Chapter 28 Alessio
ALESSIO
My phone buzzes against my thigh. The bodyguard’s update is brief: Nina and Austin just got back from the store.
I’ve told him to report every movement, every errand, every goddamn trip to the mailbox.
Excessive? Maybe.
But after what went down at the casino, I’m not taking chances.
It’s driving me crazy that they haven’t moved in yet. Every night she spends in that house with its joke of a lock feels like tempting fate. The apartment will be ready soon. I’ve got contractors working round the clock to get Austin’s room perfect.
Tonight Nina works while Austin stays home with the roommate. Here at the club, I’ve got enough muscle to keep her safe without the extra shadow.
The Bratva and their biker friends have gone quiet since the casino attack. Three days of nothing. But in this business, silence doesn’t mean peace, it means they’re planning something worse.
I text back for the guard to keep both eyes on my son tonight, then pocket the phone. Nina’s shift starts soon, and I’m eager to see her.
The club’s already humming when I leave my office. A blonde dancer spins around the pole in pasties and a thong, working a decent crowd. The other girls prowl the floor, steering drunk marks toward the back rooms where the real money lives.
I’m heading for the entrance to check in with security when Candy stumbles past, knees hitting the floor. The rednecks at her target table start hooting as I pull her up, and that’s when I see it. The glassy sheen in her eyes, the way she sways even standing still.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ve never been more okay, handsome.” She giggles, pupils blown wide enough to see myself in them.
High as a fucking kite.
Goddamn it. I don’t have many rules in this club, but no drugs or alcohol on the clock is one of them. And I enforce it.
The rednecks start bitching when I steer her backstage. I catch another girl’s eye, jerk my head toward their table. She gets it, sauntering over while I march Candy through the dressing room door.
Two dancers look up from their phones. “Out,” I bark. They scramble.
Candy drops into her chair. Even high, she knows she’s fucked.
“What are you on?” I lean in close, using my size to intimidate.
Her lip wobbles. “Why are you being so mean?”
“Answer the question.”
“Just... riding the lightning.”
Lightning.
Fuck.
“What the fuck are you thinking—” I catch myself, barely. “People are dying from that garbage.”
“I’m careful.” She lifts her chin, defiant even now. “I don’t take too much.”
“You’re too high to spell ‘careful.’ Where’d you get it?”
Silence. I cage her in the chair with my hands on the armrests. “Tell. Me.”
Tears spill over. “One of those biker guys. Calls himself Toxic.”
Of course. One of the Devil’s Brood assholes who tore up my club. I grab her purse, dump it in her lap. “Phone. Now.”
Her texts with Toxic are basic dealer-junkie shit, but the last exchange shows they met behind my club the night of the fight. This bitch brought trouble straight to my door.
One of those animals put his hands on Nina because of her.
I fire off a text from Candy’s phone, pretending I need a fix. Toxic sends back an address.
“Pack your shit,” I tell her, pocketing the phone. “You’re done here.”
“Please, boss—”
“You broke the rules. Get out.”
I leave her blubbering and grab the first bouncer I see. “Make sure she’s gone in five minutes.”
Matteo’s with the extra security guys I’ve had hanging around. Good. If shit goes sideways, I want him there.
Three soldiers cram into my backseat as I drive toward a dive bar in Bratva territory. Stupid? Maybe. But this is our first real lead on Lightning, and these fuckers are pushing poison to my dancers.
“We grab Toxic,” I tell them, eyes on the road. “Make him talk. He’s dealing, so he knows something.”
The bar sits like a sore in the worst part of town. I park behind it, engine ticking in the silence.
“Matteo and I take the back. Rest of you cover the front in case he runs.”
We move into position, guns drawn. Through the kitchen door, we find one kid washing dishes with earbuds in, oblivious. I press my barrel to his skull and yank out one earbud.
“Turn around. Slowly.”
The kid’s maybe eighteen, skinny and scared shitless.
“How many in the bar?” I ask.
“F-four? Five? Plus the bartender.”
“All bikers?”
“Yeah. Except one guy. Think he’s mob.”
Bratva. Perfect.
I shove him in a supply closet that reeks of bleach. Kid looks ready to piss himself. He won’t be a problem.
Through the porthole window, I spot them. All bellied up to the bar, including Viktor. Matteo goes rigid beside me. That particular grudge runs deep.
One of them’s bragging about my dancer using under my nose—must be our guy. Candy made me look weak, and the anger burns.
One biker asks when she’s showing. Toxic reaches for his phone.
Shit. I fumble for Candy’s phone to silence it, but I’m too slow. The message dings, loud as hell in the silence.
“What the fuck? Is she here?”
No point in subtlety now. I slam through the door with Matteo, already firing.
Chaos. Beautiful chaos.
My soldiers crash through the front. Perfect timing. We’ve got them pinned, outnumbered. Men dive behind overturned tables, the bar, anything solid. I duck behind a pillar as bullets chew up the wall beside my head.
Plaster rains down, choking the air with dust. My ears ring from the ricochet, every shot a thunderclap in the cramped space.
I need Toxic alive, but the others are fair game. The guy lining up another shot at me gets his brains sprayed on the wall behind him.
Should be easy cleanup from here, except—
A door I didn’t clock bursts open. Four more fuckers with guns.
My soldier Logan takes one center mass, drops instantly. Another screams, clutching his leg.
“Fuck!” I shout. The math just flipped. “We’re leaving!”
The word tastes like ash, but I’m not getting everyone killed over my half-assed plan.
We retreat, dragging our wounded. Logan’s body stays behind, cooling on the dirty floor, and leaving him there feels like ripping out my own guts.
I want to burn the whole block down. I want every Bratva rat to choke on smoke and gunpowder. Instead, I drive away with blood on my hands and bile in my throat.
