Chapter 52

CESARE

Rosalind is so close to submitting to me I can taste victory on the tip of my tongue. My brilliant little pet doesn't realize how much information she's spilled. With one piece of information, she's given me exactly what I need to make the other assassins speak.

When she awakens, she'll give me more.

After checking she's still secured to the tilt table, I adjust it a few degrees to maximize her disorientation. With the way I'm switching tactics, it's only a matter of time before I shatter her mind.

When she breaks, I will rebuild her to my exact specifications. Then she'll think of me more as a savior than a psychopath.

I leave the room and walk down to the large interrogation chamber, where I left her underlings. Faint sounds echo from within, making my steps falter. Pausing with my ear pressed to the door's cold metal surface, I hear soft taps. They're rhythmic and staccato, reminding me of Morse code.

Shit. The only thing I know is S.O.S. This sounds like an entire conversation.

I broke their fingers to make sure they couldn't untie themselves and escape, gagged them so they couldn't speak, and encased them in darkness. Those fuckers. The last thing I considered was their ability to plot against us with knocks.

As I enter the chamber, my senses fill with the putrid stench of death. More importantly, the tapping falls silent, confirming my suspicions.

The air is heavy, not with the scent of decay but betrayal. I step past the motion sensor that activates the light, and all four of the assassins turn to gape at their dead colleague still hanging from the middle cross.

Blondie's corpse in the middle has already bypassed livor mortis and has begun to decompose. The blood beneath his cross has already soaked into the concrete floor, leaving a darkened stain.

"You should be more concerned about yourselves," I say.

All four pairs of eyes snap back to meet mine.

"I know you're immune to truth serums. You're also communicating with each other to concoct a believable lie," I say. "So, let's try again. Next person to bullshit me won't just join Axel in death, you'll lose body parts."

Hours later, I exit the wine cellar, reeling from four different accounts. Axel was the mastermind who orchestrated the assassination attempt. Britt was supposed to shoot Benito but disappeared on an unauthorized side quest to rescue Rosalind. Rosalind is a prodigy who fell from grace. Rosalind was promoted to a managerial position in another office.

All four assassins swear that they're only support staff, yet Rosalind already told me there would be three shooters, each with an assistant to help them escape.

They all skirt around my most important questions: where are the Galliano brothers hiding and how the fuck do we stop the Moirai?

I don't expect them to know the answer to the first, but they must have ideas about the latter. It's as though their overlords have locked away the secret to defeating them behind a wall of terror.

My footsteps echo through the stairwell, aggravating my throbbing head. Enough time has passed since Rosalind shot me in the chest that my ribs no longer ache, yet I'm still no closer to answers.

The phone in the pocket of my leather apron buzzes with the reminder I'm running late to update my brothers on my lack of progress. When I reach Roman's office, a new portrait of him hangs over his desk.

Whoever painted that thing depicted him as a god, with sunlight chiseling his features and turning the ends of his black hair a deep shade of mahogany. Somehow, the portrait's eyes burn like coals. The artist is probably the crazy balcony woman who's now sleeping in my brother's bed.

"Over here," Roman says.

I tear my gaze away from the painting toward the leather sofas on the room's far left. Roman is dressed like he's about to play a round of tennis in the park, and Benito wears a black three-piece suit with his hair slicked back like Micheal fucking Corleone.

"We missed you at the crematorium this morning," Benito says, his voice etched with disapproval. "And at the casino and the club."

"Allegra's taking care of it," I mutter.

Benito leans back in his armchair. "Aren't you spreading her too thinly?"

"The karaoke bar practically runs itself," I say through clenched teeth. "Besides, she has an assistant manager who can pick up the slack."

"This is Allegra, the coke head?" Roman asks, his gaze bouncing from me to Benito.

I flinch. "You questioning my ability to manage my staff? Or are you trying to tell me former addicts never get a second chance?"

My brothers exchange a glance that suggests they've been bitching about me behind my back. That's how the dynamics of our family have always worked. Dad and his golden boys on one side, with Mom and me on the other. Now that our parents have gone, it's just me being the odd one out.

Benito sighs. "No one is calling you incompetent, Cesare."

"Allegra went to rehab and got clean. Are we going to ignore years of faithful service because she once had a problem?" I ask.

"But didn't you and she have a thing?" Roman asks with a frown.

"Past tense," I snarl, bristling at the insinuation I'm defending an ex. "What we did or didn't do is irrelevant."

"It is when you've got her running two of our businesses."

"I wouldn't have to dump all my work on her if you could get through to that asshole at the Moirai."

"They've agreed to a temporary ceasefire." Benito cuts in. "What's the progress on the interrogations? What have you learned?"

"The assassins are immune to pain, truth serums, and the threat of death." My hands ball into fists. "They're like robots that don't listen to reason and can't be scared into submission."

