33. Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Three
Mateo
M ari’s energy faded quickly after I cleaned her wounds and admitted my one weakness to her.
I surprised myself by saying it out loud. It’s not something I ever share.
The risks are too great if the wrong person found out. But with Mari, I trust her completely. I don’t know why, but my gut tells me she’d never betray me.
She’s fast asleep in my arms now.
Is it appropriate?
Probably not.
But I can’t bring myself to leave her alone after the gun battle and chase.
If she wakes up from a bad dream, I don’t want her to face it alone. I’d rather be here, holding her, ready to reassure her that she’s safe.
But duty calls. I need to debrief with Romeo and check over the bodies of the two men he brought in.
In the soft light of the bedside lamp, I study Mari’s sleeping form in my arms, and a warmth unfurls in my chest.
Damn, she’s beautiful.
Her face is peaceful, her expression relaxed. You’d never guess what she went through tonight. Still, I’ll check in on her again later once I’ve wrapped things up with Rom.
Carefully, I ease her off me, pulling the sheet up over her. She doesn’t even stir, and the steady rhythm of her breathing reassures me she’s deeply asleep. Good. She needs the rest.
I turn off the light and tiptoe through the dark room toward the door. Everything in here is still so familiar, unchanged. This used to be my room when papà was alive, when he owned Carloso. Now, it’s just another guest room, one of many, though I still keep it as it was.
I usually assign guests to another wing of the house, but somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to do that with her. When I told Giulia where to put Mari, the surprise in her voice was obvious, but she didn’t question my choice. I did, though, that first night. But now, as I close the door quietly behind me, it feels like exactly the right decision.
Tonight’s events play on my mind as I walk down the corridor to the stairs. I’ve been attacked countless times before, but this time?
This was different on so many levels.
The adrenaline surge is unavoidable. Normally, it sharpens my senses and helps me remain calm.
Tonight though? Tonight, I felt fear.
For the first time in years, I was afraid. Not for me. For Mariella.
Having her by my side, facing the risk of her getting hurt or, worse, killed, had my heart pounding relentlessly in my chest.
“What have you got?” I ask as I step into my office. As expected, Rom’s already here, lounging on the sofa, drink in hand.
“Salvatore lost the last car,” he says, taking a sip. “Uberto tracked the cars on CCTV, but the plates are dummies. He lost them when they drove into a zone where the cameras were mysteriously scrambled.”
“Fuck. So this wasn’t some random hit. It was planned.”
“Seems that way. But here’s the real question. How’d they know you’d be alone? They must’ve been shadowing you.”
It’s the only explanation, though I didn’t spot a tail. I can usually sense when someone’s watching me. Sure, I was distracted, but not that much.
“Have you had my car checked for trackers?”
“Sure did. Nothing to be found.”
“And the dead guys?” I ask, pouring myself a drink as I settle into the leather beside him. “Any IDs?”
Rom shakes his head. “Nothing. They had no IDs, no intel in the car, nothing on them. No tattoos or markings to indicate which family they work for either.”
“Mercenaries?” I ask, swirling the whiskey as I press the cool glass against my temple.
“Seems likely.”
“Uberto ran their images through facial recognition?”
“Yep. Came up empty. Whoever sent them covered their tracks meticulously. They don’t want to be found.”
“An invisible enemy,” I mutter. “Just what we need on top of everything else. At least before, we knew who we were fighting.”
Rom nods, his expression dark. “This could be the mastermind behind it all. Someone pulling the strings and shifting your enemies like chess pieces.”
A chill runs down my spine. “Even Molinaro? Seems unlikely, given the generation-long feud with them.”
“Man, I don’t know. My gut tells me there’s more to come.”
I rub my neck, exhaustion settling in. “Good thing, then, that Tiero and I play a damn good game of chess.”
My phone rings, and I pull it from my pocket, lowering the volume to avoid waking Mari.
After my briefing with Rom, he went to crash in the room he keeps here, and I came to check in on Antonio’s daughter.
She hadn’t moved and was still sound asleep, but still worried she might wake from a nightmare, I slipped under the covers on the other side of the bed to keep an eye on her.
I must have drifted off, because now I’m spooned close behind her, her soft, warm body pressed against me.
Before I can think too much about how right it feels, the phone buzzes insistently in my hand again. I swallow the urge to groan and carefully ease out of bed, pulling the blanket back over her.
Sunlight streams through the gap in the curtains, and I glance at the clock on the bedside table. Six o’clock. Great, I got all of three hours of sleep.
With one last look at my sleeping beauty, I leave the room.
“Tiero,” I answer my brother’s incessant call, my voice still rough as I reach my suite on the third floor.
“What the hell were you thinking going out alone? Do you have a death wish?” Tiero’s voice booms through the speaker.
“I was just picking up Mari. I didn’t need an entourage.”
“Santino said you were gone for hours.”
God, can’t I do anything without a full report on my every move? Some privacy would be nice.
“Well, my plans changed,” I say, keeping my tone steady.
“Then you should have called for backup,” he shoots back. “We could’ve avoided this entire mess. I’ve been on the phone with the police commissioner since five a.m. cleaning up the fallout.”
Maybe I didn’t want other people watching us.
“Mateo,” Tiero’s tone softens, “you’re the only family I have left. With Ella gone, I can’t lose you too.”
A lump forms in my throat, and suddenly I’m that six-year-old boy again, looking up to him with nothing but admiration and love.
“I’m sorry, Tiero. I didn’t mean to worry you. Sometimes I just need a breather. I get tired of having people around me all the time.”
“I get that. Trust me, I feel the same. But the need for personal time has to wait until things settle down.”
I let out a sigh, resigned. Of course, he’s right. If the roles were reversed, I’d be saying exactly the same thing to him.
“Why were you picking up Mariella in the first place? We’ve got people for that.”
Yeah, people who are stupid enough to let an innocent girl wander the streets of a big city without any way of tracking or contacting her. I’m still furious with Gustavo.
“My gut told me she shouldn’t be alone in Rome. And it turns out I was right.”
“What do you mean?”
I fill my brother in on everything that’s been happening with Antonio. His unannounced arrival at Carloso when he was meant to stay in Sicily, the way he assaulted his own daughter, and his demand that she spy on me.
“He’s losing the plot,” I say. “Mari thinks he’s acting this way because he’s anxious about his prospects for consigliere. I get her reasoning, but if we can’t trust him fully, is he right for the position?”
“Hmm, I hear you,” Tiero replies. “I’ve noticed he’s been erratic lately. That unauthorized trip to Switzerland when he thought Mauro was a Molinaro rat and went to handle it himself without telling us all to prove himself? It was against protocol, a protocol he helped establish, no less.”
“Antonio has always served us well,” I add. “His loyalty has been beyond question. But now?”
“I’m meeting with him this morning. I’ll see what I can find out. It would be a shame if his nerves undo him in the end.”
“Just make sure you don’t let on that you know he ordered Mari to spy on me,” I’m quick to remind him. “Naturally, she wasn’t supposed to tell me.”
“But she did,” he chuckles. “I’m not surprised. The girl has always had a crush on you.”
“What are you talking about?” I scoff. That’s ridiculous.
“You, my dear brother, were just blind to it. So was I, actually. But Ella pointed it out ages ago. She said it was as obvious as day.”
What?
Not to me.
“Anyway,” he presses on, “no more solo excursions to rescue damsels in distress. You have a team for a reason. They’re there to keep you safe. Last night worked out, sure, but both you and Mari nearly bought it. I don’t want a repeat of that.”