When the pressure threatens to crack me open, I slam my fist into the dashboard, splitting skin across my knuckles. Matteo drives in silence, his white-knuckle grip on the wheel saying everything.
I get the wounded to a safehouse and call our doctor, then make the call I’ve been dreading.
Lorenzo picks up on the second ring. “Alessio.”
“We had a problem tonight.” I fill him in on the attempted raid, Logan’s death, having to retreat. Each word feels like swallowing glass.
Silence. Then, “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking that Lightning killed another kid last night. I was thinking that we had a lead on a dealer and we’re running out of time before the DEA—”
“You think I don’t know that? You went in hot, got a man killed, and accomplished nothing.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. Logan had a wife. I’ll have to look her in the eyes tomorrow and explain why her husband isn’t coming home.
Ten more minutes of Lorenzo tearing strips off me, each word earned. When I finally get back to the club, Matteo heads out to check our other security points while I lock myself in my office.
The failure tonight has me on edge about everything. If I can fuck up that badly with a simple raid, what else am I missing? What if something happens to Nina and Austin while I’m playing soldier?
I sit there replaying the whole night. The door I missed. The cockiness that said we had it handled. Logan dropping. All of it.
“Fuck!” My fist cracks the desk.
A knock on my door interrupts the self-loathing. Starla pokes her head in, taking in my stormy expression.
“Everything okay, boss?”
I’m not about to tell her about the clusterfuck tonight. “Yeah, everything’s fine. How are things around here?”
“Everything’s running smoothly except for a no-show tonight. Nina.”
My stomach drops. “What?”
I’m out the door before Starla finishes talking, driving like the devil’s chasing me. I text Nina’s bodyguard, but I’m at her place before he can respond. His car’s still parked across the street.
The front door’s unlocked. Fucking unlocked.
I storm through, not bothering to knock on her bedroom door either.
Nina’s halfway across the room when I burst in. “Jesus, you scared me.”
“I scared you? Where the hell were you tonight?”
“I tried calling you, but it went straight to voicemail, and then I—”
“You should’ve tried again. Or called the club.” My voice climbs with each word. “How am I supposed to keep you safe if you disappear?”
Part of me knows I’m being unfair, taking tonight’s disaster out on her, but I can’t stop.
“I have a bodyguard—”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
“How dare you.” Her voice goes cold. “I agreed to uproot my entire life because you convinced me Austin could be in danger. I let myself be followed around like I’m under surveillance. Don’t tell me I’m not taking this seriously.”
“Then why—”
“Keep your voice down. Austin’s asleep.”
I already lost one man tonight. I can’t lose her too. But the fear comes out twisted, sharper than I mean it to. “I want an explanation. Now.”
“And I want you to leave.”
The words immediately suck the air out of the room. I’ve fucked this up, let my anger about Logan bleed all over her.
“I’m not leaving.”
“Fine. But you’re sleeping on the couch.”
She grabs a pillow, throws it on the couch, and storms back to her room.
I deserve that. Hell, I deserve worse.
I strip down to my boxers and stretch out on the lumpy couch, staring at water stains on the ceiling. Everything about tonight was wrong. The plan, the execution, taking it out on Nina.
Small footsteps on hardwood make me look up.
Austin stands there in dinosaur pajamas, bare feet, head tilted. “You were really loud. It scared me.”
Christ. I’ve stared down men with guns at my head without flinching, but one scared look from my kid destroys me. Add traumatizing a child to tonight’s failures.
“I’m sorry, buddy.” I sit up and pat the couch beside me, but he doesn’t move. He’s afraid of me.
I’ve never felt smaller.
I get off the couch and crouch down to his level, meeting those eyes that look too much like mine. “I’m really sorry I scared you. I had a bad night, but that’s no excuse.”
The words feel strange in my mouth. I don’t apologize. Not to anyone.
But with him, I want to get it right. For once, I want to be the man someone small can depend on instead of fear.
He considers this with six-year-old gravity, then nods.
“Are you okay now?”
It’s a simple question, but from him it hits like a punch to the ribs. “Yeah, kiddo. I am.”
And surprisingly, it’s true. This tiny person checking on me has dissolved more anger than a fifth of whiskey could.
“Good. Mommy says going to bed mad gives you stomach aches.”
I laugh, unexpected and genuine. “Your mom’s pretty smart. Thanks for checking on me. Back to bed now, yeah?”
Austin nods and heads back down the hallway. That’s when I notice Nina watching from the shadows. She touches Austin’s hair as he passes, giving me a soft look that says she saw the whole thing.
I watch him disappear into his room, this little boy who just reminded me what really matters. My chest feels tight, but not from anger this time. From something I don’t have a name for yet. Something that makes me want to be better than I am.
Nina walks over to me, her bare feet silent on the hardwood. “Bad night?” Her hand finds my cheek.
“You heard all that?”
“I did. Is that why you stormed in here yelling at me?”
I run a hand through my hair. “Partly. Look, I still don’t like not knowing where you were, but I’ll admit I was already wound up from other shit.”
“Want to talk about it?”
I shake my head. “Not tonight.”
“Okay. But I’m here when you’re ready.”
“You know what I really need right now?” I give her a suggestive look.
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
“I was just going to ask to sleep in the bed. Get your mind out of the gutter.”
She laughs, and the sound breaks the last of the tension between us. Then she kisses me, soft and forgiving.
She takes my hand and leads me to her room. Once we’re in bed, she curls against my side like she belongs there. For a moment, everything feels right again.
“Nina, why’d you miss work?”
She hesitates—barely, but I catch it.
“I didn’t feel well.”
She’s lying.
I know her tells now. The way her voice goes carefully neutral. But I’m too tired to push tonight. I’ll find out what she’s hiding, one way or another.