Chapter 37
Leo
“Mom. We’re fine,” I say for the tenth time. When she called me this morning, I knew I should have let it go to voicemail.
“Rocco told me what’s going on. That doesn’t mean you’re fine, Leo,” she huffs. “Is everyone in one piece at least?”
“Yes,” I say gently. “Like I said, it’s temporary.”
“I don’t like this. Maybe we should go back to North Carolina for a while.”
“Mom,” I say evenly, “I’m not leaving Alessa and the guys.”
“We could all go. Who would look for us there?”
Viktor fucking Orlov. “We can’t do that. This has to stop.” Gage comes bounding into the room I’m sitting in, practically bouncing on his feet. “Mom, I have to go.”
She sighs. “Okay. I love you. Be safe.”
“We will. I love you too.” As soon as the call ends, he pounces, knocking me back on the bed and straddling my waist.
“What the hell, Gage?” I laugh.
“They found it!”
“Found what?” I love this man wholeheartedly, but sometimes I can’t keep up.
“The ring.”
My heart stutters. “Her mom’s ring?”
“Yes!” He jumps to his feet, still over my waist, making me bounce under him. “Micah messaged me; they found both of them!”
We thought for sure they were lost in the explosion.
Ryder did some recon and found out Alessa put them in the safe in her office, which was at the front of the house.
Ghost and Caden’s crews and Micah and Mateo have worked nonstop to salvage what they can from the house.
Micah is bringing in a crew to knock down the rest of the house so she can start rebuilding when the coast is clear and said the safe was indestructible.
I guess he was right. Good thing because we needed her mom’s engagement ring and wedding band out of there.
“So, we’re doing this?” I ask.
He drops back down. “It’s what you want, right?”
“Of course. But we’re kind of in the middle of a fucking war.”
“Schematics.” He waves that away. “I told Micah what we wanted, and he’s taking them to get sized and customized.”
“What about the rest of it?” Gage has a whole plan laid out from start to finish. I’ve never seen him so excited about something. He even had us ask Micah if we can marry her and everything. That was interesting as hell with Zane.
“Coming along nicely.” Gage waggles his eyebrows. “I can’t talk Zane into wearing his dress blues, though.”
“Babe, he’s not a cop anymore.”
“So?” Gage shakes his head. “He used to look hot as fuck in them.”
“You used to check Zane out in police uniform?”
Gage gives me a look like I’m crazy. “Have you seen Zane? Cop or not.” He points at me. “He’s hot.”
I can’t help but laugh. “You aren’t wrong. I hate that I missed that.”
He jumps to his feet, then pulls me to mine. “Help me convince him, and you’ll get to see it for yourself.” He practically drags me from the room. Zane is in the kitchen, cooking breakfast. “Leo has something to ask you.”
I roll my eyes. “I’m not asking him.”
Zane lifts a brow. “Ask me what?”
“Nothing.” I shove Gage away. “He’s being Gage.”
Gage huffs. “Please, Zane,” he begs, sticking his bottom lip out. “I won’t ask you for anything else.”
“I’m not wearing them,” Zane says, then turns back to what he’s doing. “You know good and damn well you’ll ask me for something else.”
“I’ll give you a thousand bucks.”
“I have money,” Zane replies without even turning around.
“I’ll give you dibs on the next movie night.”
“We don’t have movie nights. We only had one use for that movie room.”
I watch them, my head whipping back and forth.
“I’ll let you touch my ass.”
“You would let me do that, anyway.”
“I’ll suck your dick every day for a month.”
Zane pauses, and I think Gage finally has them. “I could make you do that, anyway.”
Gage’s mouth pops open. “What kind of man do you think I am?”
Zane flips the stove off and turns around, crossing his arms over his chest. “Do you want me to answer that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” Zane drops his arms and steps forward, “I think I can make you do anything I want.”
“No fucking way,” Gage argues; he turns on his heel to walk away. He gets two steps.
“Gage,” Zane says in that deep voice he uses to get your attention. Or make your dick stand at attention.
Gage pauses mid-step and swings back around. “Did you just fucking daddy voice me?”
I snort and slide into the kitchen chair, watching this all go down.
Zane takes another step forward. “Come here.”
Gage narrows his eyes. “No.”
Zane takes another step forward; Gage takes one step back. “Come here.” More of a demand laces his tone.
Ryder walks in, looks between them, then joins me at the table. “What’s going on?”
“Just watch,” I tell him. I really want to know how this plays out.
“Don’t use that tone with me,” Gage says, but I can see he’s struggling. I’m trying so hard not to laugh at this point.
