because he storms past me and back down the hall toward his father. I sigh and follow them.
Damn it all to hell, I’m so sick of this shit.
When I walk into Nico’s office, all but Urso and Zeno are in the room, but the tension hits me instantly.
Papa is on the phone in the corner talking quietly, and I stand next to Alessio before giving him a questioning look.
“He’s making a call to see if he can figure out the deal with Rori’s family and the Belovs,” Alessio murmurs.
“Which is just what we need, more fucking Russians.”
“Papa will get it sorted.” I’m confident of that. If anyone can negotiate, it’s him. On the flip side, I also know that he’s the one most feared because he can be ruthless.
“While he’s doing that, we need to make some plans,” Nico announces, expression tight. “Leonardo left us alone for the night, but it’s not going to stay that way.” He looks at me. “What did the new girl say?”
“Lucy said Leonardo was planning on selling her to someone.” Just the thought makes me furious. “She doesn’t know more than that. Well, other than she doesn’t like Leonardo or her brothers and she refers to him as the man who calls himself her father.”
“She should call him a fucking cunt,” Alonzo gripes from his perch leaning against the wall.
“She looks too sweet to use such foul language,” Lazaro chuckles. “Reminds me of Gia.”
Nico doesn’t react to it, but he does look like he’s not certain how to feel about that comparison. He looks at me. “We need to talk to her. Find out what she knows.”
“Good luck. She doesn’t trust us. She and her sister both, and I think as long as the sister doesn’t, she’s going to be hard to convince.”
“Her sister?” Nico repeats, eye narrowing.
I give him a quick rundown. “She was still sleeping when I met Lucy in the hallway. Tino is on the room to keep tabs on her and will let me know when she emerges. I haven’t heard from him yet, so I guess she’s still sleeping.”
“Why the fuck do I have so many random fucking women in my house?” Nico complains.
“I’ve already got a bunch of women related to Gia finding shit around here, a fucking housekeeper that is a pain in the ass, and a woman with a dog that I don’t fucking trust and is possibly going to bring a shit ton more trouble to my door than we can handle. What’s this one like?”
“She threw a bunch of stuff at us when she found out we weren’t cops.” A grin splits my face. “And Zeno is probably going to vote in favor of sending her away if he has his choice since he’s the one that ended up getting hit. They also have gotten into a few verbal sparrings already.”
“Great, just what we need,” Nico mutters.
“They also don’t seem like they’re eager to stay here and will probably try to make a run for it at some point.
” I don’t like the thought of Lucy trying to sneak out of here with Soren, but I do understand it.
She wants to protect her son, and until she realizes that we’re the only ones who can do that, she’s always going to be skittish.
Like a deer cornered and looking for a way out. She’s cautious; she’ll wait and watch before she chooses what she feels is the best option or escape route.
“Tell the men,” Nico orders Dante, who nods and types away on his phone. “Do we have to worry that they’re going to tear my house apart to try and find a way out of here?”
“I doubt it. Well, at least not Lucy. She’s far too worried about her son to risk putting him in danger.”
“She’s also worried about you,” Lazaro adds with a nod at Nico. He frowns. “The minute you walked in, she sunk into herself and looked at you like you’re the boogeyman.”
I wince. “Yeah, that was a bit of my fault from last night. Her and her sister were asking questions and asking about Sienna, Gia, and Amara, and the sister kind of noticed a bit of a pattern in my descriptions.”
“Pattern?” Alessio asks carefully, watching me.
I sigh. Guess I should probably just come clean. “Kida made a comment—”
“Who the fuck is Kida?” Nico demands.
“Her sister,” I snap back impatiently. “And she made a comment about everyone being kidnapped by the mafia. Lucy kind of brushed it off but asked how you and Gia met and—”
“And you told her he kidnapped her,” Alessio finishes laughing hysterically. “Oh fuck. We all knew that was going to come back to bite you in the ass.”
Nico glares at him and then at me. “And you couldn’t have fucking lied?”
“Have you met the women around here? All they do is talk! She’d have heard it eventually, probably from Gia herself, and then would have been pissed at me for lying.”
Nico curses under his breath. “Yeah, well, if the two of them break anything or cause any problems, it’s your ass on the line.
” I roll my eyes at his threat. If he wasn’t a Don, I’d tell him he was all bark and no bite, but I also don’t feel like having to deal with his cranky ass and no sense of humor.
“Okay, so we have two women that now think that we all just go around kidnapping women and marrying them,” Lazaro sighs.
“Great. We all know how this is going to go, right? The two of them are going to try and convince our women that we’re holding them against their will and we’ve fucked with their heads to believe it’s okay.
