Chapter 17
Chapter Eighteen
Damian
Three days hunkered down at the safe house with Alessio isn’t even remotely enough.
I wish I could stay here forever with him.
Nothing and no one getting in our way. Learning the little things about him.
How he snores when he sleeps, the way he cooks eggs for breakfast, and what he can talk about for hours without getting tired.
Except for the fact that I’m on edge about Eivor’s minions finding us, it’s almost like a vacation. Even with the stitches in my wounds and Alessio’s bruising getting darker and even more violent in tone.
We’ve been avoiding talking about what needs to happen, but I can feel in the air today that it’s time. Healing be damned, if we don’t get out there and do something soon…we might be the ones taken for a ride.
“Have you heard any word on Rosalie?” I ask Alessio. After all, my knowledge of Rosalie was almost entirely from Eivor and the other guards. I don’t have that connection now. I’m stuck waiting to hear from the woman herself or one of the Dresvanni guards.
I glance at the clock while I’m waiting for Alessio to respond.
Eleven-forty-two in the morning.
The sun is peaking through the blinds behind us on the couch, warmer than usual. The end of winter is near, just a couple more weeks until spring.
“She’s doing okay, injury-wise, but she’s ready to end this,” Alessio informs me.
I sit up straighter. “Me too. We can’t sit on our asses anymore. As much as I’ve liked it,” I agree with a smirk.
Alessio nods stiffly, but there’s a glimmer of humor in his eyes.
“She’s prepared to denounce all of his crimes to the public, make sure they know what he’s done before we take him out. The police won’t touch us either way, but it’ll help with the aftermath,” Alessio explains.
I stand up from the couch and roll my shoulders back. “How does Carmine feel about all this?” I ask him.
He stands up as well and folds his arms. “He wants us to take some guards. He wants to be there. I told him Eivor is my kill,” he says growling under his breath. “I’m going to be the one to take him out.” He shoots me a sharp glance.
“I know, I know.” I put my hands up. “I won’t get in your way, but I won’t let him touch you.” My gaze lowers to his mouth before shifting back up to his eyes.
“As long as we get in and get out, we should be good. Some of the guards will fight back, but not all of them. Once Eivor is dead, Soren has full reign of the house.” Alessio steps to the side toward the bedroom.
“How many guards should we bring?” I follow him into the bedroom and grab some of the clothing that was brought over for me. It’s not my own clothing, but it’s in the right size and that’s all that matters right now.
“As many as we can manage.”
One-sixteen in the afternoon is when the news starts to spread.
Rosalie Fiorelli has outed Eivor Fiorelli’s crimes.
From blackmail and money laundering to the murder of several politicians over the last two decades, everything that is needed to bring him down socially is out in the open.
Whoever she went to got the story out as quickly as possible and didn’t give him time to even try to save himself.
Back at the Dresvanni estate, I’m arming myself with several guns and a knife, alongside Alessio, Carmine, Soren, and five guards. Tommy, Tiberi, and Cassian are already headed there to watch the perimeter. Between the twelve of us, there should be no shot that Eivor is able to escape.
Unless he’s already done so, but according to the guards who were ordered to keep an eye on him, he hasn’t left the estate.
“Why hasn’t he left the house?” Alessio asks us as we stand in the boardroom preparing. “Does he really think he’s safe there?”
Soren nods. “He most likely did. Until Rosalie’s little admittance of his guilt. Now he’s probably scrambling, trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.”
“If he leaves, we’ll follow him,” Carmine insists. “There’s nowhere he can go that we can’t find him. If he thinks he’s going to be able to outsmart us, he’s sorely mistaken.”
“He’s crazy if he actually stays there when he must know we’re coming for him,” Alessio says with a chuckle.
I shake my head. “He thinks he’s all powerful. That’s easy to see, even in the few weeks I’ve been here. A man like him…you can’t guess his next move.”
I adjust my weapons in their holsters and then head for the door before anyone else even does.
“Mr. Rossi,” Carmine scolds me. “We leave when I say we leave.”
My shoulders stiffen and I stand with my back toward him. “Are you going to pay my bill?” I ask him. He doesn’t respond. “Then I don’t work for you.”
I head out of the boardroom and a second later I hear footsteps behind me, multiple pairs. It seems that Carmine and the others decided to follow my lead after all.
Alessio rushes up to walk beside me and looks down at me as we head for the door. “Are you sure you really want to be part of this?” he asks me.
