I left her to get breakfast, to get my bearings, and to get intel on the fact that I was sleeping with the heiress to the Russian mob.
Cade had already pulled intel from Georgie’s phone, and he called both Bastian and I about it that morning. “Well, there’s a lot more information than I wanted in here.”
Bastian grumbled into the phone, surely tired from lack of sleep. “Is there information on where the fuck Katie’s at?”
“We’ve got everyone out looking,” I said, lying through my teeth. I hadn’t looked at all last night.
“Dimitri took her. It’s obvious from the communications,” Cade announced. “I’ve got— I think we need to meet to discuss this.”
Cade was always worried about tapped phones. We were intelligent enough to have people within the FBI bury our conversations. We switched out phones too. Still, you could never be too careful, and I was sure Cade had the information I needed, information that would start a war I wasn’t sure I was ready to participate in.
I found myself wishing I could keep that girl in my panic room for more than seventy-two hours.
She’d trusted me with her life this time, given me her freedom for long enough that I questioned my place in all this. For the first time since losing my unborn child and taking my father’s life, I wanted to put something before the family.
I was about to do whatever I needed to in order to save her.
“I’ll meet you both at my club.” It would be the most secure option.
“I’m already here with Dante,” Cade mumbled, and then my line went dead.
Our new boss would have to decide if he could trust this lone wolf because, after the information Cade was about to share, I would have to share something about Katalina.
I parked underground, below the large new skyscraper that housed my club, Stonewood Enterprises, and other real estate the family had acquired. The building rivaled the tallest in the city and made a statement to all.
I swiped my key card and entered an elevator with marbled tiling. It shot straight to the exclusive club doors and opened to all the luxury this city had to offer. Velvet seating trimmed with gold flanked bars that shimmered with gold molding.
I’d dressed in the traditional Italian attire of slacks and loafers. The shoes clipped across the floor as I stalked toward the table of men I called family.
Dante’s arms spread across the back of the booth, while Bastian had pulled over one of the lounge chairs. He had two men behind him, security that always trailed him now that Mario had flown to New York. Cade was on a laptop across from Dante.
It wasn’t lost on me that no one else was in the club area. The music still played quietly, but my bartenders were gone and the staff that normally buzzed about the patrons was nonexistent. Across from Bastian, one other chair sat empty.
He pointed. “Take a seat, brother.”
The monster that had been quiet for a little while now stirred.
When Bastian saw me scan the two men behind him, he said, “I hope it doesn’t come to that. Should I be concerned that it will?”
I didn’t answer him. I couldn’t honestly tell him one way or the other yet. I kicked the chair to the side and sat down. “I’m here for Cade’s information, not to share mine.”
“You’re here to do what I say,” Bastian replied so fast, his voice whipped through the air and everyone jumped to his attention.
Good, Bastian was starting to learn how to hold the reins of his power.
He would need to. And I wanted that for him, for us all as a family, as long as we could get through this first.
“What is it you’re saying I do then, Bastian?” I leaned back in my seat, put my hands in my pockets, and let my legs fall open. I wasn’t here to fight. Not yet, at least.
“Tell me where Katie is.”
I didn’t look toward Dante, but I was sure he’d figured out by now that I’d been the one to knock him unconscious. He knew those drugs as well as I did, and we were some of the only people who had access to them.
“So, you know what I know, then?” I looked to Cade, and he winced like he was trying his best to stay quiet and not override his brother.
“We know enough,” said Bastian. “You took her last night. I don’t know if that was to save her from us, to save her from them, or to dispose of her as a complication to the family, which she inevitably will be if she’s still alive. Where do your loyalties lie?” Bastian asked, narrowing his eyes at me.
“Where they need to lie,” I replied, not at all in the mood to defend my actions.
One of the men behind Bastian snarled as if I should be shaking and begging already. From the bulge at his side, I knew he had extra magazines from the glock he was probably hiding in his bulky jacket coat pocket. He was too big to know how to use his body. He’d be all force and try to swing his gun as a last-ditch effort.
Guy Two was more reserved, hadn’t cracked an expression, hadn’t glanced my way at all. He seemed far away, so far away I kept my attention on his behavior. He jerked when he heard movement to his left and looked like a man ready to jump at a pin dropping. I’d seen the look hundreds of times now, and I’d killed about the same amount of people for that reason.
He was a mole.
I’d take his life by the end of our meeting. I was sure of it.
“You can’t know priorities because you don’t have all the information. I’m the only one privy to all that,” Bastian said through a sigh.
I shook my head at him. Bastian was still struggling with his father handing over the family to him. “An underboss can have all that information too. Cade has most of it already with what he pulls for you.”
“The family never worked that way,” Bastian countered, like he couldn’t burden us all with what we knew already.
