12. Domenic
Chapter 12
Domenic
I go with my father to greet Valentino and his men.
They arrive in a convoy—two large SUVs, with Tino in his car leading the way. The college kitchen staff make themselves scarce, aware that trouble is brewing.
We do our best to stay out of view of the other residents of the college. People talk, and as the majority of the people here have ties to various mafia families around the world, we don’t want them knowing our business.
It’ll create suspicions of weaknesses, and we don’t want that either.
I’m particularly conscious of the Vipers. Their missing third wheel is returning any day now, and that changes things. The French twins—Louis and Mattheo Laurant—are crazy fucks, but they have nothing on Zane. He’s been away having surgery on his throat, but he’ll be back soon and ready to rain terror over Verona Falls. Luckily, the three of them are in West House, so they don’t have much to do with us, but we’re still bound to bump into one another from time to time.
The vehicles all pull to a halt, and the engines cut off.
My father is on my left, and we share a glance. I sense he’s braced for trouble, even though we’re all on the same side.
The vehicle doors open, one after the other, and men with military short hair and olive skin climb out. Tino joins them, standing at their head like a commander.
“Thank you for coming,” Nataniele says.
The men nod and dip their heads in deference to my father, which is good and makes me think this just might work.
“What’s the plan? To move fast and hard?” my father asks.
“We have to be careful going in,” Tino says. “We might have the coordinates, but that’s all we know. We don’t know how many men Grigoriy Stepanov has with him, or how well armed they are.”
I agree. “We don’t even know for sure this place is where either Kirill or Mackenzie are being kept. It could just be a meeting place, and they’ve moved on from there.”
A lack of knowledge is a dangerous thing.
It’s strange seeing Tino with his men. It’s as though he’s become someone else. I can see the man destined to take over the compound, and the surrounding city, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
He’s at the head of his men, commanding them, and they clearly respect him.
It’s as though something has shifted. It was only a matter of months ago that we were acting like kids at times, lording it around the college, messing with whatever girls we wanted and getting into fights. Now we’ve had to grow up, and we’ve done it fast .
Tino glances over his shoulder at his men. “Let’s move in quickly but quietly. We suspect they’re being held in a cabin at these coordinates. We’ll surround the place, make sure there’s nowhere they can run. If they are there with Mackenzie and Kirill, and they move, we might not find them again. This could be our only chance.”
“But we don’t put their lives at risk,” I add hurriedly. “That needs to be a priority. No risks.”
“Right.” Tino nods and echoes my words to his men. “No risks. They need to stay alive.”
“Sir?” One of Tino’s men steps forward. He’s big, muscular, with a short buzz cut and hard eyes.
“Yes, Leon?”
“I’ve carried out extractions before, when I was in the military. Some of them were of VIPs, and the most important factor was bringing the victims out alive.”
I regard him. “What would you suggest?”
“The weapons we brought with us contain a number of things like flashbangs.”
“Flash-whats?” I ask, confused.
“Stun grenades,” Leon supplies. “They make a lot of noise and produce a blinding light. We use them to disorientate people. The smoke helps, too. They won’t be firing because they’ll be stunned and then unable to see.”
“Will the smoke affect Mackenzie and Kirill?”
“It might make them cough some. I’m not talking about poisonous gas, here.”
“If you have the equipment for that, it sounds less risky than going in weapons blazing,” I admit.
“We’ll check out the lay of the land when we get there,” Tino says, “and make a decision then, but we bring the weapons. We ought to make sure each man has a supply right now.”
Nataniele nods. “Let’s armor up.”
Leon opens the back of the vehicles, and I stare at the number of crates. He flips the lids on them, one by one, revealing numerous weapons. It’s like being a kid in a toy shop.
“Impressive,” Nataniele says.
“Thank Mr. Rossi,” Leon says, referring to Tino’s father.
“I will be sure to once we’re all back safe and sound,” Nataniele says.
I pause at his words and then gesture for him to follow me off to one side. “You can’t come,” I say to my father.
He scoffs. “Excuse me? It sounded for a moment there like you were giving me an order on the grounds of my own fucking college.”
“Dad.” I drop the animosity and the formality that always simmers between us because in this I am right, and I need to make him see that. “If you come, you risk destroying all of this. You can’t ever be found to have gone directly up against the Pakhan who sends his kid to your college. It will bring it all down. Your son, though? If he did it without your knowledge, what could you do?”
“I am not letting you go up against Grigoriy Stepanov alone.”
I laugh. “I’m not alone. Tino’s men are here.”
“So, it’s okay for his father to help but not me?”
“His father isn’t directly here, is he? It’s different. These men are working for Tino now. Plus, you can make sure Lucia is safe, and the college itself. We don’t know what Grigoriy might do.”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, but when he looks at me, I know he’s seen sense.
“Don’t come back to me dead.” He swallows hard.
I think it’s the most love he’s ever shown me. “I’ll try not to,” I say.
The man called Leon clears his throat and raises his voice, addressing the rest of the men.
“Remember, this is an extraction, and the goal is to protect the lives of the hostages at all costs.”
His words hit me hard.
The thought of either Mackenzie or Kirill being dead makes it harder to breathe. I’ll fall apart if we lose them, and I’m sure Tino will, too. Whatever progress we’ve made—no matter how small—since our Duchess came into our lives will be reversed ten-fold. The thought alone is enough to make me want to find a razor blade and carve the skin from my body.
This isn’t just about her survival, or Kirill’s. It’s about the survival of all of us. We simply don’t function without each other.
Once we’re all tooled up with more weaponry than an army unit, we turn to each other.
“Let’s move out,” Tino calls.
The men bump fists and smack each other on the back, buoying each other up.
Tino leaves them for a moment to take me to one side.
“You holding up okay?” he asks.
I give a brief nod. “Yeah. You?”
He does the same, though his gaze flits to the left and then back again. “We’ll get them back.”
I grab his hand, and we pull each other in with mutual back pats of reassurance. Open emotion and affection isn’t something that’s easily shown to the same sex in our society, but we were never about following convention.
Tino leaves me to join his men.
My father has already arranged for our own vehicles to be ready. He’s also managed to convince Lucia to stay behind. She didn’t want to, but he doesn’t wish to put her in harm’s way. There are moments like this where I believe his love for her is real. Maybe I don’t want to believe he’d put another woman above my mother, but who am I to tell him he’s not allowed to move on? I might never learn why she was driving away from the college in the middle of the night, or why she lost control of the car like she did. It’s a painful pill to swallow, but if I’m to move on with my life as well, I might have to force it down.
“Are you ready?” my father asks, his gaze full of concern.
I grit my teeth. “Yeah, I’m ready to show Grigoriy Stepanov that he fucked with the wrong people.”