25. Dante
CHAPTER 25
DANTE
I pace in front of the windows of my apartment, fisting my hair when I hear the key card slide into the lock. Matteo flings open the door, making the walls shake from the impact.
“How the fuck could you leave the restaurant without throwing her into the trunk of your car?” he thunders.
“First, my trunk ain’t that big.” I level him with a glare, stalking over to him. “Second, I don’t cause scenes,” I say through clenched teeth. “We both know she’s coming back here tonight. If I tipped off Conor and Boris, we could have had an army of thugs all over us. They could be, and probably are, here right now!”
“So you let them have their little meeting,” he snarls. “While we’re back here, sitting fucking ducks!” He looks around. “Where the hell is Patty? Did you leave him there, too?”
“No, ass. He’s out looking for Maura. She took the baby before, remember? I told him to find her and bring her back here. We need everyone in the same place, and that place is not gonna be yours.”
The door lock clicks again and Sergio walks in. “What the hell is going on?” he says, a look of alarm on his face.
“Anya, the au pair, is in bed with Conor!” Matteo roars, pushing back his hair.
Sergio’s brows knit together. “Wait — I thought Anya was in bed with Dante.”
“No, she was up against a window with Dante,” Matteo mutters darkly before stomping back over to me. “I told you she was snooping around! That should have tipped you off. How the fuck didn’t you know?”
“I’m not a mind reader, Matty!” I yell.
“You didn’t pick up on anything funny? Huh? Things about Anya, things about the girl at Tatiana, the fucking ‘lead’ that got away from you?”
“I’m very fucking confused right now,” Sergio mutters. “You got any vodka?”
“Paying homage to the Russians, yeah?” Matteo snarls.
Sergio holds up both his hands. “Okay, okay! Forget the vodka. Scotch, it is.” He pulls open a cabinet and grabs the bottle and a glass.
While he guzzles the amber-colored liquid, Matteo circles me like a caged lion. “How could you miss the signs?”
“Are you kidding me?” I bellow. “What signs? She’s been watching your kid for a few days! Changing diapers, giving baths, feeding her. It’s not like we’ve caught her polishing her knife and gun collection, for fuck’s sake!”
“I brought you here to sniff out threats and keep us safe from them,” he growls. “And meanwhile, we’ve been living under the same roof as a Russian assassin!”
“Hey!” I stab him in the chest with a finger. “Your wife didn’t seem too swift on the uptake either. She was all like, ‘Anya, I love you! You saved us! You’re an angel!’” I roll my eyes. “So who’s really the one who snoozed on this shit? Seems like there’s plenty of blame to go around. None of us are perfect, Matty. That’s why there are four of us! We pick up the slack for each other!”
“Right now, there’s a lot of slack, and we need way more than four people to pick it the hell up!”
“When does Romo fly in?” Sergio asks. “’Cause then we’ll have another?—”
“Shut the hell up, Serge!” Matteo yells.
“Sure, alienate everyone,” I scoff. “Then you’ll really be fucked when shit hits the fan and you’re here all by yourself to clean up the mess!”
A loud knock on the door makes me jump. “This might be her,” I grumble. “What’s the fucking plan?”
“It’s not Anya,” Matteo says, pushing past me and opening the door. Alek Severinov, the boss of the Severinov Bratva and our partner in the Red Ladro Syndicate, stands in the doorway. His hulking body takes up all available space, and when he walks into the foyer, I can feel the tension his presence brings. His younger brother Kaz follows, equally massive and one-hundred percent more menacing. He’s the muscle of the family.
“So Volkov is making a play,” Alek says in a deep voice, folding his massive arms over his chest. “Is that why you dragged me over here?”
“They’re out here,” Matteo says in a choked voice. “Planning something. We were duped by our new au pair. She’s one of them, and over the past few days, she’s gotten…” His glower points in my direction. “Close.”
Alek nods. “We’ve had a few run-ins with them back East,” he says, looking at Kaz. “We ready for their retaliation against our syndicate partners?”
Kaz’s blue eyes glitter and the guy practically foams at the mouth at the thought of destroying them. “Fuck, yeah.”
“They’re after something,” Matteo says. “We thought Conor crossed them, that he needed money to pay a debt. But Dante found out tonight that he’s working with them…and against us.”
Alek and Kaz exchange a look. “You know, I’m just gonna say that ever since you guys took our offer and joined the syndicate, we spend a lot of time cleaning up your crap.”
Kaz shrugs. “Eh, it’s an excuse to fuck shit up. Besides, we knew it when we let them in.”
Alex rolls his eyes at Kaz. “With you around, I’m sure there will be plenty of times they’ll have to return the favor.
Kaz chuckles and I press my fingertips to my temple. Matteo still paces, staring at his watch every few seconds.
I walk over to Matteo while Sergio gets Kaz and Alek a drink. I text Patty and Heaven but neither one responds. Tiny hairs on my arms stand at attention. I don’t like this radio silence at all.
“They’re gonna help us, thank fuck. But it doesn’t change the fact that I did miss things. Hell, I missed everything. I blame myself entirely,” I say to Matteo in a hushed voice.
Matteo sighs. “Look, I’m sorry for leveling you like that. We all missed things. We knew there was a threat, and we should have worked harder to uncover it. We snoozed on the Conor thing for too long, and that’s where we messed up. I was too preoccupied about keeping it from Heaven to really turn this situation on its ear.”
I grimace. “What the hell does that sicko want, Matty? Why is he here? And how the hell does the bratva fit in? We didn’t want to start a war months ago, and we don’t need one now. Are they still out for blood because of that standoff we had at Roman’s? Did they use Conor to get close to us? And now that they’re inside, what are they after?”
“I don’t know,” Matteo grunts. “But I would really like for Patty to get back here with the girls. You’re sure they looked like they were staying at the restaurant once you left, right?”
“Yeah, but who the hell knows where those crews are lurking? I’m gonna go look for Patty and the girls.”
“What about Anya? Will she come here looking for you?”
I nod. “And when she does, we’ll handle her. She’s about to become our leverage.”
I storm over to the door and pull it open, stalking down the hallway as it slams shut behind me.
Anya, her words, her expressions — it was all bullshit. Lies!
It meant nothing.
She never gave a damn about me.
I was just part of a job.
A pawn in her insidious little game.
I grit my teeth.
But she doesn’t know that now, I control the board. And her strategy is about to go up in smoke.
Because we all know one thing.
Nobody who tries to hurt us survives long enough to tell their tale of victory.
Victory will be fucking ours .