“Our family—between Cade, you, and me—always did, man. You know it, I know it, and he knows it too.” I nodded at Cade.
“You shouldn’t have taken her without consulting us, then, Rome.” Bastian pinched the bridge of his nose. “How do I explain that to everyone? You keep acting without my consent.”
“You don’t, because you don’t need to explain to anyone anymore.”
“I did, and I still do. My father—” Bastian stopped. He knew his father shouldn’t be a part of this at all. “It doesn’t matter. I need to keep this family in line.”
His resolve to finally set an example had Dante, Cade, and his muscle on the edge of their seats. We wanted to see if he’d make the call. It was the right decision.
And today, with all my pent-up adrenaline, I was itching for it too. “If I can make one request?”
He waved me on, not looking up from the demons he was battling.
“I want the man on your left first.”
Bastian’s head shot up, and he glared at me. He thought I was taunting him, thought I was asserting that I could beat his men one by one. He didn’t know there was a mole among us.
He probably didn’t know that I could beat them all too.
I didn’t care about my life. I only cared about surviving for others. When the wind shifted and I became a monster and a killer, it wasn’t about points being proven or saving my own soul—it was about taking away the threat.
Bastian shifted in his seat. The only sound in the club was the soft music pumping around us.
His left hand lifted, and one forward motion of his pointer finger had our mole descending upon me.
He moved much quicker than a man of plain muscle. He had training, the type of training that makes you light on your feet, that focuses on fluid motion, and I could tell immediately that, when he aimed at my gut, it would hurt more than most.
He was ready to use my momentum against me, but I didn’t bend over in pain. I stood from my chair instead. He backed up and swung around to hit me with a kick that would bring me to my knees. If I fell to them, the torture would begin. That’s when he’d make an example of me.
I took the hit but met his fighting style with my own. I pulled him to me and plowed my fist into his jaw. I could work with momentum too. I’d learned enough fight styles under my father’s tuition to know how to toy with anyone.
I took sick pleasure in it now. I needed to let off steam, needed to center myself, needed to let the animal out to play. We danced a bit more. He got a hook to my face, and I spat the blood on his shirt. I twisted his arm as I caught another punch, and he flew down to swipe my legs out from under me.
No one said a thing. The sound of bodies breaking down and two men trying to rip one another apart mixed with the music overhead.
We grappled on the floor. He got a hold of my throat and, thinking he had me, smiled as he squeezed hard enough for me to lose my breath. The look in a man’s eyes when he’s about to take a life can show you exactly what terror he can inflict upon the world. This one was sick, joyous, thirsty for any and all blood to be spilled by his own hands.
I smiled back. A killer to a killer. One monster to another.
His smile disappeared when he saw that my monster was meaner than his. He’d forgotten that at the end of the day, strength sometimes overpowered the fancy footwork. I pried his hands off, snapping two of his fingers in the process. He screamed out like he’d never experienced a damn broken bone before.
The well-trained ones were always screamers. They’d been taught in a gym, where no one ever beat them enough to understand real pain.
I glanced at my family. Cade and Dante were smiling like they’d known all along I was about to give them a show, but my eyes fell to Bastian’s. “I’m the underboss, but I protect this family like you. He’s a mole. Let’s work together, huh? Let me have him, and we’ll figure the rest out.”
I gave him the last call, stepped to the side and let him rule. There would be times I wouldn’t back down, and one of those times would be with Katalina. But here, we needed to find a balance.
He breathed in deep like we’d found a middle ground finally and nodded his head.
“My blood is your blood. You bleed, I bleed, brother,” I said to him. I meant those words for the men sitting around me. I meant them for the family.
I turned to the man crawling away from me and stalked forward. “You with Dimitri?”
He spit and swore at me in Russian. It was all the answer we needed.
I was happy I got to tear apart someone who’d threatened us. I jerked his arm out from under him and turned him back to face me. I kicked him hard in the nose, and the blood poured from it as he screamed. I took both his ears in my hands and bashed his head against the tile.
Over and over again.
His eyes rolled with the first hit. The second and third, he lost consciousness. I felt the skull give on the fourth blow. The satisfying crunch loosened the muscles in me, relaxed my soul, and calmed the monster. He’d had his fill for the day.
Dante was shaking his head. “That’s a damn mess, even for you.” He pointed to the blood pouring from the mole’s skull and at the blood on my shirt.
“I needed it,” I admitted as I came back to sit in my chair.
Cade was calling a cleaning crew and waving the boys out of the booth so he could get on with handling the mess.
“I could tell.” Dante chuckled and cracked his knuckles. Like me, he had his own demons that had to be silenced every now and then. I could tell our fight had made him itch.
