Chapter Ten
Lilianna Genovese
I followed Matteo down an oceanside alleyway on the wealthiest part of the coast.
If anyone looked too long at us, they’d know we weren’t here for vacation. Despite the heat, I wore a long-sleeved black shirt and a bulletproof vest beneath it. Matteo wore something similar, combined with black cargo pants and boots.
I couldn’t stop myself from eyeing his form as we walked. I envisioned it as I’d seen it a few nights ago. In all the positions we’d explored. All the interesting ways he’d moved it. I bit my lip as my eyes caught on his ass.
I needed to focus on wherever he was taking me, not on his ass.
It was fortunately late enough that all the people in the surrounding hotels and apartments had hunkered in their rooms for the evening.
The only sound was the crashing waves that permeated the two rows of buildings and still reached us here.
We rounded the corner and found a handful of men in the dead-end part of the alleyway. One sat in the back of a van, legs swinging back and forth as he scanned the screen of his phone. Two stood to the side in a hushed conversation that didn’t reach my ears, and the last two—Matteo’s men—watched the other three keenly.
“What do we have here?” Matteo asked, clapping his hands together and disturbing the silence.
The three men surrounding the van stood taller, the central one tucking his phone into a pocket.
“These are all the weapons we could get our hands on from the remaining Genovese warehouses,” the person in the center said. I looked more closely at her, realizing that she wasn’t the man I’d assumed her to be in the dark. She had short hair and a wide build, but feminine curves rested beneath her black clothing.
Matteo moved closer, and I followed. “This is all?” he asked.
The man on the far left came closer, smacking his lips. “We did our best, Costello.”
The woman spoke again. “Any weapons that were salvaged by the remaining Genovese family and employees won’t be seen again. Not without an agreed-upon leader. For now, they’re disbanded.”
“We need more,” Matteo said, clicking his tongue. “We’re taking out Vlad and his family. He declared war on us, and we don’t take that lightly.”
“We heard,” the third man said. He looked familiar, and I stared for a moment before the name fell into place.
“Jay,” I whispered.
He looked at me, his eyes hard for a moment before he recognized me, too. His face lit up. “I’ll be damned,” he said with a chuckle. “Lilianna, I didn’t expect to see you back after this debacle.”
I smiled sadly and nodded, but didn’t say more. I wasn’t even sure why I was here.
I’d told Matteo that I wanted to be involved in taking vengeance, not in random arms deals. But now that I looked into the eyes of Jay and two of my father’s soldiers, I knew there was a reason Matteo had insisted I come.
Matteo squared his shoulders as he talked to my father’s men. “What will it take to reunite your people to stand against Vlad with us?”
“They won’t reunite,” I told Matteo, shaking my head. “The people who worked for my dad were either loyal to him or indebted to him. They wouldn’t work for a stranger.”
I didn’t need to explain this to him. He knew the dynamics of the mafia better than anyone. Part of Dad’s employees were distant family members. The majority were the people who needed extra income—people willing to serve him for a paycheck. The people who trusted him with their lives, those people were usually related or connected to our relatives.
The others wanted him dead.
They were the people who knew their debts would be gone if he died.
“Not true,” the woman said, shaking her head. “Rumor has it, Alessio’s daughter is back. You, Lilianna. People would reconvene under you. Your whole family would. You have Alessio’s blood, and that’s all they need to trust you.”
Blood meant everything to our people. “I’m not his heir. I can’t be Don as a woman.”
“According to some,” she admitted. “But most people see your blood over your gender. It gives us more of a chance than someone else stepping up. Trust me, girl, someone will step up before long. You don’t want it to be Vlad or one of his allies.”
I glanced at Matteo and then back at my father’s people. My people.
“I left for a reason. I’m not taking over for my father.”
That wasn’t a question. I wouldn’t tie myself to this place for longer than necessary.
“Regardless of that situation,” Matteo said, gesturing to the van full of weapons. “We need more weapons to give to my men. We’re good on the agreed price?” he asked.
She gave a brief nod.
“We still stand behind you, Costello. Those of us left,” she said. “There just aren’t many.”
Matteo’s men began unloading the weapons and transferring them into the second van. He handed a briefcase to Jay, and Jay peeked inside before nodding his approval. I waited beside Matteo, shifting my weight back and forth. I wasn’t expecting this, and I couldn’t gather my thoughts.
Hell, I didn’t know what to think.
Would tying myself to this place be the only way to get justice?
Jay and the other two backed out of the alleyway and drove away, leaving me, Matteo, and his two guards.
“Why did you bring me here?” I asked as soon as they were out of earshot. “Did you want me to hear that the Geneveses need me to reconvene?”
Matteo tilted his head. “Do you think that’s why I brought you?”
The cryptic answer had rage bubbling in my chest. “You know I can’t stay here after I get justice for Silas, Matteo. I can’t tie myself to organized crime, even if you want me to stay. It’s not an option.”
