Chapter 8
EIGHT
ISABELLA
The town car crawls through lunchtime traffic on Sixth. I watch the skyline rearrange itself in the window—Moretti Global's black granite tower growing larger with every red light.
"You're making a mistake, Isabella."
I close my eyes and pray for , because right now, my patience is running out with my brother. "I've heard you, Alex. I've heard you all weekend. I've heard you since the Ricci contract walked out the door. The answer's the same."
"The Dragunoviks would give us everything the Morettis won't." He angles toward me, that old Romero stubbornness in his jaw.
"Territory. Product. Routes we lost when Matteo died. You walk into that building today, and you’ll crawl out of it.
Walk into the Dragunoviks instead, and you walk out of there with a crown. "
"Or a chain." The Russians were already flexing, showing they didn’t care whose feet they trod on. Why my brother saw that as an opportunity and not a confrontation, I can’t fathom.
"That's paranoia. They will make a deal, I’m sure of it."
"The Russians don't offer alliances. They offer employment.
You think Rodin Dragunovik wants a Romero partner?
He wants a Romero subsidiary." I turn and meet his eyes. I’m done fighting him about this in private, and I will not be fighting him about this in front of Lucien Moretti.
"The Morettis have a code of honor. It's a filthy code, and it's a self-serving code, but it’s a code. The Russians have a payroll. I’m not signing on to anyone's payroll. "
"You're scared of Anthony." He spits the accusation, and I fight not to rise to his bait.
I laugh once, short and ugly. "I'm scared of a lot of things. That man is nowhere near the top of the list. Sit up. Fix your tie. Keep your mouth shut in the meeting unless I ask you a question. Can you do that for me, Alex? Can you do that one thing?"
His jaw works. He says nothing.
The car rolls to a stop outside Moretti Global. The doorman steps toward us, and I put my hand on the door and pause, because in the few months I've been head of this family, I have never walked into a building I was less sure I'd walk out of.
Then I open the door and step onto the curb, and I become the woman I need to be. I don’t want to have to call for this meeting with Lucien Moretti and his merry clan of idiots, but I’m left without a choice. It’s not just that, though. This is what’s right for my family.
The Romeros.
Enough is enough, and it’s time we make a truce. Not because I forgive or forget anything the Morettis have done or are capable of, but because there’s a new player in town, one who threatens all our families, according to what my intelligence is telling me.
Rodin Dragunovik.
With my brother Alex beside me, we ride up the elevator, quiet, with Anthony Moretti standing behind us, breathing down my neck like the creep he is. I can feel him looking daggers at me. No doubt he would just love to shove a knife into my kidney, take me out here and now.
Well, the feeling is mutual, asshole.
I think better of it and don’t reach for the hidden knife between my legs, or the gun that security hadn’t found either.
Here in Lucien Moretti’s office wouldn’t be the wisest course.
No matter how well they may escape the initial attack, the Morettis wouldn’t stop until they were dead if they hit them on home soil.
I glance at my phone, well aware the Romeros were far from innocent players in this city.
But now that I had taken control of the family, I brought in line those who had been creating too many issues for us all, and not allowing us to be above the law, most of the time.
I felt like I finally had a handle on the family and where we should head in the future.
Perhaps the Morettis were right in that regard. There was a way to do things the right and honorable way, without making a scene, bringing attention to the family like we’d been doing. Too many of us had been killed, and I wouldn’t lose another family member.
I glance at my younger brother. I know he’s hurt that the top job went to me and not him, but after his antagonizing of Stephen Moretti and his fiancée Dallen last year, he couldn’t be the one at the head of the family. We’d all end up dead on his watch.
And I can’t die. My heart now walks, breathes, laughs, and lives outside my body, and to hell with anyone who dares take me from her.
My great-grandmother led the Romeros down the path we’ve walked ever since the turn of the last century. It’s only right that a woman takes the lead once more and pulls everyone back in line. Men love nothing but to fuck shit up, and it always takes a while to fix their mistakes.
I am that fixer.
The elevator door opens, and we walk into the busy Moretti Global offices. I’d not been here before, obviously my invite had been lost in the mail, but still, I walked through and took in everyone busy at work.