"Nobody's immune to everything," Roman says.

"True, but wearing down a person's defenses takes time."

"Leroi's ex, what's-her-name, has been with you the longest. Shouldn't she be ready to crack?"

"Rosalind belongs to me," I say through clenched teeth.

"Obviously not, if she won't spill her secrets," Benito mutters under his breath.

I cross the room and stand over my asshole brother. "You got something to say about the way I handle women?"

Benito rises. At six-four, the bastard usually eclipses me by an inch and a quarter. Today it's at least four because he's wearing Cuban heels, and I'm in water-resistant shoes designed to shield my feet from body fluids.

He squares his shoulders in the same defensive posture he always uses when anyone mocks the years of celibacy he's spent pining for his treacherous ex.

"I took back control of the meth lab, cleared the casino of betrayers, and spent the entire night cremating them alive," Benito says, his voice tightening with rage. "And you can't get a single woman to speak."

Raising my chin, I meet Benito's glare. "You're too much of a coward to say you're pissed at us both because you finally have to get your hands dirty."

Benito flashes his teeth because I'm right. He won't dare say a word to Roman, who's been spending all his time romancing that skittish woman. I would have broken her in twenty minutes and gotten her to sign over her entire fortune. If Benito had what it took to even keep a woman, he'd understand that Rosalind was a completely different breed.

"Enough." Roman stands and places his hands on both our shoulders. "We only just got the family together. Let's not tear each other apart."

The door behind us opens, letting in a pair of light footsteps that could only be female. I turn around to find Sofia walking in, holding a wicker picnic basket.

"I packed my special panettone," she says with a soft smile, looking at Roman like he's the second coming.

Hell, sometimes I see him sitting behind Dad's desk and can't believe what I'm seeing. I shuffle on my feet, wondering why I'm squabbling with Benito when we're finally together as a family. I should enjoy this moment while it lasts.

We fall silent as she continues toward us with her basket, filling the room with the aroma of freshly baked bread. Roman releases our shoulders and steps around us to place a kiss on the housekeeper's cheek.

Sofia hands him the woven basket and stands back with a sigh as he strides toward the French doors that open into the garden.

"Where are you going?" I ask, making him pause at the exit.

"I'm taking Emberly to Simon's Pond," Roman says with a grin. "She wants to paint a picture there."

My brows rise. I glance at Benito, waiting for him to protest. Instead, he folds his arms and presses his lips into a tight line. Just as I thought, he's directing his frustration at our big brother to me.

Roman steps out onto the patio. "Family dinner tomorrow night. Bring dates."

Without another word, our eldest brother strides down the path that leads to the pool house, leaving Benito and me staring at his back.

Silence stretches out across Dad's former study, broken only by another of Sofia's happy sighs. She gives my arm a gentle squeeze before padding out of the room and closing the door with a soft click.

"I'm glad he's out of prison, but must he be so fixated with that woman?" Benito mutters from my side.

"You don't know what it's like to be locked up," I murmur, my gaze still fixed on Roman.

My brother turns to stare at the side of my face. "Do you still resent me for making you go cold turkey?"

"No," I reply, my voice tight. "Roman spent all that time on death row, getting his appeals rejected and never knowing if he would escape the electric chair. Who are we to judge if he needs time to toy with that woman before snuffing out her life?"

"You might have a point," Benito mumbles.

My brows rise. "What was that?"

"You heard me," he mutters.

Looking him full in the face, I wait for him to repeat himself, but he huffs. "Focus your attention on Leroi's woman. Find her weakness and go deep."

I bristle. "She's my woman, not Leroi's, and that's easier said than done."

"What? You still can't find what makes a woman tick after fucking your entire female staff?"

"If you knew anything about the fairer sex, you'd understand they're more complicated and twice as treacherous than men."

He walks to the door. "If you can't break her, I can call Leroi."

"Who failed to notice he was fucking another assassin?" I snap. "That barb is growing tired, just like the torch you're carrying for Ginevra DiMarco. Move on, accept that she ditched you for Samson Capello, and maybe you'll stop being so bitter."

Benito pauses at the doorway. "You have forty-eight hours to crack Rosalind open before I unwrap her and drag out her secrets."

My stomach drops. Rosalind is mine. Nobody hurts her except me.

"Brother or not, touch her and you die," I snarl.

Scoffing, he disappears in the hallway, leaving me fuming. Benito won't be gentle, like me. He's so out of practice and holds so much resentment toward women that he's likely to damage my Rosalind beyond repair.

Roman and Leroi would forgive me if I broke Benito's fingers, but they wouldn't if they knew I had Galliano blood.

As his footsteps recede, I resolve to protect Rosalind from a creep like Benito while changing my tactics. Before the deadline is up, I will squeeze out every one of her secrets.