Chapter 23
twenty-three
. . .
One of the advantages of visiting Italy occasionally was the variety of food that made my stomach growl every time I entered the kitchen.
Tonight the air in the private dining room was thick with the lingering smell of garlic, rosemary, slow-cooked veal shanks braised in red wine.
Yet amidst the richness lurked the scent of fear, uncertainty.
No matter how welcoming we appeared, new business partners always seemed to practice restraint around us.
For the last two months, Lorenzo had taken advantage of my mess up back home and we spent the time rewriting the map.
Two months of shaking hands, breaking knuckles, and signing contracts with the intent of bringing D’Angelo to his knees when the fucker least expected it. The Greeks wanted shipping lanes. Marseilles wanted distribution. The Baltics wanted protection. They all wanted the Rossi name.
And tonight, they all glanced at me when they signed, wondering how long it would take for the blood to dry after they passed their files to Dario.
I leaned back, swirling the Barolo. The men around the table were ours now. Bound by blood I wouldn’t think twice about spilling. They might respect my brother, but they feared his crazy fuck of an underboss more.
“The Greeks agreed to the fifteen percent,” Dario said, sliding a folder across the polished wood. “But they want assurance on the port security.” The two Greeks next to him, dropped their gazes, waiting.
“They don’t want assurance,” I tipped my drink back. “They want survival. Give them the contract. If they miss a payment, burn the port. Send them the ashes.”
The Greeks swallowed hard then nodded.
“And you?” Lorenzo asked the Baltic representative, his tone calm, anchoring the room
“We signed, sir.” He slid his folder toward Dario.
“Marseilles couldn’t make the meeting, his wife gave birth this afternoon, but they signed.” Dario pointed to the folder. “They’re agreeable on the rates, excellent product, they’d meet our supply and demand easily but on the condition we’re their only distributor.”
“I’m sure we can live with that.” Lorenzo took a drink.
“What about D’Angelo?” I asked, addressing the elephant in the room.
The silence that followed was heavy. Glasses stopped mid-air. A fork clinked against a plate, the sound loud in the sudden quiet.
D’Angelo was the old guard, the last obstacle. Only because Lorenzo robbed him of an heir, burying the fucker after he raped our sister.
Uncle Frank set his fork down and wiped his mouth with the linen napkin before he spoke. “He’s resisting.”
“Resisting?” I snorted, my laugh a dry, humorless sound as I looked at my brother. “In Naples, he called you weak, Renz. Said you’ve gone soft behind a desk.” I leaned forward, elbows on the table, locking eyes with Frank. “He called me a boy, zio. Said I know fuck all about the business.”
Frank shifted in his seat. “Like me, he’s old school, Remo. His words don’t matter. Probably senile too.” He chuckled.
“Senile men still have tongues.” I pushed my chair back. The screech against marble had Gian and another soldier near the door reaching for their jackets. “Think I’ll pay the fuck a visit tonight, teach him a fucking lesson.”
“Remo.” Lorenzo didn’t raise his voice, his icy control cutting through my anger.
Brow raised, I challenged him to stop me. “He insults us, he dies. That’s the rule.” My hand rested on the back of the chair, fingers tightening on the leather.
Lorenzo leaned back in his chair. “If you go tonight, you go angry and anger spawns blunders.” He swirled his wine, watching the red liquid coat the glass. “Would you rather kill him quickly or break him, burn him where it hurts most?”
“What do you have in mind?” I held his gaze.
His brow was slow to rise. “Family?”
It took me a second to understand and my lips twitched. “Tomorrow?”
He nodded. “Sunrise.”
I didn’t hear the first shot so much as feel it, the air tearing past my ear with a hot whisper that snapped something feral awake in my chest before my brain caught up.
My body moved on instinct, dropping hard behind the overturned table, palms scraping tile, gun already in my hand because this was the only language men like D’Angelo ever really spoke.
“Fuckers!” I roared, the word ripping out of me like a promise. “Renz?”
“I’m good,” he shouted, drawing out his weapon tucked into the waistband of his pants as a bullet hit the wall inches from his face, blasting through plaster and bits of wall. “You got eyes on them?”
Relief didn’t exist in me, but something close to it loosened in my lungs. He was alive. That was all that mattered.
“Five, rooftop!” Dario yelled from the opposite end. “Our men outside will catch them, focus on the ones coming at us.”
I leaned out just enough to count shadows between muzzle flashes, already choosing who died first. “I got six on the left embankment,” I returned count.
Silence descended for a moment. They’d lost sight of us. Amateurs.
“Stay low and head for the right-wing.” Lorenzo’s voice cut through steady and controlled like always.
Rolling onto my stomach, I crawled trench-style toward the right, closing the distance between us. Dario slid in on the other side. Just as we reached the arched entrance, hell broke loose. Bullets screamed through the air as two men burst through the entrance.
“Back!” Lorenzo yelled to be heard. “Fuck…”
I didn’t hear the rest. My legs were already moving. Standing. Vaulting the chair. Charging straight into gunfire because the fastest way to end a fight was to make the other side panic.
I rushed them head-on, both guns up, emptying rounds into their chests as another three followed.
Their bodies jerked and dropped, one slamming into the doorway hard enough to crack wood.
Blood sprayed warm across my hands. Pain bloomed suddenly in my arm, a punch of heat, but it barely registered, I just adjusted my grip and kept firing.
To my right, Lorenzo opened fire on the two that came through the left entrance, taking them down at the knees before finishing the rest with calm, clean shots to the head. He always made it look surgical. I preferred messy.
Then my foot slipped on blood and debris, and I dropped out of sight behind the overturned furniture.
“Remo!” Before I could answer, he was already moving toward me like a damn fool.
“Renz!” Dario barked over the sound of gunfire. “Get down!”
