Chapter 10
Cristiano
Present day
I cut them off on a quiet back road.
Damiano slams on the brakes, his arm shooting out to protect Lucy. I’m already out of my car before they’ve stopped moving, gun drawn, rage pounding through my veins.
Twenty minutes ago, I watched Damiano Barone put a bullet between my cousin Andreas’s eyes at the altar on his wedding day.
I watched Lucy Barone—Andreas’s bride, in her blood-spattered wedding gown—toss her engagement ring at his corpse and kiss her brother over his body.
Then the two of them fled while the congregation erupted into chaos.
Damiano steps out of the vehicle first, positioning himself between me and the passenger door. Between me and Lucy.
Smart man. If I wanted to kill her, I’d have to go through him first.
The passenger door opens. Lucy climbs out, and I take in her appearance with cold assessment.
She’s stripped out of her wedding dress and is wearing nothing but lingerie beneath Damiano’s jacket, which she has wrapped tightly around her body.
Her hair is disheveled and her lips are swollen. They’ve been busy.
“I don’t care about whatever fucked-up thing the two of you have going on,” I tell them, “but you just murdered my cousin, Barone. Your sister threw her engagement ring at his corpse. Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you both right now.”
“You will not hurt Lucy.” Damiano’s voice is steady, but he’s prepared to kill me to protect his sister. “She’s already suffered enough at your cousin’s hands. If you want your pound of flesh, you’ll take it from me.”
Lucy pushes between us and glares up at me. “You will take a pound of flesh from no one, Cristiano Montoni. If you were following what I said in church, you’ll know why Damiano did what he did. Were you even listening?”
“I was listening.” I keep my voice flat, emotionless. “My cousin tried to rape you, and he was selling Barone secrets to the Sokolis.”
“If a man had done that to Adora, you would have killed him on the spot,” Damiano says.
He’s right. I would have.
The tension crackles between us.
“I’ve been wondering how the Sokolis knew to ambush us in that restaurant,” I say. “I believed it was your fault, but now I’m wondering if it was mine. I told Andreas I was meeting with you, Vincenzo, and Rafiel.”
It seems Andreas ran straight to the Sokolis with that information. Traitorous piece of shit.
“I’ll make you an offer, Cristiano.” Damiano draws his weapon and holds it out to me, grip first. “If you loved your cousin as much as I love Lucy, if you still want revenge for his death, you can put a bullet in me right now. You can even use my gun.”
I stare at the offered weapon.
Andreas was a traitor. A rapist. A stain on the Montoni name that I should have discovered and dealt with myself. I was so focused on Mina that I missed what was happening right under my nose.
Finally, I laugh. A humorless sound. “Me? Love Andreas? That weak, pathetic excuse for a Montoni? He brought shame on our family twice over—once as a rapist, and again as a traitor. You did me a favor, Barone.”
Something flickers in Damiano’s eyes. Wariness, maybe. My coldness unnerves him.
Good.
But what twists in my chest isn’t grief for Andreas. It’s something uglier. Something that tastes like envy. Damiano killed a man in front of Lucy, and she’s standing beside him in her lingerie, ready to die with him.
What would it take for Mina to glue herself to my side like that, no matter what terrible, violent thing I’d done?
“I have no desire to continue my father’s bloodshed,” I tell them.
“Then thank you,” Lucy says.
“Don’t bother thanking me. You’ll probably be killed by your own father.” I holster my gun and turn back to my car. “Good luck.”
Several miles down the road, I park and pull out Andreas’s phone. I took it from his body before I left the church.
The passcode is easy enough to guess. His birthday, the careless fool. And what I find inside makes interesting reading. Messages, dozens of them, to contacts saved under innocuous names that don’t match anyone in the Montoni organization.
One thread in particular catches my attention.
Zana is fucking hot. Is she seeing anyone?
She doesn’t date. But she likes pretty things. Buy her something sparkly and see what happens.
Zana.
Zana Sokoli. The Sokoli krye’s daughter.
Tommaso thinks I haven’t been paying enough attention to Malus matters since I returned, but I know who Zana Sokoli is.
Her father runs southern territories that he’s clawed away from the Barones and Lucanias.
He has a reputation for cruelty that rivals that other Albanian psychopath, Dashamir Dervishi.
What I didn’t know was that my cousin was trying to fuck the Sokoli krye’s daughter.
I scroll further. More messages. Plans to meet. Flirtatious exchanges that make my stomach turn. Andreas was being played like a fiddle, and he was too stupid and too horny to realize it.
They were meeting at a place called Paradise, a club in Sokoli territory that’s technically a bar but functions as a high-end brothel. The kind of establishment where powerful men go to indulge appetites they can’t satisfy at home.
