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32. Matteo

32

"What. The. Actual. Fuck?" I bite into the phone as I close my eyes, leaning back against the headrest of the back seat. "Say that again?"

"She jumped, boss, off the fucking cliff like— like?—"

Like a woman running for her life. Visions of Tasha flying, shattering, plunging into the water and never surfacing again fill my mind's eye and they make a surge of bile push up my throat. "But she got picked up?"

"Yes. Yes, boss." Burley, who is as steady and stable as a surgeon's hand with that first cut, has a tremor in his voice. He's gone soft on her. And then there's the matter of losing my wife while he's supposed to be guarding her. In the Don's Il Consiglio, that would be an automatic execution.

But Tasha's a wife that won't be guarded.

She actually fucking jumped.

She could have fucking died.

"A speedboat picked?—"

"You said so already. I'm there in ten." I kill the call and strangle my phone. I don't move, I don't blink. I stare out of the window, waiting for the rage in me to still.

I don't lose control. Not when it comes to shit like this. When everybody's in a fucking panic, that's when I keep shit together. A lesson hard learned with Alex's death.

When the car drives into the estate, I glance around, looking for the security detail Dominic had diligently posted to protect me and my wife. I went rogue last night, risking it in some random hotel, but fuck knows, I couldn't come home. Not to her sassy tongue that only tempts me with her teasing. Not to her and that hot body and sweet pussy that begs and begs and then begs some more.

And now she's gone. She'd still be here if I'd spent the night.

I should have known a stint at a strip club would kill all fucking joy. Ever since I carried Natasha Armstrong with her wet little ass in that tease of a bikini into my apartment in Boston, I've been jinxed. I couldn't stand watching the strippers, never mind fucking one of them. Not when the last woman I watched stripping was Tasha, when she tried on the dresses for me, with her untarnished skin, doubting her own beauty, but her body pure perfection.

Worst was, there was something about the strip club I couldn't pinpoint that creeped even me out. Never mind the overall seediness and dirt and gunk on the floor that would give Stephano and Luca a twin heart attack, the women all had tattoos. Some had them on their hips, on their lower bellies, their breasts. There were two who were already naked, tattoos on their cunts, piercings everywhere.

I understand tattoos as well as the next guy, but these were all the same. They were the markings of possession, of ownership. It was only when I pored over the smaller details, as I went through the envelope the mole gave me, that it clicked. One photo was of that specific tattoo. The marking is Randazzo's seal.

I spent maybe half an hour at the club before I had to get the hell out of there. My driver found some backstreet hotel where everybody would suspect me of spending the night with a whore. This guaranteed me some peace, and I spent the next six hours memorizing and poring over the details of Randazzo's compound. I'm as prepared as I'm ever going to be, but now I've got to deal with Tasha's disappearance. An unexpected snag if ever there was one.

She'll surface. The locals working for me will know where to look.

The car stops in front of the old stone house and I get out, buttoning my jacket. I wanted to change for my meeting with Randazzo, and that was the only reason why I headed back here in the first place.

As I stride through the house, it's clear they've lost the fucking plot. Massimo, the butler, isn't anywhere, and far off, through the French doors and past the veranda, I see men gathered. Staring like a bunch of idiots into the ocean.

I make my way over the lawn to where Burley is on his phone. As soon as he sees me, he ends the call and the rest of the men, who'd stood idly by, scatter.

"Boss—" He breaks off, knowing me well enough.

I climb over the small wall and look out to the ocean and then down the cliff. I have no fear of heights, but this isn't something many people do on a daily basis. She's fucking gutsy and, in my mind, I salute her. Well played, kitten.

"She's crazy, boss. I couldn't stop her. One minute I'm still drinking my coffee and the next she's sprinting like an Olympian down the lawn. She didn't hesitate. She just looked to both sides and then flew over the edge. Nobody dared shoot at her, what with her being your wife." He takes a deep breath. "Who the hell jumps this, boss? Who the hell…"

"Alex. Alex would have jumped this." I glance at him and that shuts him up. I turn and head back to the house. "You're tracking the boat that picked her up? Where are you going to intercept them?"

Burley falls in next to me. "That's the thing, boss. The local men who stood guard on the cliff… they recognized the men. They say those guys were Randazzo's."

My hand shoots out and grips his throat. It's thick and muscled but he doesn't flinch as I squeeze. "Randazzo's men?" I growl, my earlier rage erupting.

Burley nods. "Yes."

"And you choose to tell me that now?" I squeeze.

"Matteo," he groans. "It all happened like half an hour ago."

"They've been watching the house." I let go of him. Randazzo knows I'm here, but he's also not taking chances. "Best we don't waste time. And you're coming along." With Tasha no longer here to guard, I'm going to need Burley by my side. He can choke Randazzo until his eyes pop. Seeing and reading between the lines of the information the mole gave me, I don't want to even think?—

I don't know what's worse; Tasha dropping to her death from a cliff in Sicily, or Tasha being kidnapped by the Sicilian.

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