Maybe the rumors were true after all. The Morettis had turned legitimate. I scoff and continue toward the open double doors at the end of the long hall. They were legitimate on paper, no doubt, but they were forever standing right alongside the Romeros in the underworld.
Anthony moves ahead, and I catch the scent of his cologne.
It’s the same he wore when we dated. For five years, I’d managed not to be reminded of him.
I thank God every day my daughter resembles me and not her father.
A secret little souvenir from our relationship.
So much time has passed, and still he wears the same scent.
Does the man ever change?
I doubted it.
His hatred for me is as hot and continuous as ever. But then, so is mine. The prick didn’t listen to reason, to truth, and it was one of the reasons why I’d asked to see Lucien Moretti instead of having this meeting with Lucien’s head of security, Anthony.
There was too much hatred, distrust, and loathing between us for any of our conversations not to degrade to the point that we did nothing but sling insults at each other. Or shoot each other in the head. And I won’t die by that bastard's hands, not by any man’s hands, for that matter.
I pull up my big-girl panties, about to offer the Morettis two things I never thought I would in my life.
A truce.
An alliance.
I swallow the vomit that thought conjures.
I don’t want to be here. But the Dragunoviks had already hit one of my money spinners, taking my biggest cocaine clients from me, and it had to stop.
How they knew of my connection to Tommaso Ricci I couldn’t fathom, but I would find out, and if I had a mole in the family, they, too, would be removed.
If the Morettis knew of them or had similar issues…
Well then, perhaps there was a deal to be made.
Perhaps not, but we’d know after today.
I enter the office, and Lucien doesn’t bother to stand. Not that I expect him to. No Moretti or Romero would stand for the other, and I have to respect him for that. Even if I don’t respect him for anything else.
I sit on one of the chairs that face Lucien’s desk and pretend that I haven’t walked into the viper’s den. I should have asked for this meeting elsewhere, somewhere public and not in a Moretti building where anything can happen, or bodies can be disposed of secretly.
The sound of the office staff, their chatter slowly dissipating, catches my attention, and I glance at my watch, noting the time. Six on the dot, and everyone is leaving for the day.
I pretend that being in a Moretti office practically alone with the rival mafia family doesn’t bother me. It does, of course, not that I’ve come here entirely without backup. That is sitting in my jacket pocket. Lax Moretti security really ought to frisk women as well as the men.
“Don’t look so scared, Isabella. We’re not going to kill you,” Anthony whispers into my ear as he takes the seat next to me.
I try not to react to him. The bastard needs to shut the fuck up and leave me the hell alone.
“Sit down, Anthony, and let those who need to have a voice here tonight speak.” He glares at me, and I smile, liking the fact that I’ve gotten under his skin.
That I’ve pricked a little of his pride.
He takes a seat, turning to watch me like the stalker asshole he is.
Since moving back to New York, I know he's been keeping tabs on me. No doubt the Morettis have men watching my family's every move, especially after Elio went rogue and tried to kill the Chief of Police's daughter, but not before doing an unthinkable, unforgivable act first.
I seethe at the thought of what he did. How dare he do that to a woman, even if that woman is dating a Moretti?
It isn’t who we are. Yes, we kill. Yes, we partake in criminal acts. Yes, we deal in illicit substances that people frown upon, but we don’t try to kill someone just because we want to have a little fun on the side at someone else’s expense.
Lucien leans back in his chair and stares.
He doesn't scare me. Nothing can, not with the upbringing I've had. Still, I do respect him a little. He has the respect of those around him, their undivided attention and loyalty. I’m still working on gaining my family's trust, and it’s proving harder than I first thought.
My brother, case in point.
Even holding all the financial cards doesn’t mean you have control of those around you. Not if they can, at any moment, try to steal it for themselves.
“I haven’t come here to waste time,” I say, crossing one leg over the other as if I’m entirely at ease in Lucien Moretti’s office and not sitting in the center of enemy territory. “I’m here because we have a problem. One that doesn’t belong solely to the Romeros anymore.”
Lucien says nothing. He only watches me with that unnerving stillness of his, like a man who has already imagined ten different ways this conversation ends and has accepted all of them.