Chapter 10
Maximo
By the time we reach the safe house, Pellegrini is already bleeding.
One of Enzo’s men got jumpy during the grab and split his eyebrow with the butt of a rifle. The blood is drying in a sticky trail down his temple, but he doesn’t complain. He knows better.
I stand at the edge of the room, watching him breathe heavily. “Tie him up,” I order.
Enzo gives a nod. Two of the men pull Pellegrini into a chair and zip-tie his wrists to the arms, ankles to the legs. He doesn’t resist. He just keeps his head down, breathing slowly, as if he’s bracing himself for something more than pain.
Smart man.
Because what I want isn’t just answers. Certainly, finding out who ordered Monroe’s death is my priority.
But deep down, beneath the control and the planning and the need for precision, I want something else, too.
I want to make this personal. I knew rationally that burning down Monroe’s restaurant had probably just been business. Hell, arson and murder are just tools of my trade.
But for Constance, this is deeply personal. I think when our lips met some of her fire must have leaked into my blood, because I haven’t felt this volatile in years.
Constance kissed me like she meant it. Now, her voice is still inside my head. Her pain and strength after all she’s been through has become my anchor, my focal point, and I can’t lose that now.
I step forward, slowly and deliberately. Pellegrini lifts his eyes. They’re bloodshot, frantic. He opens his mouth to speak.
I don’t give him the chance. Not yet.
The first swing of my fist slams across his cheek. I want to break something because of his betrayal, hell, for him interrupting my first kiss with Constance.
“I’m going to ask you some questions,” I explain to him calmly. “You’ll answer fast. You’ll answer honestly. If I think you’re lying, we’ll try again. But it will hurt more each time.”
He nods, jaw clenched tight. Blood wells in the corner of his mouth.
“Who paid you to stand down the night Monroe was killed?”
“I don’t know his name,” Pellegrini rasps. “He called me on a burner phone. He said if I kept the patrols thin and left the alley clear, I’d be paid.”
“How much?” I demand.
“Fifty grand.”
“Who delivered the money?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “It was cash dropped off in my mailbox in a plain envelope. No return address.”
“You think I care about your fucking mailbox?” Another hit. This time, a punch to his temple. He cries out, then coughs. If Constance could see me now, she’d remember exactly why she hates me.
“Start giving me something useful,” I instruct him.
“It was a Bratva hit,” he spits. “I was contacted by one of their men who said Monroe had cut a deal behind your back with the Chinese.” He’s fucking lying but I let him keep running his mouth.
“Monroe was going to let them use his restaurant the same way you did, as a waystation for distribution. The Bratva said that if I looked the other way while they raided the restaurant and intercepted the Chinese shipment, I would get paid. They were supposed to get proof to show you during the raid; I thought I was doing you a favor by exposing the two-timing bastard!”
I freeze as I carefully consider his convoluted tale. It makes a twisted kind of sense. In our world we’re constantly looking out for betrayals and double-dealings. But this shit isn’t adding up.
Robert Monroe was too loyal and too meek to go behind my back. He never would’ve put his daughter in that much danger.
“Which Bratva crew?” I ask. I recently helped Dominik and Gavriil Morozov out of a tough spot, so I know it can’t be them.
“Volkov. The one led by Alexei’s nephew. Kirill.”
Alexei fucking Volkov. He’s like me, a “businessman” in the city with several commercial interests. What’s his angle now? Why would he send his nephew out to make a move against me?
I shake my head to clear out those asinine questions. I already have my answer. He’s a Russian fucking bastard.
My father had been forced to deal with them, and now it appears they’re trying to muscle into our territory again.
And while the Morozov brothers owe me, I know there’s no point in asking them to go against one of their own. That means I’ll have to handle the Volkov problem myself.
I turn my attention back to Pellegrini. “The Chinese haven’t tried to expand out of their little corner of the city in over a decade. How could you be so stupid to fall for such an obvious lie?”
“I’m old enough to remember when the Chinese gangs were a real threat,” he responds after spitting a line of blood onto the floor. “Your father would have understood. You’re just too young and wet-behind-the-ears to see…”
I cut him off by smashing my fist into his jaw hard enough to topple over his chair.
“My father would have recognized the same thing I do, you fucking moron, that you’re being played by the goddamn Russians!
That shipment that they intercepted? It was for Don Melloni.
