Chapter 22
Jude
“You look nervous, kid,” Dom mumbles under his breath so the other capos in the meeting room don’t hear him.
“You’re seeing things, old man,” I retort, a little too harshly for him to be wrong about my nerves.
The amused chuckle he lets out has me cracking my neck from side to side to ease the tension laying heavy on my shoulders.
He’s right. I am nervous, but not for the reasons he thinks.
It’s not the many anxious capos that are here at the late Great-Uncle Sal’s mansion that are causing my anxiety to spike up, but the one girl—or woman, as she’s prone to remind me—who still hasn’t shown up to my father’s meeting that gives me pause.
Where the fuck are you, Mina?
If she’s a no-show because of our little fight the other day after dinner, sooner or later, my father will start asking questions in regards to her hatred of me and accuse me of fucking with his business.
He already suspected something was up when he offered my men and me to aid her rescue mission and got a second resounding no for his troubles.
If I’m honest with myself, that’s the real reason why I’m on edge.
Mina has been radio silent for the past twenty-four hours, which leads me to believe that she and the twins were able to find out where their spy was being held and made plans to attack the Bratva and finally rescue their man.
I know that neither Remus nor Rolo will let any harm fall on her. Still, I would have breathed much easier if she hadn’t been so stubborn in letting me accompany her on her mission.
“Jude,” Dom whispers with a cautious tone, successfully pulling me out of my reverie. “Pull yourself together, son. These men can smell fear a mile away. Losing your nerve in a simple meeting won’t earn you any points with Vincent.”
I quickly turn my head in his direction, locking eyes with one of the kindest paternal figures I’ve ever had.
Of-fucking-course, I’m scared, Dad.
The woman I love might be lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
Every second that Mina doesn’t walk through those doors is another second that I go insane.
I’m fucking dying over here.
Before I can say something I’ll regret later, Dom gives my shoulder a firm pat, just enough to snap me out of it and school my features to pretend I’m not in fucking agony right now.
I stare at the door, trying to manifest Mina walking under its threshold, only to be disappointed when my father, followed by his consigliere , walks through it instead.
I’m not surprised that my father has his business face on while Gio’s expression is light and breezy. What surprises me is Marcello walking into the room close behind them.
I keep my expression as blank as possible so the other capos don’t realize how this newfangled development is a surprise to me, too. Only made men can attend meetings with the Capo dei Capi , which means he shouldn’t be here. Marcello hasn’t even taken the omertà yet, for crying out loud.
Nor will he ever if my mother has anything to say about it.
Ever since Stella let it slip what my father’s true intentions were for Marcello, my mother has been blowing up my phone, giving me an earful about how I opened the door for this to happen, just like she predicted all those years ago. If she’s giving me hell for it, I can only imagine what kind of torment she’s putting my father through.
Needing answers, I turn to the father closest to me.
“What is Marcello doing here?” I ask Dom while my father is distracted with greeting his capos.
“His job,” Dom says cryptically.
Well, that was no help.
“Gentlemen, please take your seats,” Gio announces, eager to get this show on the road.
Every man in the room rushes to abide by his command, Dom and I included. Dom sits at the head of the table, positioned to the left of my father, while Gio sits to my father’s right.
Usually, enforcers wouldn’t even be invited to meetings like this, much less have a seat at the table. However, once my father took over the reins of the Outfit, he ensured that his most trusted men would always sit beside him. It also sent a message to the rest of the organization. A message that said the only men he couldn’t do without were his head enforcer and consigliere. Everyone else sitting at the table was expandable to him.
As for my spot as his underboss, I stand behind my father’s throne, which is in itself another message—this one conveying to his men that I’m next in line as his heir and successor.
However, when Marcello moves in my direction and chooses to stand just a few feet beside me, standing tall behind my father, flanking his left, I can’t help but wonder what kind of message my father is sending with this move.
Marcello doesn’t look at me. Not once. Keeping his facial features cold and withdrawn—a trait our father ensured all his children mastered.
“I see that we’re still one woman short,” my father states evenly when his gaze drifts to the vacant chair intended for Mina.
“You know women. They love to make a tardy arrival,” one of the capos says in jest, his belly laugh a little too loud for my liking.
“Let’s start without Crane’s proxy, shall we? A woman has no place at the table anyway,” another capo adds, unable to hide his contempt.
