37. Chapter 37
thirty-seven
L ina signaled Curtis to stay well back when she opened the door. She was ever-so-vigilant, even if nobody except for the four of them knew he was back in New York. After looking through the peephole briefly, she pulled back with her brows furrowed. She gave him a curious look before opening the door.
What was that? Curtis wondered.
Marcus’ large presence filled the opening. The man was solid muscle and intimidating at first sight, especially when Curtis had first met him at the police station that fateful night in December. He’d quickly found out Marcus’ connections with the NYPD helped get him out of the station. With the case involving the Stilettos, the police had wanted his testimony as fresh as possible. Then the DA had insisted on keeping Curtis until they could talk to him in person. It’d been a long night—or morning, really.
Marcus patted Lina on the arm. “Good to see you, Major.”
Curtis could see Marcus’ regard of Lina from the affectionate but restrained gesture, though the concerned look he gave her said something else. It was interesting to see the dynamic between Lina and her mentor. There was trust, but right now Marcus was questioning her judgment in bringing Curtis home.
It was probably a good idea to keep their relationship under wraps for now, Curtis thought. He wanted Lina to be his, but he didn’t want to jeopardize her standing in B&Y Security.
“Curtis.” Marcus held out a beefy hand. “Glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks to Lina.” Curtis shook Marcus’ hand and immediately winced as the other man squeezed harder than necessary.
Oh, he knows.
The warning glint in Marcus’ eyes was crystal clear. Do not fuck around with Lina, or I ’ ll fuck you up .
Curtis mentally heard it loud and clear.
“Curtis,” a voice he didn’t expect to hear sent his gaze toward the door again.
Forgetting his aching hand, Curtis brightened at the sight of a familiar face. “Dean!”
He hugged his friend. He couldn’t tell what it was, but a burst of emotion overwhelmed him. He and Dean weren’t exactly close, but he was married to one of his closest friends and was a connection to his real life.
“You’re okay?” Dean asked, worry in his eyes.
Curtis nodded. “What are you doing here? God, it’s so good to see a familiar face.”
“Rae and I are worried about you. Everybody’s worried. Justin and Ram were ringing Rae’s phone nonstop when they couldn’t get ahold of either you or Brandon.”
“Fuck.” Curtis hadn’t thought Justin and Ram would’ve wondered where he and Brandon had disappeared to.
“They know what’s going on, but they won’t be relieved until they see you.” Dean squeezed Curtis’ arms in assurance. “Happy to see you in one piece.”
“We try to keep our clients in one piece,” Marcus said drily. “But that’ll be hard to do if the client insists on coming back to where it isn’t safe for him.”
“Why don’t we sit down and discuss that?” Lina interjected.
“Oh, Lina, I don’t think you’ve met Dean,” Curtis started an introduction.
“It’s good to meet you, Mr. Rowland.” Lina extended a hand to Dean. “Lina Cheung.”
“Miss Cheung. Or is it Major Cheung?”
“Lina, please,” she replied professionally, and ushered everyone to sit. “Please.”
Ken, instead of saying a greeting, winked at Curtis. He wondered what Ken was trying to convey to him. He found the older man hard to decipher. During their flight from Hong Kong, he had said little, but he’d been glued to his laptop, reading and doing things Curtis had no idea about.
“Is it safe if I call my wife?” Dean asked the security people, then explained to Curtis. “Rae wants to be here, but you know she can’t travel. She’s close.”
Right. Rae was in the last trimester of her pregnancy with her and Dean’s second child.
“How is she feeling?” Curtis asked.
“As uncomfortable as she was with Maya. But with her history of going into labor early, we didn’t want to risk her flying to New York.”
“Of course not. I’m surprised you’re here. You should be with your wife.”
“Her sister, Rowan, and Chris are with her. And my whole family, of course. She insisted I come when Marcus informed us you’d returned stateside.” Dean scanned his sharp gaze across the three B&Y people, pulling out his phone. “So, can I?”
“We designed the protection software on all of your company’s phones, Mr. Rowland,” Ken said. “It should be safe to call your wife.”
“Besides, we don’t believe the Stilettos have the technological sophistication to monitor everyone’s phones,” Marcus added to Curtis, “But we’ll still keep your phone off the grid. We want them to be blind to your whereabouts until we decide what course we’ll take.”
“If we can call Rae, can we call Brandon and my sister?” Curtis asked. “They need to know what’s going on.”
Marcus exchanged glances with Lina and Ken. “Why not? Let’s have a party. Briefly.”
