Chapter 23 #2
“By the way,” Angelo says. “Abella knows you’ve been fucking with Gabi. After your stunt at dinner, I had to tell her. So you can expect to hear from her soon.”
I consider that, wondering when she’ll fill Gabi in. But that’s a problem for later.
“What did Richard’s nephew and his friends do, anyway?” Rafe asks.
“They have a secret society at the university,” I tell them. “They’ve been drugging and assaulting women as part of their initiation, and Gabi was one of their targets.”
“Christ.” Angelo’s jaw tightens.
“Sounds like they got what they deserved,” Michele says.
“They got what they deserved, but there’s a way to go about things.
” Angelo drags back one of the men who’s trying to crawl away and drowns him.
“These are family decisions, Romeo. You need to come to me, and we’ll figure out a way to handle these cases in a way that doesn’t blow up my entire fucking council. ”
“To be fair, they kind of fucked themselves,” Michele remarks.
“I have a wife and child to think about now.” Angelo heaves another corpse from the bucket. “I need to know what I’m walking into. No more hits until we come up with a plan for whoever else is involved.”
“I’m working on it,” I mutter. “The DA has been building a case against them since I leaked the evidence. At the very least, it will buy us some time until we figure out a permanent solution.”
“Fuck’s sake.” Angelo sighs. “Do you know how many of those students are probably tied to IVI?”
“I know exactly how many, and I don’t give a fuck.”
“Well, I need you to give a fuck.” Angelo fixes me with a look. “We haven’t survived this long by getting lucky. In case you’ve forgotten, it wasn’t that long ago that I spent years in a Tribunal prison. We need to keep our names clean.”
“Tell me what you would have done differently,” I challenge. “If it were Abella, how would you have handled it?”
“Don’t bring her into this.” He scowls.
“That’s what I thought.”
He drags Richard toward the bucket before I stop him.
“Not that one, or Winston. I’ll take them to the woodshed.”
Angelo shoves him away and grabs the last one instead.
It’s a safe bet this topic will be a point of contention between us for a while.
If our father were still alive, he probably would have locked me up.
But Angelo isn’t our father. He might get pissed off at me, but at the end of the day, he wants me at his side.
“You have it from here?” he asks. “We need to get moving if we want to reach open water before daybreak.”
“Yeah, I got it.”
“I’ll follow.” Michele jogs down to the swim deck to jump onto the other boat while Angelo heads for the bridge.
Once the yacht is moving, Rafe and I drag all but two of the men down to the engine room and pile them up. We only have a few hours to get this over with before the sun rises, and by the time we sit down on the lounge, I’m pretty fucking miserable.
“You look like shit.” Rafe frowns. “You won’t be able to move tomorrow.”
I grind my teeth together as I shift around, trying to get comfortable. I can barely move now, and I could really use some of my painkillers, but I don’t have them with me.
“You want a drink?” Rafe asks.
“I’m good.” I shake my head.
“Maybe you should try to get some sleep,” he suggests. “You’ll be busy when you get back to the island.”
“I’m not going back to the island today.”
He arches a brow at me. “She hasn’t figured out you’ve been staying at the penthouse?”
I’m not in the mood to explain the situation with Gabi, or that I’ve been staying in her bed until morning, when I move to mine.
More than once, I’ve caught myself sleeping beside her, which is unusual for me.
I don’t fall asleep easily, and I usually have to knock myself out with a sleeping pill if I want more than a few hours.
Why I’m able to sleep beside her is something I don’t want to analyze too closely.
“Gabi deserves better than what her shitty family has given her,” Rafe says.
I nod, expecting he’ll tell me to let her go next.
“You two are good together.”
I lift my gaze to his, wondering if he’s fucking with me, but he doesn’t seem to be.
“You saw what happened tonight,” I argue. “Nothing has changed for me.”
“Last weekend, in the ballroom, she brought you back,” he reminds me.
I close my eyes and release a ragged breath. “Once doesn’t mean anything.”
“It worked tonight, when Angelo did it.”
I don’t answer, but Rafe continues the one-sided conversation.
“Are you just going to let her marry Riccardo?”
The denial steams through my mind like a freight train, but I can’t verbalize it. Telling my brothers I plan to murder all her marriage prospects won’t go over well.
“I’m trying to get some sleep, like you suggested.”
“Alright.” Rafe sighs. “I guess I will too.”
I don’t actually expect to rest, but I guess exhaustion wins, because the next thing I hear is Rafe trying to wake me up. When I open my eyes, he and Angelo are hovering over me.
“We’re here,” Rafe says.
“Okay. Where’s Michele?”
“Right beside us. We already transferred Richard and Winston so we can take them to the island.”
I drag myself up from the lounge, grimacing as I nearly collapse.
“Jesus,” Angelo mutters. “You should let Mariella check you over when we get back.”
“I’m fine. Just give me a hand with the oxyacetylene kit.”
