Chapter Nine
Maverick
“Do you have a death wish?” I ask Foster. “You do realize they were about to kill you?”
“They need to lighten up,” he says, pouring himself a drink from my personal collection as if he’s not just narrowly escaped being murdered in my kitchen. “They can’t spend the rest of their lives walking around with those sourpuss faces.”
I get it.
My cousins are hard men. They hardly speak unless there’s something important to say, and even then, half the time, it comes out as a grunt or a death threat. Nico and Marco do not soften easily. Life made sure of that.
But still.
There’s teasing a man…and then there’s poking a starving wolf with a steak knife.
“What’d he do?” Stefano asks as he walks through the door, glancing from Foster to me. “Nico and Marco are boiling mad.”
Foster lifts his glass. “That seems dramatic.”
“You were tied to a kitchen table,” I point out.
“Temporarily.”
“With rope.”
“Good rope, too. I respect quality work.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Stefano’s mouth twitches. “Why were you tied to our kitchen table, Foster?”
Foster takes a slow sip of my whiskey before answering. “Because your cousins have no sense of humor.”
“Foster,” I warn. “Those two were not wired to understand your jokes. You’re lucky I got back in time, or they’d have taken the knives to you.”
“I wasn’t worried. They would have cooled off eventually.”
“Nico was sharpening his blades next to your ear,” I remind him. “While his brother was marking your body for the slices.”
Foster looks down at the thick line above his right wrist and smiles.
“I might have this permanently tattooed.”
“Foster.”
“Fine,” he sighs. “I just ran a simple test to check if your internal security was operating at peak capacity. It was.”
Marco storms into the room in a blaze of Italian fury.
“Un semplice test?” he snaps, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. “Questo pazzo motociclista ha violato il nostro sistema, ha piantato informazioni false, e ci ha fatto credere che il nostro Don fosse stato preso mentre era fuori casa.”
“I’m sorry…what?” I ask, shocked.
“Ci hai dato una posizione falsa,” Marco continues, pointing at Foster. “Un percorso falso. Una minaccia falsa. Hai messo il suo nome, la sua macchina, il luogo in cui era stato visto con una donna e una bambina, e hai premuto invio come se fosse un gioco.”
My jaw tightens.
A false location. A false route. A false threat.
My name. My car. The place I had just been seen with Amelia and Olivia.
Foster had not simply tested security.
He had made my cousins believe they had missed a threat against me while I was standing near a woman and child.
Marco takes another step forward.
“Noi non giochiamo con la vita della famiglia,” he growls. “Non usiamo il sangue come esercizio. Non mettiamo il nome del Don in un finto rapporto di rapimento per vedere quanto velocemente corriamo.”
We don’t play with family.
We don’t use blood as training.
We don’t put the Don’s name in a fake abduction report to see how fast we run.
Foster lowers his glass as he listens.
Can he understand him?
“Tu ridi,” Marco says, his voice dropping. Somehow, it’s worse than the shouting. “Tu bevi il suo whiskey. Tu fai battute. Ma per dieci minuti, io e mio fratello abbiamo creduto di aver fallito l’unico uomo che abbiamo giurato di proteggere.”
For ten minutes, he and Nico believed they had failed me.
“Dieci minuti,” he says. “Dieci minuti in cui ho visto nella mia testa un’altra macchina. Un’altra strada. Un’altra donna morta perché siamo arrivati troppo tardi.”
My chest hardens.
Adriana.
Elena.
Foster’s face changes.
The humor drains out of him completely.
“Marco,” I say quietly. “He gets it.”
But Marco’s not finished.
He steps closer to Foster, his eyes black with rage.
“Se vuoi testare un sistema, usi un codice. Usi una parola concordata. Usi il cervello che Dio ti ha dato. Non tocchi quella ferita. Non tocchi la nostra famiglia. Non tocchi lui.”
If you want to test a system, use a code.
Use an agreed word.
Use the brain God gave you.
Do not touch that wound.
Do not touch our family.
Do not touch him.
Foster swallows.
“I’m sorry, man,” he says. “I didn’t think about that.”
Marco leans in, voice low.
“E se lo fai ancora, motociclista, non aspetterò il permesso del Don.”
If you do it again, biker, I will not wait for the Don’s permission.
I step between them.
“Enough.”
Marco’s eyes stay on Foster.
Foster nods once, slow and serious.
“I screwed up,” he says.
Marco says nothing.
Foster sets the glass down on the nearest table.
“I thought I was testing response time. I didn’t think about what that alert would mean to you.”
“No,” Marco says coldly in English. “You didn’t. You thought to play a joke, but all we saw was our Don and his family dead because we…once again…couldn’t save them in time.”
“Take a walk, Marco,” I order.
For a moment, I’m not sure he’ll obey.
His chest rises and falls with barely contained fury. His eyes stay locked on Foster, the promise in them sharp enough to draw blood.
With one final glare, he turns and walks out of my office.
“I’m sorry, brother,” Foster says, downing the last of his amber drink. “I put my tag in the message, but they must not have seen it.”
“It was at the end,” Nico says from the doorway.
We all turn toward him.
Unlike Marco, Nico’s anger’s quiet.
That doesn’t make it less dangerous.