I shook my head and shrugged at Bastian. “I saw him lean a little too much toward his ear. He’s got a bug in there, I guarantee it.”
The man left standing by his side dug around in the dead guy’s ears and held up a small device.
“He’d been vetted so many damn times.” Bastian turned to his other muscle. “Don’t fuck me. Or we’ll fuck you.”
The man nodded and held his hands up. “I’m here for the family only.”
He was. I’d known him long enough to be sure of it. But we went through new soldiers for our family quickly. Soldiers were untrained, always considering their options, and people’s loyalties shifted more than they should have in this city. My father had been the perfect example.
Bastian turned back to me. “You going to answer my first question? Where’s Katie?”
“Depends on what you plan on doing with her.”
“She’s been with us a long time, Rome.”
“So had that guy.” I motioned toward the battered corpse. “Now he’s dead.”
“It’s funny. I considered that you might have already killed her. I should be able to know what you’re going to do.” He twisted the ring on his hand as he shook his head.
“Your father didn’t know what my father would do all the time, either, Bastian. It makes you human, not unprepared to rule this city.” The words made everyone stiffen, but they had to be said. “I took my father’s life so that our family could live on. I’ll stand by your side and do what’s right for the family always.”
“What’s right, then? Should we kill her?” he asked, holding each of our gazes. He didn’t know this time.
I didn’t know the answer either.
I just knew I wouldn’t let it happen.
“I can’t do that,” I said. “Won’t let anyone else do it.”
“So you’ll choose her over the family?”
“She is my family. And I’m hers.”
“More than this one?” he whispered.
“More than any one,” I replied, ready for the truth to penetrate, to tear us apart if need be. If this was to be a fight, I wanted it to be a fair one.
“So we back you, then. We fight for her and see where she ends up.” Bastian stood and motioned at Cade. “Tell Rome what you found.”
Cade turned his computer toward me. It showed Katie’s family tree. Katalina was the daughter of Anastasia, Dimitri’s sister. She’d died years ago, after a supposed deal gone wrong. I knew it’d been a bloody mess that her father always regretted, but now I questioned the story. Her brother took over when their father got dementia. Dimitri reigned while his father, Ivan, deteriorated in a nice house right outside of the city.
Just one night ago, Katalina had shaken hands with her own blood. Had she felt an instant connection?
Would she finally feel like she belonged somewhere? Would she abandon us for them?
“Do we know why they wanted to kidnap her?” I asked, my mind already running away with the possibilities of losing her.
“Her grandfather wants a reunion of sorts. We’re not sure if her uncle will accept her or kill her. Right now, it seems they want her alive and are happy to accept her under their wing.”
“And if she wants to go?” I asked.
Bastian looked toward the ceiling. “That girl is going to be the death of us all. I can’t let her, Rome. You know I can’t.”
“How much does Mario know?”
Dante and Cade looked out the window immediately.
Bastian met my gaze. “Not a damn thing. Or maybe everything. He doesn’t know what we know. He doesn’t know they’re looking for her, but he may know she’s Russian blood. My father was always . . .”
“Too good to Katalina,” I finished for him and stood up. I needed to get back to her. I needed to clear my head. “I need a week with her. She needs to come to terms with what we all are to her before she chooses her fate.”
“We don’t have a week.” Bastian’s hand flew down on the table. “This is going to be difficult enough without you asking for extra time to fuck her.”
“You know damn well I’m not fucking her on our family’s time. I could do that with anyone. If anything, she’s fucking me, and I’m trying to scramble through the shitstorm of feelings we have for each other. She needs to choose us, Bastian. She’s our girl; she belongs with us. We have to make her see that.”
“I’m aware. I’m also aware that the bratva are going to be up our asses because she disappeared into the thick of the night. They’ll sweep my place, everyone’s place, and then they’ll figure out we’re hiding her. She’s a convoluted complication now. Are we torturing her or protecting her from them? They’ll find either of those things a slight to their family.”
“So what?” I shrugged.
“So I don’t need a fucking war on my hands!” He raised his voice and got in my face.
“You’re the head of the most powerful mob family in the country, most likely the world. Undoubtedly, you will someday have a war on your hands, Bastian. Let’s have it be one that’s worth it. The bratva are nowhere near as organized as we are.”
Cade perked up, ready with stats. “He’s right. They’re organizing slowly. They’ve grown over the past decade in terms of government allies. Small gangs around the city have teamed up with them also. But we’re the Armanellis, Bastian. We got this.”
“I want to rule without fear and bloodshed.”
“The mafia doesn’t get that luxury,” interjected Dante.
“I need a week,” I said.
Bastian scratched his forehead. “Fine. Let the bloodbath begin.”