“I’ve got it,” Rafe tells me. “All you need to worry about is getting on the other boat.”
“No. This is my mess. I’ll clean it up.”
I try to limp forward, but my leg buckles and I fall back onto the lounge.
“Are we good?” Angelo fixes me with a dry stare. “Or do I need to let you fall a few more times to knock some sense into you?”
“This is my idea. If anyone’s getting blown up, it’s me.”
“Nah, fuck that.” Rafe heads for the kit.
“Goddammit.” I pull myself upright with a growl.
When I prove once again that I can’t stand on my own, Rafe doesn’t wait. He grabs the kit and glances at me. “Just take it down to the engine room and open the valves, right?”
I’m irritated as fuck that I can’t get my body to cooperate, so I don’t answer, but when he shrugs and starts to leave, I have no choice.
“Hold on a fucking second. Is the engine off?”
“It’s off,” Angelo assures me.
I stare at them for too long, trying to find an alternative. I don’t like putting my brothers at risk.
“Don’t worry.” Rafe nods at me. “I’ve got this. Just get your ass on the other boat so we’re ready to go.”
“Once you have the valves open, you get the fuck out of there. Don’t close any doors or touch any switches. Don’t touch anything at all.”
“Your concern for me warms my heart.” Rafe smirks as he presses a hand to his chest. “So should I give the remote trigger a wiggle just to make sure it works, or—”
“Fucking hilarious.” I glare at him.
“Okay, we’re losing time.” Angelo observes the horizon. “Let’s get this over with.”
Rafe hauls off the kit, and my gaze trails after him until Angelo pulls me up from the lounge.
“He’ll be fine. Come on.”
He helps me down to the swim deck and wheelbarrows me over the side of the other boat.
I slide down onto the deck like a limp bag of bones, and he jumps on after me and helps me into a seat.
A few seconds later, Rafe bolts toward us with a stupid grin on his face. “Boom, motherfuckers. Let’s blow this shit up.”
“Preferably while we’re not right next to it,” Angelo remarks dryly.
Michele navigates the boat, steering us back toward Seattle, and once we’re far enough away, I pull the remote from my hoodie.
“You want to do the honors, pyro?” I offer it to Rafe since he lives for this kind of shit.
He doesn’t need to be asked twice. He presses the button, and the explosion rockets into the sky, pieces of debris raining down like confetti.
“Holy fuck.” Rafe glances back at me. “That was awesome. We need to do that again.”
“They should be fish food now,” Michele says.
“Just get us out of here fast.” Angelo collapses into a seat. “I’m fucking exhausted.”
By the time we arrive in Seattle, I have a narrow window to get to the penthouse before Gabi wakes. After another argument with my brothers, they agree to take me there on the condition that I see Mariella today.
Michele stays with our prisoners, letting me know he’ll keep them alive until I’m ready for them. Angelo and Rafe drive me to the penthouse and help me into the elevator. When it opens, I try to move on my own and end up falling on my ass again.
“Jesus, you’re a stubborn fuck,” Angelo grouses.
“You think?” Rafe laughs.
“You’re getting blood all over the floor.” Angelo looks me over. “Where’s it coming from?”
“It’s just my leg.”
They’re in the process of helping me back up when the door creaks open down the hall.
“Fuck.” Rafe stares at me wide-eyed, making a split-second decision to toss me behind a decorative urn next to the elevator.
“Hey, Gabs.” Rafe positions himself in front of the urn as she approaches, obscuring her view. “What’s up?”
“Umm…nothing.” She pauses, and I can imagine her staring at the blood on the floor in question.
“Hope we didn’t wake you,” Rafe says.
“No. I woke up early.”
There’s a lingering note of sadness in her voice, and I wonder if it’s because I didn’t have time to leave her a note.
“Okay, well, we just need to grab something, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“Is it just the two of you?” she asks. “I thought I heard someone else.”
“Just us.” Rafe covers for me. “And some conveniently placed décor choices.”
I roll my eyes, tempted to kick him in the leg.
“Alright.” Confusion colors her voice. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
They wait until she retreats to her room and shuts her door before they lift me up and drag me up the stairs to my room.
Rafe helps me detach the keys from my belt loop and unlocks the door.
“Just throw me on the bed, and I’ll be good,” I tell them.
They help me onto the bed, and Rafe grabs me a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and my pain pills from the bathroom. Both of them hover over me, staring me down with pitiful expressions.
“You’re seeing Mariella today,” Angelo reminds me.
“Fine, but don’t send her here. She won’t keep it from Gabi.”
“I’m not keeping it from Gabi either, if she asks,” Angelo says. “You know it’s only a matter of time before this blows up in your face.”
“Yeah, I got it. Can you fuck off now and let me sleep so I can do what I need to do today?”
“Call Mariella,” Angelo bites out as they head for the door. “Or I’m sending her here.”