“We were out the door before we finished reading the message,” he says. “Your alert said the Don had been taken. It included his route. His vehicle. A location ping. A photo from today.”
Foster’s face tightens.
Nico steps into the room.
“You expected us to scroll to the bottom while our Don was possibly bleeding somewhere?”
“No,” Foster says quietly. “I didn’t think that through.”
“However,” Nico says, “you did help us with one thing.”
Foster looks at him. “What’s that?”
“You taught us our system wasn’t as impenetrable as we thought.” Nico’s jaw tightens. “We could use your help fixing that.”
Foster nods. “That was my whole point. I just went about it the wrong way.”
“Yes,” Nico says. “Very wrong.”
Foster accepts that without argument.
Progress.
“Give my brother the night to cool down,” Nico says. “Then, if you’re willing, meet us back here tomorrow.”
“I’ll be here.”
I stand silently as Nico shakes Foster’s hand, then turns and walks calmly out of my office.
For several seconds, no one speaks.
Then Stefano exhales and looks around the room. “Well, had I known it was this fun here, I’d have left New York years ago.”
I look at my brother. “Do not start.”
He grins. “I like not being the fake Don.”
“Don,” Luca calls from his office across the hall. “Captain Melvin is on the radio. You’ll have to come in here to speak with him. This thing is too complicated to move.”
Sighing, I take the whiskey from my brother’s hand and down the rest of it.
Stefano stares at me. “That was mine.”
“You’ll survive.”
“I might not.”
“I need a vacation,” I mutter, making my way across the hall.
Luca stands from his desk as I enter and hands me the radio speaker. Static crackles through the small office.
“Captain Melvin,” I say. “It’s unusual for you to contact me while in the air. What’s wrong?”
“Don,” Melvin says, his voice breaking in and out. “I’m going to lose signal soon. I need to warn you about—”
The radio cuts to silence.
I stare at it.
Luca stares at me.
From the doorway, Stefano says, “That sounded ominous.”
I slowly hang my head.
“Warn us about what?” Luca asks.
I hand the speaker back to him. “I suppose we’ll find out in three hours when he lands.”
Stefano leans against the doorframe. “Unless he doesn’t.”
I turn my head and look at him.
He lifts both hands. “Too soon?”
“Leave.”
He smiles. “You’d miss me.”
“Not tonight.”
Luca clears his throat. “Should I alert the runway team?”
“Yes. Quietly. I don’t want the estate stirred up over static and half a sentence.”
“And security?”
“Double it.”
Instead of returning to my office, I head up the stairs to my section of the estate and go straight for the shower.
Amelia follows me there.
Not physically.
That would be easier to fight.
No, she slips into my mind as the hot water beats against my back. Her freckled cheeks. Her tired eyes. The way she smiles.
She is beautiful.
But it’s not just physical beauty.
Amelia Moore has a heart too big for one chest. It’s filled with so much compassion it spills out of her in everything she does. Every animal she saves. Every child she comforts. Every tired smile she gives when she should be sitting down instead of taking care of one more thing.
My mind drifts.
A beach.
The sun low over the water.
Amelia sitting between my legs, her back resting against my chest while my arms hold her close. Olivia playing in the sand a few feet away, her laughter carried by the wind.
No blood.
No fear.
No ghosts waiting behind us.
Just peace and happiness.
The vision is so clear it steals my breath.
I let it play out as I finish my shower, dry off, and climb into bed.
Then I force it away.
I have to.
I’m the Don.
I have responsibilities. Business partners. Companies. Territory. Men who look to me for orders. Families who sleep safely at night because I do not allow myself the luxury of distraction.
I can’t let myself be pulled off course because a woman has caught my attention for the first time since Adriana was taken from me.
My phone buzzes on the nightstand.
For one reckless second, I consider ignoring it.
But too many people depend on me.
Too many things can go wrong in the space of one unanswered notification.
I reach for it. A text waits on the screen.
Unknown: Goodnight, Maverick. Consider this an open line of communication.
Damn it.
I stare at the words far longer than I should.
Adriana’s face rises in my mind.
Then, Elena, my daughter’s.
For years, they’ve been the last faces I see before sleep. The first ghosts waiting for me when I wake.
But tonight, their faces blur.
Amelia’s smile takes shape.
Olivia’s fierce little eyes.
A future I have no right to imagine settles beside a past I couldn’t protect.
And I make a decision I hate with every fiber of my being.
I don’t text her back.
Not because I don’t want to.
Because I want to too much.
Because I already know that if I open this door, I won’t be able to close it again.
I set the phone facedown on the nightstand and stare at the ceiling.
For several minutes, I don’t move.
Then the phone buzzes again.
I close my eyes.
“Don’t,” I mutter to myself.
I pick it up anyway.
UNKNOWN: Also, this is Amelia. Well, Mia. Obviously. Unless you gave your number to another tired sanctuary owner with a nosy ten-year-old today.
A laugh breaks out of me before I can stop it.
Soft.
Rusty.
Unfamiliar.
It almost hurts.
I should put the phone down.
I should let silence answer for me.
Instead, I type two words.
ME: Goodnight, bella.
Then I send it before I change my mind.
The line is open now.
God help me, I want it to stay that way.