He nodded, not looking at all surprised.
“I will provide all of my forces to kill Vlad and his daughter. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe, but you need to know the whole truth. I’m not going to hide the truth from you, even if you don’t want to hear it.”
I exhaled deeply. “What are the odds we can do it without their help?” I asked.
“I’ll do everything I can.”
It was a non-answer, and we both knew it. The odds weren’t in our favor.
While Matteo had forces equal in size to Vlad’s, Vlad had a plan that had been in the works for years.
The anger faded slightly, but the situation was still infuriating. It wasn’t fair that these were my options. I could avenge my family and become tied to this place. Alternatively, I could leave and let the people who killed my family walk free.
“I don’t know the best option,” I admitted. “But my number one goal is keeping Callum safe.”
“No matter what choice you make, I’ll make sure that you and your son are always safe from the people who mean you harm. You never have to worry about that.” I didn’t have a chance to react as Matteo reached into the holster at his hip and withdrew a pistol, turned, and fired it into the leg of one of his guards. He hardly glanced away from me to do it, and I found myself questioning if I’d just seen what I thought I’d seen as he met my eyes again. “ This is why I brought you here tonight. Hearing the truth was important, but you deserved to be here when I confronted the man responsible for the attack at the penthouse.”
I glanced past him and toward the man now on the ground, holding his leg and shouting in pain.
“How do you know it was him?” I asked.
“My tech guy has been tracking Vlad’s men to find him. He didn’t find Vlad,” Matteo turned his attention to the man on the ground behind him, “But he did find you.”
Matteo approached the man as I gaped.
“I—I didn’t do it!” he shouted, shaking his head.
The second guard looked between all of us and stepped back. “I had nothing to do with this shit.”
“Wait in the van,” Matteo said to the innocent guard, and the man strode away, not daring to look back. “You, on the other hand, have been feeding our secrets and whereabouts to the Petrovs.”
“I haven’t—”
Matteo fired a second bullet into his shin, and he screamed.
“I don’t take betrayal lightly, nor do I take lying lightly.”
Matteo spoke down to the man as if he was having a polite conversation with a stranger on the street. No rage, no disappointment. He didn’t seem at all fazed, and that seemed to scare the man the most.
“I have questions. You answer, or I shoot another hole in you. I have twenty-four shots, and I’d be thrilled to use each one. Lilianna, I imagine you have some, too?”
I hadn’t taken the gun off my person since the night of the break-in.
I shouldn’t have partaken in this. I’d never been an advocate for torture, but…
They’d brought weapons into the room where my son had been sleeping.
“I do,” I said.
“I did it, okay? I gave them information in exchange for my life. They had me captured, man. I—”
Matteo shot him in the other knee. “You won’t call me ‘man’. You can refer to me as Don, boss, or Mr. Costello.”
He stared at the sky as he sobbed in pain. “Yes, sir. I mean—” he cut himself off and shook his head. “Yes, Don.”
“What do you know about the Petrov’s plans?”
“He wants Lilianna alive. There was a turf war three months after she bailed on the wedding alliance, and Vlad’s son Jeremy was killed. Aelita convinced her father to take Lilianna alive as revenge. They blame her, and they want her to pay.” He looked at me. “I’m sorry, Lilianna. I—”
Matteo fired another shot, and I didn’t watch where it landed. “You won’t address her. You address me.”
“Fuck,” he shouted, leaning back onto the vehicle.
My heart raced as the words registered. Because of me, Jeremy had been killed. If I had stayed and married Vlad’s son, there would have been peace between our people. It suddenly made sense why Vlad and Aelita wanted vengeance. Hell, I wanted vengeance for my family’s deaths. I hadn’t intended to kill anybody, but my actions had consequences.
If I would have stayed, both my family and theirs would still be complete.
Guilt ripped through me, but I pushed it back. There would be a time and a place to consider this. Now was not the time.
“Who else is involved?”
He hesitated, and I expected Matteo to shoot again, but he waited. “I knew the code to the security system, and that’s how they disabled it. Two of the guys who guarded your penthouse in the past knew the rotations. If I give their names. Will you let me live?”
“I don’t let traitors live, but I’ll make it quick.”
When the Don gave his word, it was law.
Tears flowed from the man’s face, and he nodded quickly. “I have a family.”
Matteo showed no mercy as he shook his head. “I need the names.”
He rattled off two names, and I watched as Matteo shot him between the eyes and exhaled deeply, almost as if he didn’t want to be responsible for this man’s death. Matteo had never seemed to enjoy the lives he took, but it was his job.
I should have shied away from the death and brutality of the scene, but I didn’t even flinch as I looked down on it.
Maybe I was more of a mafia princess than I wanted to admit.
“We have work to do,” Matteo said, leading me out of the alleyway.