“Are you sure I can’t convince you to get to safety, too?” I strapped my chest and backplate on, then hid it beneath a black dress shirt and suit jacket. Not ideal for battle, but we couldn’t greet Nico and his family wearing Kevlar vests and not tip them off that we knew what was going on.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve fired one of these,” Dad said while chambering a round in his rifle. “But I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be by your side through all of this.”
“I’d feel much better if you weren’t, though.” Constantine rounded the corner, joining us in the kitchen.
“You’re stuck with me, son.” Dad set down his rifle. “And there’s something I need to say before this goes down.”
Constantine held up his hand and lightly shook his head. “You don’t need to do this.”
Dad frowned. “I do, actually. I owe you all an apology for making a decision about your lives without so much as consulting you first.” He faced my brother. “But I owe you a separate apology. I’ve been hard on you. Forcing you to make sacrifice after sacrifice.” He gripped Constantine’s shoulder, his tone dropping an octave as he repeated his words in Italian.
“I’m good. I promise. You did what you thought was best,” Constantine answered, keeping his voice level and serious, and then he looked my way.
“What he said,” was all I could manage, not used to my father talking in such a manner, so it threw me for a loop. “We forgive you,” I finally added, since Dad so clearly needed to hear the words, and I didn’t want his head off for what we were about to do. And, I supposed, I truly did forgive him.
When Hudson walked into the kitchen a moment later, Dad cleared his throat and lowered his hand.
Hudson looked at the three of us as if realizing he’d interrupted a “moment,” but Dad nodded, a silent request for an update on his part of the plan.
“They’re on standby. Orders not to intervene until I give them the go-ahead,” Hudson shared. “And if they don’t hear from me by twelve hundred hours, they’ll come in anyway.”
“Not a fan of working with them,” Dad began, his shoulders back and confidence returned, “but I understand this is the best option.”
“The room ready?” Constantine asked as I tucked my Sig at my back beneath my suit jacket.
“Yeah, it’s rigged, and Hudson will be able to set his crosshairs on them from the boat.” I looked out the bay window at our family’s yacht. We had to assume the Brambillas would hit us by air, land, and water. A full-on assault. And our security detail would be hidden from every vantage point, waiting to take them out guerrilla warfare–style. No front lines. Not any fucking lines today. Just surprise hits that we hoped no one would expect.
Hudson handed out the wireless comms Jesse’s team had gifted us last night. “These are much better than our other ones,” he told my father. “You don’t need to tap anything to talk.”
I checked the security camera in the kitchen. “Two SUVs are waiting outside the gate.”
“They’re going to be okay.” Dad wrapped a reassuring hand over my shoulder, referring to Maria, my mom, and my sister.
I gave him a hesitant nod, hoping he was right. My hand hovered over the controls, waiting for the order to let in the vehicles.
“Now,” Constantine said, and I opened the gates so the two black Suburbans could roll through.
After, I grabbed my rifle, knife, and a second pistol, and we went downstairs to the study and hid the weapons in easily accessible locations, and my dad and brother did the same. Then Constantine and I left him there and went to the foyer to greet our “guests.”
I still had no idea if Giovanni was complicit in anything, but I’d consider everyone a threat until they proved otherwise.
“You think our theory’s right?” Constantine asked while waiting by the double doors.
“I guess we’re about to find out.” The doorbell rang, and my mother’s cousin was the first face I saw in the security camera by the door. I tensed at the sight of the others there. Nico and his wife, Alice, were just behind him. Giovanni’s wife was MIA, not a surprise.
Constantine gave it another second, then slowly swung open the door and stepped back.
Giovanni was a few years older than my father. His black suit matched his hair, and I knew he’d have one or two pieces holstered beneath his jacket, regardless of the reason for our meeting.
“Constantine. Lorenzo.” Giovanni offered his hand, and the three diamonds in his wedding band glinted as our palms met.
“Alice. Nico.” I mimicked Giovanni’s greeting when offering my hand to them next, trying not to forgo the plan and kill everyone right there.
Nico was a year or two older than me. Same dark hair and eyes. But his hair was a bit shorter, and his eyes were colder.
And then there was Alice, a spitting image of her mother, standing there with confidence in her red pantsuit. Her black hair was up in a tight bun, and her green eyes moved back and forth between us.
“My father’s waiting for us in his study.” Constantine walked ahead of them, and I hung back behind them all, ensuring they didn’t make any preemptive moves.