“Let me patch everybody in.” Ken whipped out the heavily encrypted laptop that never left his side. In a few minutes, they were in a videoconference with Rae in Georgia and Brandon and Callie in France.
“Curtis!” Rae, Brandon, and Callie said almost simultaneously when they came on.
Hearing their voices, seeing their faces, almost overwhelmed Curtis. He was getting used to not seeing Rae and Brandon for months at a time, but he’d never had to stop communications completely since they’d all lived together. He hadn’t seen Callie for years until recently, but now they were texting daily and talking on the phone weekly.
“Are you okay?”
“We heard you were jumped in Barcelona?”
“We were all so worried.”
They all talked at the same time. Then they all looked at each other again, realizing the others were on the phone, too. Rae hadn’t been able to contact Brandon and Callie, either. It must’ve been tough, as they’d previously been on a constant chat thread hourly, especially with Rae this close to labor.
Curtis couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m okay. I’m safe. We’re back in New York.”
“Wait? What happened? Is everything good now? We can all go home?” Callie asked.
“You’ll be able to go home soon,” Curtis promised.
“Soon? What changed?” Brandon asked.
“Nothing yet, but we’re here with Lina, Marcus and Ken from B&Y. We’re going to end this stupid threat.”
“How?” Rae asked.
Curtis glanced at the grim faces of the B&Y people and said, “We’re working on it.”
“You’re not risking yourself, are you?” his sister demanded.
“What?” Rae questioned.
“Curtis, don’t play the hero,” Brandon urged.
“I’m not,” Curtis assured his friends. “That’s why we have the professionals here. They’ll know what to do.”
Curtis looked at his friends and sister with a smile. First to Rae, he said, “Look at you. All ready for this baby?”
“Hell no,” Rae said. “Just like I wasn’t ready for Maya, either.”
“You’ll do fine. I heard your sister is there. I can’t wait to meet her. Say hi to her and Chris for me?”
“Of course.” Rae frowned in her little box.
“Hey, guys, they wanted to keep this brief. I just wanted to see your faces. Give Ella, Popo, Mom, and Dad a hug for me, okay?”
“Curtis,” Callie said sharply. “Do not do anything reckless.”
“Come on, Sis. Me? Reckless?” Curtis scoffed, brushing away their worries.
“Dean,” Rae addressed her husband. “You make sure Curtis doesn’t do something stupid.”
Dean studied Curtis with an uneasy gaze. “I’m gonna try.”
“Lina,” Brandon called. “You know how he is. Tie him up, lock him in a room. Do whatever you can to keep him away from those people.”
Lina exchanged glances with Curtis. “I’ll watch his back,” she promised. “Nothing’s gonna happen to him.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” Callie said.
“No, Callie,” Curtis said. “If anything happens to me, it won’t be anyone’s fault but mine.”
Lina looked at Curtis’ family and friends. If anything happen to Curtis, she could never face these people.
“I won’t let Serafina touch him,” Lina promised.
She'll have to kill me first.
“Lina, don’t—”
“It’s time. Say goodbye to your friends,” she cut him off. She knew he was trying to manage his sister’s pressure on her. But she didn’t need Callie or anyone else to remind her about her job. Even if Dean Rowland fired B&Y or her personally from Curtis’ details, she wouldn’t budge from his side.
He is mine. And no other woman—grieving mother or not—can have him.
After they terminated the call, Lina didn’t wait for Marcus or Ken to take the reins. This was her case, her man.
“Our mission is not just about keeping Curtis safe anymore. It’s about eliminating the threat.” Lina bore her gaze at her superiors. When they didn’t argue, she turned to Dean to see his reaction.
The man eyed Curtis thoughtfully, and Curtis told him, “I don’t want to run for the rest of my life.”
As CEO of the company for which Canis Major was one of the best assets, it’d make sense for Dean to not want to risk his talents. It’d be the smartest business move.
“How do we eliminate the threat?” Dean asked Lina instead.
“First, we need to learn everything about the Stilettos, find their weakest point, and see if we can use that to our advantage,” Lina said. “On our flight home, we studied what we had about the family, but I feel there are elements we’re missing.”
“Here’s what we know,” Ken started. “The Stilettos only got to the top of the ladder in their crime kingdom a generation ago with Tony Stiletto Sr. He was the lieutenant to John Bonetti—”
“Doesn’t Bonetti mean hat makers?” Curtis smirked. “No wonder they got taken over by the Stilettos.”
Lina’s lips twitched, trying not to smile. Of course Curtis would focus on that bit of trivia instead of the dreadful stuff those hatmakers had done in their days.