“Gage,” Zane growls, and I watch Ryder’s eyes widen. “Come. Here.” Gage shakes his head, making his hair fly everywhere. “Now.” Ryder chokes on a laugh when Gage takes the three steps to put him right in front of Zane. Zane leans forward. “Good boy,” he whispers loudly, then laughs and steps back.
Zane walks to Ryder and kisses him gently on the lips. “Morning, Love.”
“Morning,” Ryder replies with a smile. Gage and I look at each other at the same time and then back at them. Zane rubs his thumb across Ryder’s bottom lip, smiling softly.
“Okay. I need to know what the hell that was,” Gage says, gesturing wildly to Ryder and Zane.
Zane pecks Ryder’s lips again. “That was none of your fucking business.”
“Come on! You just good boy’d me. Does that mean nothing to you?!”
Zane goes back to the stove. “It proved my point; that’s what it meant. And I’m not wearing them.”
Gage glares at the back of Zane’s head, making me and Ryder laugh. “Fine. You’re uninvited.”
Zane snorts. “You can’t uninvite me to my own…you know.”
Gage flops down in the chair. “Where is Les?”
It’s getting harder to hide everything from her in such close quarters. At least at the house, we each had our own room where we could cook up this plan.
“Shower,” Ryder answers.
Gage grins. “Is she now?”
“Did you forget the bet already?” I ask.
“Shit,” Gage says, dropping his forehead onto the table. “Why did I take that bet again?”
“Because your dumbass said you could get Les naked with a smile and wink,” Ryder says dryly.
“You also said Zane couldn’t get you to do what he wanted,” I add. “You lost that one.”
“I hate all of you,” Gage mumbles.
After Alessa gets out of the shower, everyone piles into the kitchen for breakfast. We were just cleaning up when we got the call.
Just as we thought, Viktor retaliated. Alessa was ready for him, though.
She called in every Italian she could think of and packed her businesses to the gills with them.
We watched it all go down on video surveillance, and it was the funniest shit I’ve ever seen.
Viktor thought they would be easy pickings since they were closed until further notice, including the one she gave me.
I still have phone meetings with Helena, and we can have our grand opening once this is done. I can’t wait for Alessa to see it.
We’re getting ready to head out to start interrogating guards to see who her mole is when Holden comes busting out of the back room, where he set his laptop up.
He decided the rest of his computers needed to be put somewhere safe; if not, we would have to move them every time.
After she meets with the guards, we need to move.
Again. We need to stay ten steps in front of Jay and Viktor; this is the only way we know how.
“I remember!” Holden yells when he comes skidding into the living room.
“Remember what?” Alessa asks.
“What I forgot!” Holden then shakes his head when he realizes he didn’t answer the question. “I found something the night of the explosion, then I forgot. Now I remember!”
“Bello,” Ryder says gently. “Breathe and tell us what you remember.”
“Mani’s the fucking mole.”
Alessa goes still before slowly sitting up on the couch where she was cuddling with Dex. “Mani? As in my lead guard, Mani?”
So many things start slotting into place. How Jay kept finding her, how he had all the information about her life that wasn’t public knowledge, and how the hell they knew to try to kill Holden.
“That motherfucker is dead,” Ryder growls, jumping to his feet.
Alessa cuts her eyes to Zane. “How good are your interrogation skills?”
When Zane grins, it’s feral. “Within the law, damn good. Without having to follow the rules? Even better.”
Alessa grabs her phone off the table, dialing a number. “Mani’s the goddamn mole,” she says as soon as Micah says hello.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Micah yells, making Alessa wince. “He’s worked for you for three fucking years.”
“Which means he had three years to gather what he needed. Where is he?”
“I told them to go home,” Micah sighs. “Ghost and Caden had the guarding under control, so I gave the guards a break.”
“Micah. I need you to call and tell him you need him at the house. Make up whatever you have to. Get him there and hold him, but don’t let him know we know. He’ll clam up.”
“I should probably mention your room is still intact. You can get to it through the back part of the garage.”
Alessa looks up with that smile that makes her look more than a little crazy. “Even better. Let me know when you have him. Call the rest of them in. It might just not be Mani.”
“On it, Boss.” The call disconnects, and she looks around the room.
“Holden, did you find anything else?”
He shakes his head, flopping beside Ryder on the loveseat when he sits back down. “No.”
“Are you sure it’s Mani?” Ryder asks, squeezing his thigh.
“A hundred percent. For the last three years, he’s been getting large money transactions that didn’t come from Les. I traced it back; at first, it was attached to Hoover Enterprises. Now Viktor. They just buried the trail.”
“But not deep enough,” Gage says, slapping Holden on the back from where he’s standing behind him.