29. VIN
VIN
The war room smells like stale coffee and stress. Usually the air would be thick with cigarette smoke too, but I haven’t smoked in days.
The table is strewn with maps, inventory lists, and personnel rotations, the kind of paperwork that used to land on my father’s desk back when I was pretending I didn’t give a fuck about the family business. Now it lands on my desk, and no one around me is pretending anything.
Matti has his sleeves rolled to the elbow, pen moving fast down a column of numbers. Tommy sits back in his chair, arms crossed over his chest, staring up at the ceiling and thinking. A handful of empty espresso cups dot the table between us plus a few full ones we haven’t touched.
“We move before they can coordinate against us,” Tommy says, still looking at the ceiling. “That’s the window. Maybe 72 hours once word gets back that the wedding is off.”
“Word will get back fast,” Matti says. “Ashlyn isn’t going to sit on it.”
I grunt. “She might. She’s in no rush to announce that the engagement is off. But I’m not banking on a woman to make a rational choice.”
“So we use the 72 hours.” Tommy finally looks at us. “We need to move the girls and babies somewhere secure.”
Matti clenches his fists at that. He doesn’t like the idea of being away from Siena and Emilia, but it’s better than the alternative.
A wave of guilt hits me, but it is what it is.
He’d do the same thing if he were in my position and he was about to lose Siena.
And I’d back him up the same way he’s showing up for me.
“Grit can coordinate the additional men.” I flip a page on the inventory sheet. “We’re light on the north side. I want that fixed before the end of the week.”
“Already called him.” Tommy slides a separate sheet across the table. “He started last night.”
I look at the paper, and nod.
We go back and forth for another 20 minutes on weapons storage, rotation schedules, which of the allied families can be trusted to keep quiet and which ones will sell out to the Irish for the right price.
It’s basically the same conversation we’ve been having since I was 18 with different variables plugged in.
The machinery of this life is always on the grind.
When we’re done, Matti gathers his things and Tommy follows suit, both moving with purpose but at pace. The work is just getting started.
Siena appears in the doorway and Matti stands, alarmed. “I’m okay,” she says. “I’ll meet you out front in a minute. Go.”
I reach for my jacket and glance at Matti. He doesn’t look convinced but she says something to him I can’t hear and he presses a kiss to her temple and leaves with Tommy.
When I try to walk past her, she blocks me. I sigh and drop my chin to my chest. Why does my brother’s woman have to be my fucking problem?
“Stay,” she says.
Fucking stay. I narrow my eyes at her, then look over her shoulder out the door, plotting an escape. But Matti is standing a few yards away, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at me. Whatever this is, it’s a team effort.
“Please.”
I shift my gaze back to Siena, my eyebrows raised. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that word in my life.”
I drop my jacket on the table and settle into a chair, gesturing at her. “Say what you came to say, Siena.”
She perches on the edge of the chair across from me and looks at me for a moment before speaking.
“What’s going on with you and Valentina?” It’s not an accusation. She doesn’t sound angry. She sounds like she cares, but I have no fucking idea what she’s talking about.
“The same as always. She annoys the fuck out of me. I keep her around because she’s a good hacker. Why?”
“Sophie saw you guys kissing in front of the restaurant the other day.”
Fuck. My. Life.
I shake my head. “What she saw was Valentina kissing me. It lasted all of two seconds. And the entire conversation was her telling me I needed to go get Sophie back.”
Siena regards me suspiciously, trying to decide whether or not she should be believe me. Finally she nods. “And are you? Going to get Sophie back?”
I say nothing.
“Vin.” She sounds tired. “You just blew up a lucrative alliance and declared war on the Irish, effectively putting my husband’s life at risk and forcing me and my child into exile. I’d like to know if it’s because you’re in love with my cousin.”
The room is quiet except for the sound of the city outside the window.
“I don’t discuss my personal business.”
“I know. I’m asking as her family. Not as Matti’s wife or your family, but hers.”
That hits different somehow, and she knows it. Reading the sincerity on her face, I suddenly realize: “It was you who sent her to the Demonio compound. When I was…. Right before the funeral was supposed to happen.”
Siena is quiet for a second. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you needed someone who could actually reach you. I watched a lot of people try. Matti. Tommy. Me.” She pauses.
“No one could get you out of that chair. She walked in and got you cleaned up and back on your feet in a day. Of course, you tried to hold her hostage on the compound, but she was smarter than you were so I don’t hold it against you. ”
I say nothing. There’s nothing to say to that.
“She can reach you the way no one else can.” Siena leans forward slightly.
“She always could. I watched it happen in real time and I tried to stop it for awhile. Then I told myself it wasn’t my business, that you were both adults, that whatever you two were doing had nothing to do with me.
” She stops. “But it does have something to do with me. She’s my cousin, my only family.
And watching her hurt herself trying to let you go has been awful. ”
I glance out the window and back at her. I don’t want to talk about this, but she’s relentless.
“Are you in love with Sophie, Vin?”
I toy with one of the empty espresso cups, hating Siena’s need to see around corners when it comes to her cousin.
The truth is I’ve been in love with Sophia Bellamorte since—I don’t know when exactly.
But I’m not just in love with her. She is my fucking reason for being here. My reason for everything I do.
“Does canceling the wedding mean I’m in love with your cousin?”
That I love her smile, pressing up against her when she’s cooking, my cock in her mouth all night long, her incredible food, the kindest fucking heart that I pray can forgive me for all the bullshit I put her through?
I blow out a breath. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”
Siena half gasps. I can’t tell if she’s relieved or irritated by my answer. Maybe both. She glances down at the mess on the table without seeing it, then back at me. Her expression softens.
“She loves you, too,” she says quietly. “She’s been trying not to for over a year. I’ve watched her try to move on and forget you. It hasn’t worked.”
My chest squeezes. I grumble under my breath, “Fucking Irish fuck.”
“He kissed her, you know.”
A wave of cold washes over me. “Why are you telling me this?”
“He kissed her, and she felt nothing. She said it was like eating when you’re not hungry. It just wasn’t what she wanted.”
He kissed her. Does that mean she hasn’t fucked him? Something in my ribcage unclenches a fraction.
“She’s too busy being yours to be available for anyone else.” Siena eyes me narrowly. “I didn’t love that but now that you’ve confirmed that you are willing to do what it takes to get her back… go get our girl, Vin.”
I cannot fucking believe what I’m hearing. “Really.”
“That’s my professional opinion as the woman who knows her better than anyone and as the person who has been cleaning up after your bullshit choices for the last year.
” She tilts her head. “But you have to do it right. And you’re going to have to put in the work.
You cannot—and I cannot stress this enough—have sex with her and then disappear. ”
“I know.”
“Do you?” She raises an eyebrow. “Because your track record suggests otherwise.”
“I fucking know that, Siena.”
I don’t intend to fuck her and leave. I intend to fuck her over and over and over and over again for the rest of her fucking life.
“Okay.” She nods once and sits back in her chair. “Then I’ll help you. But Vin, if you hurt her again, I will make what the Irish are planning for you look mild. Are we clear?”
I have to work hard not to roll my eyes. “I appreciate your approval, Siena. But I don’t need your help.”
“Of course you don’t. Your Vin fucking Demonio, right? So how’s that going for you?”
I glare at her for a moment. “Fine. What do you have in mind?”