Ignoring him, he ducked bullets and dropped beside me, eyes scanning me fast, checking for damage like he used to when we were kids and I came home bleeding.
“You okay?”
I answered the only way that mattered, leaning out and opening fire on another couple of men as they came through the doorway. A bullet sliced the air so close to his face I felt it too.
“You have a fucking death wish, brother?” I yanked his arm just as the wall behind him exploded.
“That coming from a fucking ass who charged live bullets face first.” Even now he could mock me. I almost laughed.
He moved first again, smashing a guy with his elbow, crushing another’s throat with his bare hand, quick and easy. I watched his back the entire time, shooting anything that got within breathing distance.
“Get down, Renz!” Dario’s shouted. A knife flashed and the body dropped.
Silence settled over us for a moment, the magic aftertaste of violence.
“Let’s go.” Lorenzo helped me up. “D’Angelo’s ass is fucked.”
I looked down at my blood-soaked sleeve and flexed my arm. Still worked. We moved through the estate together, shoes whispering over tile, guns raised. Eyes scanning corners, doorways, shadows, anything that so much as twitched.
“We need to get that checked.” Lorenzo pointed to my arm.
“Not important right now.” I shrugged. “I haven’t painted enough walls with these motherfuckers’ blood.” That was the truth, the fight always ended too soon.
Another second and four men rushed us and four shots to their chests dropped them to ground just as quickly.
“Seems like they underestimate the Rossi brothers,” Dario snorted.
Lorenzo glanced at him. “You’re our brother too, Rio. Never forget that.”
I didn’t say anything, but I agreed. Anyone who bled for us, was family.
We stepped inside what I quickly gauged was a massive living room, and the place reeked of wealth.
Gold crawled across every surface, gilded frames, heavy curtains, marble that shone too clean for a house that had just tried to murder us.
It wasn’t taste, just overly done excess, with money men collected when they thought it could protect them from bullets.
My boots tracked blood across his polished floors, marking them and that made me smirk.
At the center of it all sat D’Angelo, draped across a couch like a bloated king too heavy for his own throne.
His shirt strained at the buttons, sweat dark under his arms, jowls trembling when he shifted as if even standing might cost him breath.
He’d doubled in size since I last saw him but still an asshole who sent boys to die while he hid behind velvet.
My jaw tightened, my trigger finger itching to plant a bullet into that oversized brain. Assholes like him always disgusted me.
His guards reacted first, rifles lifting, safety disengaging, their fingers already tense on their triggers.
I counted them automatically, eyes moving from face to face, chest to chest, measuring distance, angles, who would fall first, who would take longer.
Twenty, maybe a few more. The three of us would take them down in a minute.
Less if I didn’t get bored and make it messy.
D’Angelo raised a hand to stop his men; the gesture annoyed me more than the guns. The man assumed he controlled this room, that we were guests instead of executioners.
“Let’s talk, Rossi,” his voice boomed across the room, the sound grating against my skull.
“A little late for that, D’Angelo,” Lorenzo’s said, calmly.
He lowered his gun and stepped forward, and every instinct in me sharpened.
My position shifted without thought, half a step behind and to his right, gun trained straight at D’Angelo’s chest. Dario mirrored me on the other side.
We’d stood like this our whole lives. Him in front.
Us at his back. Anyone who wanted him had to come through us first.
D’Angelo’s jaw tightened under all that wobbling skin. Sweat gathered at his temples. I watched it slide down and disappear into the folds of his neck. “What do you propose I do?”
My brother moved closer. “It’s simple. You die.”
The words settled into the room heavy and final, and something low in my gut eased. This was the part I enjoyed most.
D’Angelo laughed, but there was no humor in it, just air rattling in his throat. False bravado for a man who sensed his death was near but refused to acknowledge it.
Lorenzo lifted his hand before the man could speak again. “We’re done talking. Bring her in.”
I didn’t look away from the guards when Dario stepped off. My finger stayed light on the trigger, ready to empty the room if one of them twitched wrong.
“Bring who in?” The fat fuck’s eyes flared. “You wouldn’t hurt my wife and daughters, Rossi. You’re not that kind of man.”
“I said you die.”
Footsteps approached. Soft. Steady. Alessia came up beside Lorenzo and I glanced at her.
She wasn’t the frightened girl I remembered standing in front of her father.
Now, her shoulders were squared, chin lifted, eyes sharp as glass.
No tremor in her hands. No hesitation. She looked like she’d already buried this man in her head years ago.
“Father.” The hatred in her voice could’ve cut stone.
“It’s been almost four years since I’ve seen you, Alessia. Not even a hug for your papa.” He held his arms out
Did he expect her to run to him?
“I have something better,” she gritted. Without a blink, she took the gun from Lorenzo’s hand. I checked her grip. Firm. Correct. No shake. She aimed. The crack echoed sharp and clean.
The bullet punched straight through his brow, snapping his head back.
For a split second he looked confused, like he couldn’t understand how his own daughter had done it, and then all that weight slumped forward, crashing to the floor in a wet, graceless heap.
Piss and blood spreading across marble that probably cost more than most men’s houses.
“Good girl,” Lorenzo complimented but I felt pride curling in my chest. She hadn’t flinched. “His empire is yours, mia cara.”
With a nod, she glanced at me as I moved closer to Lorenzo and her eyes dropped to my wounded arm. “You’re hurt.” My grin comforted her and she smiled.
“Go.” Lorenzo gestured for her to follow Dario. With a slight nod, she walked away. My brother turned his attention to me. “We’ve got things sorted here. Get yourself checked in at the hospital. I’ll meet you there.” I opened my mouth to argue and his brow shot up.
Accepting I was up against a wall with him, I turned and walked away, a few of our men following me.