You let them steal forty kilos, and then they burned down Monroe’s and killed a friend of the family that was under my protection.
If you had been able to see past the money they flashed in front of you, you would have known that was their whole fucking plan! ”
I step away and turn to Enzo as I shake out my stinging hand. “Get me everything on Kirill Volkov. I want his recent activity, contacts, and last known location. If he so much as breathes in this city without my permission, I want to know about it.”
Enzo nods and leaves the room.
I turn back to Pellegrini.
“You sold out a good man for fifty thousand dollars. Even worse, you betrayed me.”
“Maximo, I didn’t know! I’m sorry. You’re right, I was an idiot. Please, I have a family—”
“So did Robert Monroe.”
“Maximo, I know I fucked up, but they told me you were in the know…”
My men pick up the chair and right Pellegrini, whose head lolls almost comically as he tries to fix his swollen eyes on me. I hit him again, this time with another closed fist to the bridge of his nose. “And you didn’t think to ask, to verify that information with me?”
“Where else would the money come from? I had no reason to bother you…”
I smash my fist into his face again, this time splitting his lip. “You didn’t ask, you greedy fuck, because you wanted the money more than the truth.”
I look him over. The blood. The fear. The sweat on his skin.
He’s barely worth my bullet, much less Constance’s first one. He certainly isn’t worth anymore of my time or attention.
“Keep him alive for now,” I tell my men. “Make sure he has nothing left to hide. Then deliver him to Don Melloni with my apologies. Maybe reminding him what loyalty costs will buy me time while I deal with the Russians.”
By the time I get back to the estate, it’s past midnight, and the adrenaline is wearing off. The rush fades fast.
My hands ache. My knuckles are split so badly that there’s more of my blood on the back of my hand than Pellegrini’s.
And I’m bone fucking tired. But not just from the violence of the evening.
From the weight of everything I haven’t been able to say to the woman who’s waiting up for me.
Constance is in my office, scrambling up from the chair behind my desk when I walk in. Her cheeks are flushed and eyes glazed as if I caught her sleeping.
I don’t say a word at first. Just close the door and lean against it.
She stares down at my hands but doesn’t comment on them.
“You didn’t stay in the library,” I finally remark.
“I thought you meant to stay in the house. Besides, you’ve been gone for hours.”
She walks around the desk to me and takes my hand to examine the cuts. There’s no fear in her, no hesitation. Her touch hits harder than any blow tonight. I thought after her comment following our first kiss that she’d never let herself lay a hand on me again. “Did you hit him?” she asks.
I nod.
“Is he dead?”
“He will be soon,” I assure her.
“Are you going to let me…” She trails off.
“No. I’m sending him to Don Melloni as an apology for his lost product,” I explain to her.
“Oh. That’s good I guess,” Constance replies.
“I know you’re not ready,” I say. And then I do something I haven’t done in years.
I let myself want her.
I let myself touch her.
I lift my bloody hand and cup her face.
I shouldn’t touch her.
I shouldn’t want her.
But I do.
“You make me want to be ready,” she whispers.
“And you make me want to be reckless, firefly,” I tell her honestly.
She presses her lips to my wrist and says, “Then let’s be ready and reckless together.”
When I pull her to me and kiss her this time, there’s no interruption.
Only a raging fire that completely consumes both of us.
Constance grabs the back of my neck with certainty. Like she’s made her decision and doesn’t plan to walk it back.
My hands find her waist. Her thighs. Her jaw. I kiss her like she’s my last breath. Like touching her could erase every awful thing I’ve ever done.
It can’t.
But being this close to her, someone so good, touching every inch of her, still feels like salvation.
When we eventually make it down the hall to my bedroom, the world narrows to nothing but heat. I finally lift her sexy dress over her head. She tugs my shirt off.
After that, every kiss is a promise I can’t keep. Every breath is a confession I can’t make. It’s all I can do to slow her down enough to retrieve the condom from the nightstand.
On my bed, Constance straddles my lap and her fingers twist in my hair. Her lips brush over my shoulder, then my neck while I roll on our protection before our mouths crash together. She tastes like fury and grief and desire.
I let her take control.
Because I want to see the woman beneath the fiery vengeance.
And I want her to see the man beneath the violence and blood.
I watch her ride me, frantic, desperate, until she clenches around my length. She feels like fucking heaven.