Chapter 10 Stan
TEN
STAN
THREE HOURS LATER
Kitty Frasier.
Catriona.
Kitty.
Angel.
Mine.
Mine.
Soon.
Shoulders hunched, I drummed my fingers against the lab counter, aware that I should be focused on the results of the tests I’d been running, but more intrigued by the fact that I’d met my angel’s brothers.
Cade and Lucas Frasier.
Thanks to Star, they’d been my escorts off Irish turf.
But as far gone as I was, I’d known I couldn’t ask them where their sister lived. That would be like asking for my head to be kicked in via their booted feet.
My silence on the ride home had given me a gift, however.
As they’d driven me to the demarcated lines of Sicilian territory, where my Stidda had waited for me with one of our cars, I’d heard them bitching about their sisters and a trip they were taking tomorrow.
I’d learned they had three—Róisín, a name they’d alternated between and ‘Raisin,’ Neev, and Kitty—and they were vacationing in Florida.
Fucking Florida, i.e., the current epicenter of the Forgotten Boys’ battle as they dominated the Russian Bratva and spread their numbers nationwide.
The worst hotspot was in Miami, which, though three hours away from Key West, where they’d be staying for spring break, felt too goddamn close for my liking.
To make matters worse, they hoped that Kitty’s fear of flying would make the women cancel the trip.
What was wrong with them? Why didn’t they cancel it them-fucking-selves?
Goddamn ball sacks.
As I wondered if Conor would sabotage their trip for me and added ‘find a Valentini-paid hacker’ to my to-hire list—my Achilles’s fucking heel because I’d had to shoot the last one in the head—my cell rang.
I scrubbed a hand over my face when I checked the caller ID and saw that it was our chief of security at the family nightclub.
“What’s up, Chad?”
“Some Albanian bozos decided to visit Russu tonight.”
The news had me bolting to my feet, the stool behind me colliding with the floor in my haste to stand. “Albanians?”
“Yeah, a group of fourteen. Armed, too.”
Fourteen? What the fuck was this—an invasion?
“Where are they now?”
“Sitting in one of the VIP booths.”
“Porca troia! Who the hell let them in?”
“I told you that Giuseppe was a fucking liability. How he couldn’t see they were packing is beyond me.”
I dug my thumbs into my eyes. This was the last thing I wanted to be dealing with, but fuck if I didn’t have a choice now.
Giuseppe Jr. was a Messina, and the Valentinis had bad blood with the Messinas. They, along with the Puglisis, had tried to take our throne from us and they’d lost.
And Luc, in an irritatingly charitable mood at the time, hadn’t slaughtered every last one of the rat bastards.
Some, he’d even employed. Giuseppe had been one of them, despite his father being a fucking thief, and he’d swiftly become the bane of my existence.
Not because he was a treacherous fucker, just an out-and-out cretinu.
“Luigi called me in,” Chad continued. “He was worried. Rightfully so.”
“Yeah, it’s your day off, no?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It does.”
I wanted nothing more than to dump this on Luc’s lap, seeing as he’d given Giuseppe a position on our security, but ever since the hospital visit, he’d demanded more of me. I figured his logic was that if he ate up my time with wet work, I wouldn’t wallow on my creation.
What it actually meant was that I’d slept less than ever before and my patience levels were subpar.
I.e., the probability of me dropping this on him and him throwing it back at me was high.
“I’m heading in. Watch over them. If they—”
“You don’t have to say it. But I needed you to have my back if shit goes to shit and I acted.”
“The Albanians are whacko. Half of them sniff too much of their own product and the others are siblings who have cousins for parents. We wouldn’t have given you a hard time if they went batshit and you eliminated them.”
“You say that now. I prefer not to dance with death.”
I knew that our motto of ‘murder first and feed to the pigs later’ was not a part of Uncle Sam’s playbook. You could take the man out of the army, but the army never left the man.
“Until I get there, officially, don’t shed any blood unless they draw their weapons first.”
“Copy.”
When Chad hung up, I avoided my team’s concerned looks and tipped my head back to glare at the ceiling.
This was a distraction.
The test results on my desk, the Albanian situation—they all took my mind off the one thing I wanted to concentrate on.
Since the hospital, my angel had been the only reason I’d gotten up each morning.
That I’d pushed myself in rehab.
Today, I hadn’t even come to my lab before going to visit Conor O’Donnelly.
For the first time in too long, I had something to fixate on that wasn’t work, official or otherwise, and it came as a relief.
I could think about her beautiful face and smile. Could remember those curves that a pair of scrubs hadn’t diminished.