Which means if those two try and escape, they’ll all try and do it. ”
We all stare at him. What the fuck is he talking about?
He rolls his eyes at us. “I’m big but I’m not fucking stupid.
Those women all spend a lot of time together.
You really don’t think Lucy and her sister aren’t going to spend time with them and now consider them as being brainwashed?
As soon as the trouble is done, or they just up and try to leave, the first words out of their mouths is going to be to convince them to leave. ”
“And you actually think they’d listen?” Alessio asks, his brow furrowing.
“It’s possible. I mean, all of them but Gia have lived normal lives that they probably want to get back to.
Amara and I are fucking new, Sienna probably misses her parents, and Gia has never experienced the world.
Perfect opportunity, right? And for Rori, she’s not going to just stay here.
She has a life and job she’s going to go back to after all this is done.
The only one who will stick around is Sofia. ”
Unease settles in my belly, and I can see Alessio looks much the same. Nico looks downright murderous. We’ve already seen the way he reacted when his wife stowed away with us back to Sicily, if she actually left him, I don’t think anyone would be safe.
Fuck, no one would be safe from Alessio either. Lazaro looks worried, but I can’t get a read on how he’s feeling about it. Then again, he’s the one who brought it up, so maybe he has a plan on how to convince them not to leave.
“You’re all worrying about shit that doesn’t matter right now,” Dante states.
We all turn on him. “None of those women are going to do shit with all this going on. You want to convince them to stay, do that when you’re alone, and when this shit is all over.
Worrying about hypothetical problems is a waste of time.
” He looks at Nico. “And Gia isn’t about to fucking leave you.
So before you lose your shit, calm the fuck down. ”
Silence.
“He’s got a point,” Alonzo finally grunts.
“And I don’t want to sit here and talk about the women and what they will or won’t do.
We have bigger shit to worry about. Namely, we need to figure out what the hell Leonardo, Marco, and Giovanni are currently planning, and these fucking chameleon people. ”
“Dare I ask if you were able to get any more information out of Rori about them?” Alessio questions, arching a brow.
Alonzo’s face goes dark. “Nothing other than she already contacted them and told them what’s going on but they committed to nothing.”
“Fuck.” Now we have to worry about fucking assassins getting in here and causing problems.
This place is so fucking huge there’s no way we’ll be able to have eyes on all of it.
“I thought she was going to try and convince them to step away from this,” Nico snaps. “She can’t even fucking do that.”
“Fuck off, Nico,” Alonzo snaps furiously.
“She didn’t have to fucking tell us about them in the first fucking place.
You should be fucking thanking her. She owes us nothing.
Her loyalty is to Sienna, not to us. She could have left, or snuck Sienna out, and left us to deal with it on our own.
Those people, they don’t want loose ends, and she’s one.
She’s fucking put her life on the line, so shut the fuck up. ”
Alessio, Lazaro, and I all glance at each other.
For as much as Alonzo and Rori fight, it’s clear that he’s also going to be the one to defend her the most. It’s finally starting to click for me that Alonzo might seriously have strong feelings besides lust for Rori.
I just hope like fuck he’s not going to get himself hurt.
We might not survive it.
“Fine,” Nico replies stiffly. “Then we need to talk to her and find out everything we can about it. She’s fucking pissed at you, so Alessio, it’s your turn.” He looks at Alessio with a cool stare.
Alessio arches a brow at him. “Me? What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?”
“You’re engaged to her fucking best friend.”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Fuck,” we suddenly hear Papa say. We all turn to stare at him.
He gives us a grim look. “My contacts said that they don’t know what the deal going on with Rori and the Belovs is.
The only thing they know is that her father is one of the few cops on his force that works only for the Belovs.
He rarely does the rest of his job, and instead spends all his time running interference for the Belovs so no one intercepts their shipments and operations. He’s gotten his sons roped in too.”
“You really think the Belovs are going to come because of her?” I ask.
“Hard to fucking say. I don’t know shit about the Russians here, but if they’re anything like the rest of the American crime families, then they’re not the most rational.
” He gives Nico a droll look. Nico glares.
“Either way, until we hear anything different, then we have to assume that they won’t come here. Sending men here would be stupid.”
“Not if Ivan sees it as a way of gaining more support and more allies to get his shit out of the city. And those Russians are crazy fuckers.”
“We’ve got another fucking problem,” Dante suddenly announces.
“Just got a message from our informant. Marco staged a coup and eliminated a number of Seamus’s men, declaring himself the new leader of the territory since Seamus is currently missing.
He apparently married Sinead and killed Declan Gallo, his wife, and their children.
The other family members scattered. It’s a fucking mess over there. ”
We all curse. This is the last thing we fucking need.