I scoff. “He made me part of this. I’m going to be there for the end of it.”
It doesn’t matter that each step makes my injuries burn. Nor does it matter that my head is still a bit fuzzy from everything. All I want to see is Eivor’s dead body on the floor at the hands of Alessio by the end of the day.
I don’t wish for very many men’s deaths, but Eivor’s is one that has been a long time coming. I don’t need to have known the man for years to realize that.
Alessio and I are in one car, Carmine and Soren in another, and the guards in a third. We drive well past the speed limit to get to the Fiorelli estate, especially as news comes in that for some reason, Eivor has dismissed every single guard in the estate.
“He’s gone seriously mad,” Alessio comments as I turn down another side road much faster than I should. Causing both of us to lean in our seats.
“Not yet,” I tell him. “But he will when we get there, that’s for sure.”
Whatever the man is up to, I frankly don’t give a damn. It won’t stop us. Nothing he can do will stop us.
“I want him dead, now,” Alessio huffs. “After what he did to you…”
“I know. And he’ll be dead today, no matter what.”
I follow Carmine’s car with squealing tires and rumbling engine all the way until we get to the gates of the Fiorelli estate. They’re wide open for us, like a trap.
Even so, we head in and the cars in front of and behind mine come to a screeching stop.
Every second that ticks by is another second that Eivor has to do whatever he’s up to. I don’t like it. I rip off my seatbelt and race around the car just as Alessio gets out of the passenger side.
“I’m going in first,” Carmine orders. “Remember your formations. Guards behind, left, and you to the back.” He motions at the guards and directs them where they should be. Then looks at Alessio. “I don’t care that you want to be the one to kill him. It’s my face he’ll see first.”
I watch Alessio’s jaw shift. “It’ll be mine he’ll see last.”
I nod, supporting him.
Carmine simply turns around and heads into the estate first, with me, Alessio, and the other brothers following in quick succession behind him. Several guards with their guns raised stand in a half circle behind us.
I stand with my back to Alessio, guarding him in my own way. Despite knowing that he wants to get right in the middle of this, I still want to protect him.
Just like I was meant to protect Rosalie.
Thankfully, she’s at her apartment, guarded and safe. Nowhere near any of this now that she’s outed her uncle.
As much as I’ll bet she wants to be a part of it…
The doors are kicked open in a clatter and we go rushing in. My original plan was to immediately head for his office while the other guards checked the rest of the house. The man seems obsessed with showing that he’s in charge, so his office seemed like a fair bet for where he might be.
Unexpectedly, we don’t have to go much further than the entryway to get what we want. Eivor is standing right there at the end of the staircase, suit and all. A wide grin on his face.
Unfortunately for us, he’s holding a gun to Rosalie’s head.
“Rose,” Alessio gasps and as everyone else directs their gun to Eivor, he does too. I pull my gun out and look in the opposite direction, making sure that the news that he got rid of all of the guards wasn’t just a trick.
It truly seems that we’re all alone here. Just us, and Eivor. With a gun against Rosalie’s temple.
“Careful now, wouldn’t want me to get slipped up. Would we?” Eivor asks, his eyes wide and his face a bit red. I’m betting if I was any closer to him, I’d smell the alcohol on his breath.
Rosalie squirms in his hold and I take just a step closer, but Carmine puts an arm out in front of me.
“You’re truly a mad man,” he comments to Eivor. “Your own niece?”
“We do what we can to protect ourselves,” Eivor replies, his words slightly slurred.
Time ticks on second by second, all of us standing here, guns on him, gun to Rosalie’s head. I watch the tears in Rosalie’s eyes, and I see her brother Soren reflected in them.
“You wouldn’t,” Soren insists. “You’ve done some fucked up things, but surely you’d never sink that low.”
I grip my gun tighter but remember to relax my shoulders, and I keep my eyes locked on Eivor.
“None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for you,” Eivor spits out at me from a yard or two distance. “You had to get involved and ruin everything.”
“Your plans were never going to work out,” I tell him.
Alessio shifts on his feet. “You didn’t really think that you could go up against the Dresvannis and win, did you?”
Eivor laughs and presses the gun harder to Rosalie’s head and her whole body stiffens. If I were her, I’d be more worried that he would shoot me on accident at this point.
“Look at me now! Holding your entire world on the brink of death,” Eivor laughs. “One move…one fucking move and I’ll—”
A shot rings out.