From Hudson’s vantage point on the yacht, he’d be able to zero in on our targets in the study. And if we gave him the signal, he’d be the one to take out Bianca’s killer.
“Where’s the rest of your family?” Giovanni asked once downstairs.
“They’re somewhere around here,” I answered as we entered the study.
Dad remained by his desk, not standing to greet them. His hello was a tip of the head, a harsh look in his eyes. “Sit.” He motioned to the couch facing the bay window by the bookshelf. The men quietly sat as instructed, but Alice remained standing. “So you’re here to apologize?” Dad asked as Constantine and I flanked his sides.
Nico sat taller, hands going to his thighs. “I was unaware my men were taking side jobs, and they’ve been dealt with, I can assure you of that.”
“And that’s the story you want to stick with?” Constantine asked, jumping a bit ahead of schedule.
“I’m sorry?” Nico unbuttoned his suit jacket and arched his shoulders back.
My gaze shot over to Alice as she tipped her head, assessing us. “You know,” she murmured a few seconds later.
“What do they know?” Nico looked up at her, and he was either truly clueless or a stellar actor.
“That you were fucking Bianca,” Alice said, her tone still absent of emotion.
“You were what?” Giovanni quickly stood, his back to the window now, eyes targeting his son-in-law, and I not so patiently waited to see how this would play out between them.
“He was having an affair with a Costa,” Alice went on, confirming the theory I didn’t want to be true.
Giovanni focused on Nico, a hand hovering near his hip, as if he were about to break leather and draw his sidearm.
Nico peered our way, recognizing we were the main threat in the room, not his wife or father-in-law. “He didn’t really kill her, did he?” he asked, his tone softer than I’d expect. “The man you all murdered back then, he didn’t do it?” Realization crossed over his face, and his hand at his side curled into a fist. Breathing hard, he turned his attention on Alice. Before we knew it, he had her pinned to the wall, a hand circling her throat. “What’d you do?” he hissed.
“Don’t,” my father barked out at the sight of Giovanni going for a gun, and he slowly lowered his hands, his eyes remaining laser-focused on his daughter.
A ghost of laughter fell from Alice’s lips at her husband’s attempt to strangle the answers from her. She didn’t resist or fight back. It was some sick game to her, and it was taking all my restraint not to finish her off myself.
“Let her go, Nico,” Dad ordered. “We can’t get answers if she’s dead.”
Nico hesitantly released her, then took two steps back.
“If only you showed me this kind of passion in the bedroom, maybe things would be different.” Alice smirked as if choking was a kink of hers.
“Explain,” my father said, the word crisp from his tongue, before he beat it out in Italian repeatedly, his patience gone.
“Your perfect little daughter was fucking my husband is what happened.” Alice eyed her husband.
“Watch yourself,” my father snapped, and I did my best to remain quiet and allow Dad to take the lead as previously discussed.
“What did you do, Alice?” Giovanni asked her.
“You forced me to marry this spineless man.” She pointed at Nico. “You chose him to take over for you instead of me. What’d you think would happen?” She shook her head, eyes back on Nico. “I didn’t give a damn that you had an affair. But with her? With a fucking Costa? And then you wanted to leave me. Run away with her. No, no. I couldn’t let that happen.”
“She turned me down. If you were following me that night, well, you missed that part of our conversation,” Nico slowly shared. “She wouldn’t leave her family and run away.”
My stomach twisted at his words, at the memory of her walking away from the club sad and with her head down. That was why she looked that way. And had we watched more of the video, we would’ve most likely seen Alice exiting the club shortly after Nico.
“And you wanted to run away because you were too much of a pussy to ask for a divorce. You didn’t even seek vengeance when the woman you loved died.” She lifted her chin our way. “At least the Costas have backbones. Not that they killed the right person.”
I took a step forward without thinking, but my father shot out his arm, a reminder to keep my cool. To follow the plan.
A humorless laugh left Alice’s lips as she focused on her father. “Did you really expect me to sit back and let him do what I was meant to?”
“Alice.” Giovanni’s tone softened that time. “What are you saying?”
“It’s been me behind the scenes handling everything for years. And I’m done letting him take the credit.” She brought her wrist to her mouth. “It’s time,” she said, presumably having someone on comms. And in one quick movement, she reached around to her back, revealing two pistols. One pointed at me. The other at her family.
I went for my Sig and, from the corner of my eye, spied my father and Constantine standing, armed as well.