“You may be right, Curtis.” Ken didn’t bother to stifle his chuckle, but he sobered up fast. “Though the Bonettis owned the streets on the Lower East Side for decades, it was during John Bonetti’s leadership that they started losing ground. There was a power struggle, and Tony Stiletto Sr. came out on top because he bulldozed anyone standing on his path, including any Bonettis, young or old.”
“Ruthless,” Dean muttered in disgust.
As a businessman himself, Lina was sure Dean understood the reality of running a successful business. But she doubted Dean would’ve ordered a whole family to be slaughtered—literally or figuratively. From what she could tell from the way his company dealt with B&Y and how he personally showed up for Curtis today, Dean Rowland was a decent man. They could use more businessmen like him.
“So who is Serafina Stiletto?” Dean asked. “Sorry, I’m not literate in the New York crime business.”
“Serafina is Tony’s wife. When Tony died—from natural causes, believe it or not—she took over. She’s as, if not more, ruthless than Tony. Being a woman, she had to establish her power fast. Her children were young at the time. Junior was still in middle school, I believe.
“Serafina expanded their businesses. See, these people are smarter than you think. They have a stake in almost everything—from trash removal, gambling, and pornography, to food industry. But that’s not all. They’re in real estate, construction, and I heard they’re getting into clean energy. The thing is, we may be dealing with them and we don’t even know it.”
“No kidding?” Curtis’ eyes went wide.
“Yeah,” Ken answered. “From what my team gathered, Tony Jr. is the one who’s gotten the Stilettos into these new ventures. Serafina kept her hold on the more traditional businesses—the gambling, the trash, anything that needed more of a…let’s just say, a firm hand. While Junior handles the rest.”
“Preparing to pass the reign,” Lina commented.
“I heard it’s not quite all rainbows and unicorns in that family,” Marcus added.
Curtis snorted. “With a bloodthirsty mother? No shit.”
“She must love her children or we wouldn’t be in this situation,” Lina reminded them. “It isn’t easy for a single mom with young children to lead any business, let alone the barbaric type like hers. I can see why she had to be merciless. She was protecting her children. If she had let another faction swoop in to take over after her husband died, the reality was she and her children would’ve been slaughtered.”
There was a heavy pause in the air. Could they be feeling sorry for Serafina?
“Well, the present reality is Serafina is a mamma bear who lost one of her cubs, and she is looking for someone to pay for it.” Marcus said. “Since you left the country, I’ve gotten my intel.”
Unlike Ken and his wondrous tech team, Marcus’ team gathered intel on the ground through a network of underground characters.
“She’s not getting what she wants. She ordered a war against the Murphys for the obvious reason, but Junior put a stop to that. His going directly against his mother must’ve caused a big rift in the family,” Marcus said. “Junior has been working on turning the Stilettos’ assets and businesses legitimate.”
“My team’s findings concur with that.” Ken pointed at something on his laptop screen. “So far, he’s done that to sixty percent of their business.”
“He still has a lot to do. It’ll take years,” Lina noted.
“Oh, it took him years to do what he managed.” Marcus smiled. “I reckon he’s not keen on how Rocco killing Sean Murphy and now Serafina’s war have brought more unwanted attention to them.
“It could ruin everything he’s been working for,” he concluded.
Lina’s gaze sharpened on Marcus’ face. “That’s our way in. Tony Jr. We can ask him to put a stop to his mother’s unwarranted vendetta against Curtis.”
“You don’t just go ask a mob guy to do something for you,” Dean pointed out.
“You need leverage,” Curtis chimed in. “What leverage do we have?”
“I don’t think we need leverage. We need to show Junior it is imperative for him to take over the leadership of the Stiletto family,” Marcus suggested.
“Oust his mother?” Lina said. “They’re Italians. Mothers are holy. He’ll never do it.”
“We’ll have to present it delicately. Make sure he sees it’ll be the best for his mother, too. She really shouldn’t be this stressed in her golden years, should she?”
“The woman is still in her prime,” Lina argued.
“Is she though?” Marcus said. “She’s ordering a war against their main competitor, risking a delicate truce in an old family feud. If she gets everything she wants—the fights with the Murphys, Curtis—it will bring more problems to the family and their business holdings that they may not recover from.
“The Murphys aren’t small-timers. They are in almost anything if not more than the Stilettos, but they are now almost entirely clean. Connor Murphy—the young head of the family, just like Tony Jr.—has been modernizing his family’s holding. He’s done with the older generation’s way of doing business. And he has the backing of his family, unlike Junior.”