23. Rocco
23
ROCCO
“ M artino says she’ll be on stage soon,” Teo announces as he takes a seat next to me at the Candelabra’s VIP table .
I nod at this, taking in the familiar atmosphere of the packed club.
Alessandro is in the corner with a few of his men, feigning a drunken stag party. Dante has positioned himself on the other side of the room, his own team posing as South African tourists.
Not to mention the handful of lieutenants that had come along for kicks. Each of them had approached the VIP table to offer their sly smiles and transparent intentions: to see what all the fuss was about.
Even Mia is off work tonight, drinking with Marco by the bar. Her fiery gaze narrows on me every few moments, but so far, she has kept her distance. As far as I’m aware, Cas hasn’t been in contact with her since the last time we were here.
How many of them I can trust, I don’t know. But so far, Teo and I have been able to keep her surname from becoming public knowledge.
“No sign of him?” I ask. I’d given Claudio Lazzaro very specific orders to make himself scarce tonight.
Thankfully, Teo shakes his head. “Martino hasn’t let her out of his sight.”
I’m paranoid; I know I am. But you don’t make it far in this business if you’re not.
“Good.”
“Boss…Rocco…” Teo sighs.
I cut him off. “I don’t want to talk about it tonight, Vitale.”
“You can’t ignore it forever,” he tries to rationalize. “You have to consider the possibility that she might be working against you.”
“I have,” I reply firmly, turning myself away to end the conversation.
But Teo has never been one to break under the pressure.
“Carmine hired Lazzaro to bring his daughter to Brooklyn with money he stole from the Guild. He’s one of the only people who could have pulled off a loan like that right under Chiavari’s nose. You said it yourself.”
“I’m not disputing that.”
“So it can’t be a coincidence that Cassandra Bellini now resides in your home with access to your personal files.”
I drink to cover my grimace. Finding out that Cas had been rooting through my office was a shock and definitely didn’t aid her case. But if she intended to use that information against me, she wouldn’t have boasted about knowing it in the first place.
“What are you saying, Vitale? You really think she’s the rat?”
He glances over his shoulder before leaning in closer. “I think you’d be a fucking idiot not to consider the possibility.”
“Leaks were happening before Cas even came into the picture.”
“So she took over from her father after he ate lead.”
I shake my head. “She doesn’t know anything.”
“Right, so she told you that when? While she was sucking your cock?”
A part of me registers the regret in Teo’s eyes the second the words leave his mouth. But it’s vastly overshadowed by the roar of anger that threatens to consume me.
I dig my fingernails into my palms to steady my breathing.
“You are my brother in everything but blood,” I growl out. “But if you don’t leave in the next ten seconds, I will kill you.”
But Teo only holds my glare with his unnervingly dark eyes. “You are blinded to the truth, Rocco. I’m not going to stop because you wouldn’t let me do something this stupid, either.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“How’s that?” Teo huffs a laugh. “I know you better than anyone. I’ve seen firsthand how you built the Guild up from nothing, how you fought against your father for five years and emerged victorious. This isn’t what you want. The job always comes first.”
The job always comes first.
A truth I have lived by my entire life. It’s the foundation of everything I have ever done, everything I have become, the song that wakes me up every morning and sends me to sleep every night.
Only…
“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, Miss Cassandra!”
Only Cassandra Bellini has sung another song—one with a pull far stronger than my call to the Guild.
The realization hits me like a ton of fucking bricks.
I’m helpless as I watch Cass take the stage. That tiny black dress and leather jacket are all the more enticing now that I know what they look like on my bedroom floor.
“How are you all doing tonight?” She smiles out to the crowd, that quiet confidence emanating from her very soul.
Only I know she’s not quiet. She’s boisterous and loud and challenges me at every turn. She’s smart, too smart, and far too witty for her own good. I have to work to keep up with her sometimes, but she never lets me lag behind.
“Could we lower the lights a little bit? I want to see who came all the way out here to see little old me,” she continues as her spotlight dims around her. “Oh, hi!” she laughs.
And the room laughs with her.
And it’s insane that I’m jealous of that laugh. That something else managed to make her smile like that. Her laugh is like a drug to me, and drawing one out of her is the sweetest thing I could ever achieve.
Yet when she begins to sing, the jealousy melts away. It’s just pure pride that lingers.
I’m proud of the woman before me for taking on every hardship and coming out the other end. For even being able to get up on that stage—despite the fact her abusive boyfriend put her there to begin with.
I’m proud to call her mine and that she, in turn, did not run at the very thought.
“Teo,” I finally gasp out.
“Boss?”
“I love her.”
“Fuck.”
SHHHHHHHHH.
The power cuts out with an ominous, draining noise, and the Candelabra is flooded in darkness.
I’m on my feet in an instant.
“Get to the generator,” I hiss to Teo at my side as I blindly check over my pistol and immediately begin to climb onto the stage.
If this is an ambush, I need to get Cas out of here now.
BANG, BANG, BANG.
“Rocco!”
I vaguely hear the sound of Teo screaming my name.
But all I can concentrate on is the rib-breaking impact of three shots to my chest, wedging themselves into my concealed bullet-proof vest.