From the corner of my eye, I see how my father’s light eyes darken. A definite sign that the other men should tread carefully with their next words. Mina is not only a welcomed guest to our city but also an Outfit ally. The only daughter to the man my father has always had the utmost respect for—until I tainted their relationship with my shady manipulation, that is.
My father will not stand for anyone’s disrespect of Mina, even if it’s coming from his own men.
“Let’s get down to urgent business already. I don’t have time to wait for the British bitch to get all dolled up and make an appearance.”
That’s it!
Before my father or I can cut out the slandering bastard’s tongue, the double doors to the meeting room swing wide and hit the wall behind them.
“I guess it’s true what they say. Chivalry really is dead,” Mina sings as she walks into the room, looking like she’s been in one hell of a fight.
The bloody clothes on her body look as if someone tried to use a knife to get them off. Her beautiful face is covered mainly by cuts and bruises, and her left eye is so swollen that it looks dangerously close to shutting altogether.
My instincts scream at me to run to her, to demand to know the name of the fucker who dared to lay a hand on her, but I don’t get the chance. Not when her two cousins trail behind her, dragging a stranger with them who looks like he’s more dead than alive.
The capos start talking all at once, shouting at their boss for the outrage of bringing an outsider into a sacred meeting. But from my peripheral vision, I see that my father isn’t bothered by it. He doesn’t so much as bat an eye at their disgruntlement. Instead, he focuses his sights on Mina, and Mina alone, as she cracks a toothy, bloody grin at him.
“My apologies for my tardiness, Vincent, but I thought a gift was in order. One that might enlighten you on who has been purposely working in the shadows on your turf.”
“That’s quite a gift,” Vincent retorts in his usual monotone. “Tell me, does this gift sing?”
“You tell me.” Her grin widens as she runs her fingers through the soon-to-be-dead man’s hair and pulls his face up for the whole room to see.
Dimitri Mikhailov.
Holy fuck!
Every capo present can’t believe their eyes as they stare bewildered at the Bratva underboss, his face looking like it went through a meat grinder.
We’ve been working double time trying to capture the bastard, and Mina achieved it in less than a day.
“Tell these fine gentlemen who you work for?” Mina coos in Dimitri’s ear.
The Bratva scum looks too busy bargaining with God to save his soul to give an answer. Mina tugs at his strands roughly, pulling his head back with a fierce yank to remind him that he still has to deal with the devil before he meets his maker.
“You heard the lady,” Gio orders, no longer looking like the happy-go-lucky figure we are accustomed to. “Talk.”
His glassy eyes look around the room like he can’t tell if he’s already dead or not. All he does is grunt and moan out in pain, his blood now ruining the large oak table.
Mina lowers her lips to his ears, her gaze darting to my father, then shifting to me for the briefest of seconds.
“I’ll give you what you want. The sweet release of death,” she promises charmingly. “All you have to do is repeat what you told me.”
Blood runs down his chin, defeat in his lifeless eyes.
“ Co … sa … Nos … tra ,” he finally stammers, chaos breaking out in the room as if the Bratva bastard just put a curse over our heads with those words.
“Impossible,” one capo shouts.
“Liar!” another yells.
“They wouldn’t dare.”
“It’s him! It’s the Bratva! He’s the one! He’s lying to save his own skin!”
While the other capos are losing their fucking minds, my father doesn’t look one bit rattled by the accusation. Instead, he stands up from his seat and walks over to the man barely clinging to his life, waiting for some merciful soul to end it. Once he reaches Mina and Dimitri, he gives her a stiff nod, which she takes as a silent command to release the captive.
Dimitri falls forward onto the table, coughing out blood as he begs for death. However, my father seems to have other plans for him as he grabs his hair and pulls his head up just far enough to whisper in his ear, “You’re lucky. The Cranes aren’t known for their patience when dealing with hostages. The only reason they managed to restrain their compulsions was to bring you to me. Unfortunately, that means your luck has officially run out. This is not your day,” he says in English, then adding in Russian, “ friend .”
Vincent looks around the table, his gaze cold and unfeeling, before directing it back to Dimitri.
“I need a name. And I won’t allow you to die before I get it. Do you understand?”
“Pl… ease… ki… ll… me,” Dimitri begs.
“All in due time,” my father forewarns, smiling at Dimitri as if his life already belongs to him, to toy and play with it as he sees fit. “Dominic, Marcello, take our new friend upstairs and inform Dr. Goldberg his services are required.”
They spring to attention and grab the hostage, but before they have time to haul his limp, bloody body out of the office, Mina stops them and grabs hold of my father’s arm.
