Chapter 8 #3
My brother steps away from the side of the room and comes to stand at Igor’s side.
For one second, I don’t understand what I’m looking at.
My mind rejects it. Refuses it. Alex is my brother.
My blood. He’s been by my side all my life.
He stood behind me while I argued for our family, for our future. The future of the Romeros.
Igor meets my eyes and smiles, and I know in an instant who the mole is. The air leaves my lungs in a violent rush.
No.
No.
Alex doesn’t look at me. That hurts more than if he’d laughed in my face. He may as well have. Standing at Igor’s side is doing that same thing anyway.
Alex is the mole. He’s the one causing the instability in the family. The whispered doubts that keep reaching me. The clients lost, the fractures in years-long friendships and alliances.
My own brother.
“You,” I whisper, hate coating the word.
Alex turns his head, and there is no shame on his face. Only resentment. Old, ugly, festering bitterness. “You were never meant to lead,” he says. “A woman cannot do a man’s job. The Romeros were lost the moment you took charge, so I did something about it. I’m doing something about it.”
The words hit like a slap across my face, and I can’t breathe, can’t think.
Igor chuckles. “Family can be so disappointing, yes?” Igor’s arm moves, and I see the flash of metal before it’s out of his pocket.
A gun.
Not toward Lucien Moretti or me, but Anthony.
Before thinking twice, I reach inside my jacket, fingers wrapping around the pistol I hid from Moretti security.
Time slows, stretches, screams warnings through my mind.
What could happen? What will this action mean to those in the room?
Anthony is turning, Lucien barking something, Alex moving back, and Igor is raising his weapon with murder written plainly across his face.
I fire before anyone can react.
The shot cracks through the office like thunder.
Igor jerks back at the force of the bullet slamming into his shoulder and spinning him sideways. His own shot goes wild, shattering glass behind me instead of tearing through Anthony’s chest.
Everyone moves at once.
Anthony ducks and reaches for his own weapon.
I fire again, but Igor crashes into one of the chairs, and it throws off my aim. The Russian bodyguard runs, slamming through an exit door and leaving his boss behind. Men are shouting outside the office, and I hear running feet. Moretti security, perhaps.
“Alex!” I scream because he’s attempting to assist Igor out of the office. I still can’t accept what I see. “You treacherous bastard!”
For one insane second, I think he might turn back.
He doesn’t.
He grabs Igor by the waist, dragging him toward the emergency exit as Moretti men flood the office. Another gunshot erupts. Then another. Lucien is yelling orders, the office dissolving into pure violence.
I run for the door, but a hand catches my arm.
“Don’t,” he snarls. Anthony.
“My brother—”
“Has fled.”
I wrench against his grip. “Let me the fuck go!”
He hauls me back just as another shot tears through the open doorway, and I feel the wind of that bullet graze my ear.
I freeze.
For one awful beat, I can hear nothing but blood roaring in my ears.
Then Lucien slams the office door shut and turns the lock.
Silence crashes down around us, broken only by distant shouting and the muffled thunder of the Moretti security team outside.
I stare at the door, chest heaving, gun still in my hand.
Alex.
Alex did this.
Alex stood beside the enemy.
Alex tried to help kill us. Kill me.
Something inside me splits open and bleeds out. My own brother? How could this happen to me? To our family? But the bigger question is why? Does he hate me so much that he couldn't stand that I had control? That I had a say on everything the family does?
Lucien rounds the desk, expression like carved stone. “Igor’s dead.”
Anthony releases my arm but stays close, breathing hard, eyes still on the door like he’d like nothing better than to tear through it with his bare hands and kill Igor all over again. “Shit,” he says after several heartbeats. “The Dragunoviks will want revenge.”
“Yes.” Lucien’s tone leaves no room for argument. He glances at me, and whatever he sees on my face confirms his next decision. “This changes everything between our families.”
I laugh once, the sound wrecked. “You think?”
“You and Anthony are leaving the city.”
I blink, certain I’ve not heard right. “What?” I pause. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Anthony straightens. “No, we’re not.”
Lucien ignores us both. “Alex Romero is their mole. Igor got into this building because someone helped him become aware of when and where this meeting was taking place. That person was Alex Romero. After tonight, they won’t stop until they finish what they started.
They meant to kill us all, and when they learn that Isabella Romero managed to do that first, they’ll stop at nothing for revenge. ”
“I’m not running,” I bite out. I was never a coward.
To survive in my family, you couldn’t be.
I’d been sent away for years, jumping from private school to private school, as if my father wanted me to become a lady.
I was never destined for such greatness, but I did learn one skill: relying on myself when I needed something done.
Perhaps that was why the family wanted me to run the business when I came back, or…
and this was a consideration I never even thought of.
They placed me in the top job, just to have another mafia family take me out.
Get rid of me without any blood necessarily on their hands.
“Neither am I.” Anthony crosses his arms, glaring at Lucien.
Lucien’s gaze could flay skin. “This isn’t a negotiation.
You need to go with Isabella because she’ll need protection, and it’s pretty clear there’s a history between you two.
At least you’re not strangers.” Lucien shrugs.
“No doubt Alex Romero who came with Igor and ran away like a scared little boy will tell the Dragunoviks that Isabella was the one who fired first.”
I step toward him, fury giving me something to hold besides the jagged horror in my chest. My brother betrayed me.
My family may have known all along what would happen today.
“The hell it isn’t. My brother just betrayed me, and you expect me to, what?
Pack a bag and disappear?” I can’t even if I want to.
My daughter is expecting a visit this weekend. I can’t disappoint her.
I won’t.
“Yes.”
I laugh again, but there’s no humor in it. “Go to hell, Lucien.”
“You can visit me there later,” he says coldly. “For now, you’re going into hiding. Both of you.”
Anthony drags a hand through his hair, pacing once, violent energy pouring off him in spades. “Absolutely not.”
Lucien steps closer, lowering his voice into something so menacing that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up straight.
“Igor aimed for you, Anthony. He would have shot me next had Isabella not fired first. Alex Romero is the mole, so who knows whom Isabella can trust in her family? Rodin Dragunovik will strike again when he learns his brother were killed. He’ll soon be informed it happened here, and the next strike will come fast. I will not have two more graves because your pride can’t take a hit. ”
My throat tightens.
Lucien looks at me. “You’re the head of the Romeros, and it’s clear Alex wants you dead.
Who knows who else in your family thinks the same?
Rodin wants a foothold in New York and will kill to gain it.
I’ll make sure the Morettis are safe and send Briar over to Ireland with Dallen for a time to keep them safe.
So, for once in your life, Isabella Romero, use that brain of yours and survive. ”
You could hear a pin drop in the room. I hate that Lucien’s right. I hate it more that Anthony knows it too, and that I’ll have to flee with this bastard I swore to never talk to again.
Anthony’s eyes meet mine, and his jaw flexes. For the first time tonight, there’s no mockery in his gaze, no hatred, only grim understanding and acceptance.
“You go,” Lucien says. “Tonight.”
I close my fingers tighter around my gun until the metal bites into my palm.
Alex betrayed me.
Igor came into this office to start a war.
And now, whether I want it or not, I’m being forced into hiding with Anthony Moretti.
Perfect.
Absolutely fucking perfect.