The force pushes me straight off the stage and sends me crashing into the table below. Glass and alcohol shatter around me, but I can barely breathe, barely get enough oxygen to form a coherent thought.
Slowly, too slowly, the ringing in my ears subsides long enough for me to make out the screaming and chaos around me.
“Rocco!” Teo shouts again. He’s so close to me, yet his voice sounds like a whisper.
“Cas,” I tug at his arm. “Where’s Cas?”
“You’ve been fucking shot!”
“WHERE IS CAS?”
The shock either wears off, or the adrenaline kicks in a split second later. I scramble to my feet just as an all-too-familiar scream reaches my ears.
“Rocco!”
To his credit, Teo moves as I do, without thinking, toward Cas screams.
We scramble onto the stage in unison, ready to greet whatever we might face.
Only we can’t see a thing.
It’s pure instinct that has me dodging out of the way of the knife that swings my way. I don’t think as I grab my assailant’s arm and twist hard. I hear them drop the weapon, but I have no idea where it falls.
“Ugh!” they grunt, giving me a helpful reference point for their face.
The next blow I land hits skin with a sickening crunch.
“Cassandra!” Teo shouts out next to me as I hear him stomping down on another assailant.
But it’s another female voice that shouts back. “Princeling?”
“Mia?!”
I aim a kick at my assailant’s chest, sending them falling back off the stage, and run toward her voice.
“What the fuck is happening, Mia?” I shout toward her.
“Someone’s taken…agh!” She shouts in pain, then lets out an angry growl. A second later, an unknown voice groans in sickening agony, and Mia’s gray figure emerges from the darkness. “Someone’s taken Cas backstage.”
I take off, praying to every god that might listen that it’s Martino, that he had the sense to take her somewhere safe.
Two sets of feet pound behind me, and a shaking phone torch appears to guide my path.
Around us is more gunfire, more screams, more unknown horrors that I couldn’t have prepared for. But if my paranoia was warranted, then where the hell was my backup?
“Do you have a gun?” I yell at Teo.
“I’m not firing blind. There are civilians in here!”
A shriek sounds behind us as the room is temporarily illuminated by more gunfire, just as another assailant steps into our path.
Under Mia’s phone light, I get a better picture of what we’re dealing with.
Dark clothes, concealed face. Nearly identical to the goons we took out that night at the dock.
BANG.
The man drops as Teo absorbs the impact of his shot. “Fucking Cartel.”
I waste no time leaping over the body to ram open the doors that lay just behind him.
The sterile corridors of the Candelabra’s backstage are lit in the eerie green of the illuminated exit sign above the back door. And the sliver of light that quickly narrows as it closes.
“Someone’s just left,” Mia breathes in my right ear before careening forward. Only to stumble on something that grunts on impact.
“Martino!” I yell at the sight of the giant man curled up on the floor.
Martino groans again. “T-they took her.”
“WHERE.”
“B-behind you.”
Thump.
Mia gasps as her eyes roll back into her head, her body crumbling to the floor.
Teo and I turn just in time to see a beast of a man lunge toward us next.
We scatter, causing his fist to pound into the wall behind where my head had just been moments before. The brickwork cracks on impact.
“Who the fuck are you, ugly?” Teo jeers as he tries to split his attention.
He isn’t wrong—the man’s arms are abnormally large for the size of his body, which already rivals Martino’s stature. And the dark balaclava over his face does nothing to hide the gruesome scars that run all over his skin.
I crack my neck. The beast is blocking the hallway to the back exit.
Every second I’m delayed is just opening the window for Cas’ abductors.
I launch myself at him, feigning a left hook, but kicking out at his knees at the last second. I’m betting that someone with such impressive upper body strength might have missed leg day.
To my dismay, the beast only wobbles. But Teo coordinates his own attack, slamming his foot into the beast’s chest and toppling him over.
“Let’s go!” I yell as I try to leap over his body.
But an arm snatches at my leg at the last second.
I grunt as I fall to my knees, trying to shake off the beast’s grip. But shy of dislocating my own leg, there’s no way out.
I change tactics, flipping over and kicking out with my free leg, planting my heel directly in his face.
He grunts in pain, but his grip doesn’t waver.
“Vitale! Find her!” I yell out as my foot smashes through his teeth.
Teo doesn’t need to be told twice. He leaps over where we’re scrambling on the floor and flies out the door.
I curse with the effort of my next kick to the beast's skull. Finally, finally, his grip loosens and I don’t waste the opportunity to free myself.
I throw myself on top of him, pinning his arms down with my knees.
“WHERE ARE THEY TAKING HER?”
The first blow dislocates his jaw. His legs kick up in an attempt to push me off, but I hold fast.
“WHERE ARE THEY TAKING HER?”
The second blow breaks his nose, perhaps his skull. His legs stop moving.
“WHERE ARE THEY TAKING HER?”
The third blow lands with a sickening squelch.
All resistance in his body dies.
Panting, I regard my bloodied hands with indifference. The only remorse I can muster is that I didn’t get an answer from him.
I stand, half-staggering toward the exit because that fucker really did a number on my leg.
But when I open the door, it’s to be met with a cool midnight breeze.
And Teo, holding Cas’ leather jacket with tears in his eyes.