My memories of her were so powerful, they could and had resulted in an erection.
Hadn’t I jerked off this morning for the first time in years?
Guilt was there, shame too, for moving on, for the passage of time doing what it did best, but there was also hope.
A light at the end of the tunnel.
I hadn’t had that in so long…
And I wanted her. Now.
But, first—family.
They had my loyalty and needed me.
Followed by business.
Even if the last thing I wanted to do was deal with the Albanians tonight.
Then, tomorrow, her.
She deserved to have my full attention.
I shoved my papers onto a corner of my desk, turned off my computer, waved farewell to my lab techs, and left the laboratory with a renewed sense of purpose.
We’d repoed this mansion from the Famiglia pigs who’d ruled the city before the Valentinis had taken their throne back and as gaudy as it was, I appreciated it.
The Roman statues, some in gold, a few in painted marble, like how they would have been in ancient times, lined the hallways. Everything was gilded, red-velvet curtains draped from the odd nook or overly grandiose bay windows, the lingering stench of cigarette smoke from men long since slaughtered…
Paintings, expensive and crazy expensive, graced most of the walls, meaning that wealth oozed out of every square foot. Hell, even the shitters were gold-plated.
Call it the Sicilian in me, and golden thrones aside, I appreciated the presence of the past. Give me that over the sterile modernity of Conor or Aidan O’Donnellys’ pristine homes.
Grimacing at the distasteful notion, I marched into the suite of rooms I’d claimed as my own and transmogrified from the mad scientist who still hadn’t showered and into a Capo worthy of the Famigghia… who still hadn’t showered.
Once I’d dressed, I doused myself in aftershave, smirking at the silent ‘fuck you’ to the sisters weird as I packed an overnight bag, just in case I decided to do something crazier than usual—like head to Key West in time for daybreak—before making my way out of the house.
I jumped into a vintage Lamborghini that Luc had bought me for my birthday in the hopes that it would encourage me to leave my lab.
Setting off for the club, I pointed the Lambo’s nose in the direction of the docks, where our flagship club was based.
I kept the soft top down, enjoying the rush of wind in my face and the blasting of the music to the four corners of FDR Drive. It didn’t dust off the cobwebs, but it, alongside the cool spring night, went some way to waking me up.
It was impossible to get anywhere in Manhattan quickly when you were traveling by road, even if the hour was approaching midnight, but I made relatively good time.
Avoiding the red carpet at the front of the club, I pulled in at the back and threw my keys at one of the guards—a guy I trusted, Marcu Caruso.
“Park it somewhere it won’t get scraped up,” I ordered before I headed inside, where Luigi Ventimiglia hovered by the doorway, waiting for me.
He might not have belonged to one of the five families, but he was up-and-coming, proving himself to be trustworthy as well as loyal to Chad, which I knew meant a lot to my sister.
Rory’s homeless projects had cultivated both men.
By feeding, sheltering, and clothing the homeless on our streets, people that everyone else treated like trash, she’d weaponized them.
Some left to better their lives once they’d been given a chance, others stuck close and provided her with intel, and a few more, like these two, gained positions in our organization.
Chad was one of her biggest success stories. Luigi came in second place. I trusted both with my sister’s safety when she was in NYC, which said everything.
“Capo,” Luigi greeted, dipping his chin in salute.
“Any updates with the Albanians?”
“We have one barricaded in the VIP restroom and we had to cordon off the VIP floor—”
“What?! That’ll be losing us hundreds of thousands of fucking dollars!”
“We had no choice,” Luigi countered, impressing me further by not breaking into a sweat at my roar.
Rory had told me that grief had aged me, but she’d claimed it had added a rabid kind of madness to my demeanor.
I assumed that meant I looked like biting people wasn’t above my pay grade.
Combined with my rep for killing people with my creations, pissing me off came with dire repercussions.
He cleared his throat. “Should probably warn you, boss, that Graham Brackton Jr. wasn’t happy about us putting a stop to his little peep show and kicking him out but—”
My ears pricked. “The nepo baby with designs on the next gubernatorial campaign?”
“Yeah, him.”
“Didn’t his dad die recently?”
“Wouldn’t know from—” Luigi hesitated then let loose a snort. “In fact, no, I guess that’d make sense. He ordered three of the Armand de Brignac Rosé Midas 2013 vintage.”
“We sell them for 300k a pop, don’t we?”
“Yup. Wouldn’t do that if you had to justify your allowance to Daddy,” he said slyly.
“Was he with his wife?”