Nico and Giovanni surrendered their palms as Hudson’s voice came over my comm, and he shared, “There’s a helo en route. And a boat at my nine o’clock that has military-age males on it heading my way.”
“We can work this out,” Giovanni went on, trying to walk her off the cliff of crazy, but that ship sailed thirteen years ago when she stabbed my sister seven times.
“Bianca let you into her apartment,” I rasped, unable to stop myself from speaking that time. “And then you . . .”
“I confronted her that night. Told her I knew she was sleeping with my husband. She had the nerve to cry and apologize. She said some bullshit about not knowing he was married before she fell in love with him.” The smirk from her nearly had me pulling the trigger. “I did what any respectable woman in the Sicilian mafia would do. Handled her myself.”
Nico charged her again, not appearing to be as spineless as she claimed him to be. The man had loved my sister. Maybe still did. But his love for her got her killed. And the only reason I wouldn’t end him for that was because she had loved him back.
“We have men fast-roping down from a helo and another team setting a breaching charge at the gate,” Hudson warned over comms. “All teams, move into positions,” he ordered our other men positioned outside who had one mission: keep the tangos from breaching the house. “I’ll deal with the swarm of fuckers I’ve got out here in the water. But that means I don’t have you in my sights now.”
“Roger that,” Constantine answered, giving away the fact we were on comms, right on cue as planned.
“I was wondering why I didn’t see any guards when we came,” she steadily said. “They were hiding and waiting. Your people won’t be able to handle the Brambillas. There’s too many of them.”
“The Brambillas?” Giovanni asked in surprise.
“Who do you think I cut a deal with thirteen years ago to help me turn lemons into fucking lemonade?” Alice returned, and my father had to block my path to her yet again, which had the venomous woman smiling, thinking she was untouchable.
“I didn’t know any of this,” Giovanni quickly revealed.
“Of course you didn’t. You’ve spent too much time golfing and traveling to know I’ve been the real reason we’ve survived so long. It’s the deals I’ve been making with the Brambillas over the years that kept us afloat,” she went on, but then she surrendered a small flinch when an explosion just outside rattled the room, and I looked over to see a speedboat on fire.
Hudson never missed his mark. Thank God.
“Another deal I made with them,” Alice remarked, “is that you retire, Papa. I’m taking over. Not Nico. I’m done waiting. It’s—”
“You set everything in motion.” I cut off her solo act as realization struck me.
“It’s been years of promises from the Brambillas that they’d help me push Dad out. I was done waiting.”
“So you gave the Brambillas the motivation they needed,” I said in disbelief. “You set up the cleaner. Revealed his location. Waited for the right time to make your move.” That’s how Jesse’s team found him in the first place. The cleaner was always the bait. How long had she been keeping tabs on me? Preparing her plan? She’d used my career change, and the fact I’d stopped looking over my shoulder long ago, to her advantage.
She really had been playing chess. But like hell would I let her call checkmate.
Giovanni remained quiet, coming to terms with the fact he’d missed the signs when it came to his own flesh and blood going off the deep end. “You planning to kill me, Alice?” he asked her. “Because that’s the only way you’ll get rid of me.” He grabbed hold of a weapon from beneath his suit jacket and pointed it at her, seemingly on our side in all of this.
Alice kept steady, not faltering even though she had us and her father to deal with. “You won’t hurt me.”
“Do you really think you’re walking out of this room alive?” Constantine asked, breaking his silence.
“Absolutely. Because I’m seconds away from having what you want. Or I should say who you’ll do anything for.” The only real devil in the room was her, and I realized I didn’t belong in hell, she did. And I’d be sending her there soon. “Nice trick with the two vehicles,” she went on. “I knew you wouldn’t let the women be here for our meeting, whether you were aware of the truth or not.”
My turn for the surprise. The corners of my mouth lifted, and a smirk slid across my lips, which had Alice taking a step back, recognition dawning on her. “You didn’t send them away,” she said under her breath. “The vehicles are decoys.”
I exchanged a quick look with Constantine and nodded, letting him know it was time for phase two of the plan. Our turn to join the battle. He reached into his pocket for the remote detonator.
“Alice?” I waited for her to look at me. “We knew it was you before you walked into the house.” Thanks to Maria’s last-minute warning. “We just didn’t know if Nico and Giovanni were complicit,” I revealed right before we dropped to our knees and ducked behind the desk, anticipating the blast that’d soon knock them off their feet.