“I promised him a quick death,” she says, knowing exactly what my father has in mind.
He will make sure that good old Dr. Goldberg does everything in his power to save Dimitri’s life, only to torture him for days on end until he gives him what he wants. And even after he’s given a name, he still has weeks of more grueling torture to look forward to as punishment for all the crimes he committed under my father’s watch.
Hell itself will look like a cakewalk compared to what my father has planned for him.
Marcello takes after him in that regard.
“Vincent, I promised to give him a swift death once he upheld his side of the bargain. He’s given you a name. What more do you want?” Mina asks, searching my father’s eyes for the rational and honorable boss she had heard so much about.
However, that’s not who she’s talking to right now. No. She’s talking to a different beast, and everyone in the room knows it.
Even though my father is head of the Romano empire now, it wasn’t always supposed to be that way. His cousin, Pietro, was the one who was originally destined to wear the crown. And in his diligence, my father’s late uncle, Salvatore Romano—Pietro’s father—groomed Vincent to become Pietro’s consigliere.
This is all public knowledge.
What isn’t common knowledge is that deep down, my father has all the traits to follow in his father’s footsteps—to be the Outfit’s most lethal enforcer.
“Vincent, did you hear me? I gave the man my word.”
“I made no such promises,” he retorts coldly, giving Mina a vacant stare that promises her the same fate if she continues to stand in his way.
The second the Crane twins read the malicious intent in my father’s eyes, they raise their guns to his head, coaxing Marcello and Dominic to raise theirs to the twins in return.
You could hear a pin drop in the room. Just the audacity of anyone pulling a gun on my father is a death sentence.
All I can focus on is Mina and how close she is to this Mexican standoff.
One stray bullet, and she’s gone.
I don’t think.
I just react.
Ready to kill anyone who dares put her in harm’s way, even if that someone is either my family or hers. But before I take a step, my father calls me without so much as turning around, his cold, inhuman stare fixed on Mina.
“Stay exactly where you are, Jude.”
Mina’s gaze shifts from my father to me.
It’s only then that I realize that both of my hands are gripping two guns, their barrels pointed at Marcello and Dominic’s heads. When she sees a flicker of hesitancy on my part, she frowns. She then diverts her attention back to my father and says, “Usually, I wouldn’t care if Bratva scum like Dimitri lives or dies. But I made him a promise, and Cranes don’t go back on their word. I will not compromise my family’s values in favor of yours.”
Vincent continues to stare at her, a hint of admiration and respect glimmering in his hazel eyes.
“I’ll give him a merciful death. After. You have my word.”
This time, it’s Mina’s turn to hesitate.
I can tell she’d rather put a bullet in Dimitri’s head herself than let him endure whatever awaits under Vincent’s supervision. But something holds her back, a reminder that this isn’t her call. It’s the Outfit’s decision, and if she dares defy my father’s orders, she and her beloved cousins are as good as dead. Everyone knows my father has killed for less.
When she finally gives him a clipped nod in defeat and takes a step back, her cousins lower their guns, as do Marcello and Dominic. My father waits silently for them to carry the now unconscious Dimitri out of the room before he addresses his men.
“I want everyone in this room to put out feelers in their territories. If the Cosa Nostra is really in bed with the Bratva, I want to know why. Until then, gentlemen, meeting adjourned.”
And with that, he leaves the room, probably to follow Dominic and Marcello upstairs to wait for Dr. Goldberg’s arrival.
“Gotta say, this meeting was super entertaining. Don’t you think?” Gio feigns amusement as he pulls his chair back and whistles his way out of the room.
However, I don’t move a muscle. Not when I see all the capos giving Mina a distasteful glare as they move out. If they were on the fence about her attending these meetings solely on her gender, her cousins pulling guns on my father didn’t win her any favors.
Mina and the twins don’t leave until everyone is out, except for me, of course.
“Thanks for the assist, Jude. It looks like you forgot where you came from,” Remus accuses, nostrils flaring, while his brother throws daggers at me with his gaze.
“No, he didn’t forget. This place is exactly where he’s always belonged. Remember that in the future, cousins. He’s not one of us. Never was. Never will be.”
Mina then wipes her hand over her bloody bottom lip and spins on her heel, leaving me alone to think about the shitshow I just watched… and did absolutely nothing to stop.
She’s right, though.
I always wanted to belong here. To have a seat at this very table.
However, today, I’m almost ashamed that it was ever my dream to start with.