I dial Nico.
He answers on the second ring. “Boss. I heard about the wedding. Crazy shit.”
“While you and Paulo have been dealing with Sokolis, did you ever meet Zana Sokoli?”
“I saw her a couple of times. Beautiful woman. Curly hair, big dark eyes, maybe twenty years old. She spends most of her time at Paradise.”
“The krye whores out his own daughter?”
Nico laughs. “I wish. Then I might have fucked her. No, she sort of just…hangs out there. Watches. Listens.” He pauses. “It’s strange, actually. The girls all seem to respect her like they would the krye.”
Interesting.
“Thanks, Nico. I’ll be in touch.”
I hang up and open Andreas’s messages again. My thumbs hover over the screen.
Then I type to Zana: Need to see you. Urgent. Tonight.
The response comes within minutes: Paradise at ten.
Paradise won’t do. I need to get her away from all the security guards who’ll be inside.
I type a reply: Not Paradise. I’m being followed. Sending an address. Meet me there.
Zana: Fine. Don’t keep me waiting.
I smile, but there’s no warmth in it.
I won’t.
Paradise doesn’t live up to its name, unless your idea of paradise involves neon signs in pink and purple, a red carpet leading to black double doors, and groups of noisy men coming and going.
I wait in my car in a dark section of the lot, watching the entrance. The club is busy tonight, a steady stream of clientele coming and going. Most of them don’t interest me.
While I wait, I attach a silencer to my gun, twisting it into place with short, sharp movements.
At a quarter to ten, Zana emerges.
I recognize her immediately from Nico’s description. Curly hair tumbling past her shoulders. A beautiful face with sharp, intelligent eyes. She’s wearing a simple black dress that hugs her curves, and she moves with easy confidence.
A bodyguard flanks her. A big man, heavily muscled, no doubt concealing a gun beneath his jacket.
Once they’re out of sight of the main entrance, I slip out of my car and approach them silently from behind. They’re on home turf, and they’re not being careful. The bodyguard hears me a second too late. He starts to turn, but I’m faster. I raise my gun and put a bullet through his skull.
The silenced shot makes barely a whisper. The bodyguard drops in a bloody, untidy heap.
Zana stumbles backward, her heels catching on the uneven pavement, and goes down hard. She lands on her hands, palms scraping concrete, and stares up at me with wide eyes.
For a moment—just a moment—I see fear.
Then it’s gone, replaced by something that looks almost like interest.
“Cristiano Montoni.” She says my name like she’s tasting it. “I thought I was meeting your annoying cousin.”
“Andreas is dead.” I level my gun at her face. “Your fault.”
“Mine?” She doesn’t try to get up. “I merely provided Andreas with opportunities to demonstrate his true character.”
“You turned him into a traitor.”
“Please.” She actually rolls her eyes, despite the gun pointed at her head.
“Andreas was practically begging to betray the Montonis. A little flattery, a few promises, and he was ours. It was pathetic, really. Like training an eager puppy. By the way, how was your cozy little meeting with Silas Cross? Such a handsome, capable man. I do like the rugged ones.”
My eyes narrow at the sudden change in subject. “How did you know about that?”
Her smile widens. “I have many little birds, Don Cristiano. Pretty, colorful birds who sleep with all the dangerous men in this city, and then fly home to tell me everything they know. Like who comes to your office, and which Montoni casinos are most vulnerable.”
My hand clenches on the gun.
“What I believe,” I say quietly, “is that your father’s goons need to stay away from my territory. Diamond Grand. Obelisk. Any Montoni casino. If I see Sokolis anywhere near my businesses again, I’ll break the wings of every pretty bird I can get my hands on.” I lean down closer. “Including yours.”
Her smile doesn’t falter. “Is that a message for my father?”
“That’s a promise from me.”
“I’ll pass it on. Help me up, Don Cristiano.
” She extends a hand toward me, elegant even sprawled on dirty concrete, and her eyes gleam in what I suppose is meant to be an enticing manner.
“And if you’re lonely, I’ll keep you company.
I’m sure you spill all kinds of juicy secrets with a woman’s nails in your back. ”
“I’d sooner fuck my dead mother.”
I holster my gun and turn away, leaving her on the ground beside her dead bodyguard.
“That’s not a no to helping me up!” she calls after me. “Rude, Cristiano. Very rude.”
I drive home in silence. My hands grip the steering wheel as I turn Zana’s words over in my mind.
Pretty, colorful birds who sleep with all the dangerous men in this city.
She knows about Silas Cross. Which means she probably knows what was discussed. Her network of spies is more extensive than I thought.