Chapter 9

Chapter

Nine

Romeo

Of all the things I ever expected to argue with Cory about, this wasn’t one of them. He crossed his arms over his chest, jutting his chin up stubbornly. “Daddy, I’m going. He’s my nephew.”

“Boy, don’t you understand?” I asked, winking our fingers together.

“Yeah, I get it, but I’m going. What if he’s hurt? Scared? He doesn’t know any of you.”

“I mean, he does know his father, right?” Dante asked from the table.

Cory growled in frustration. “You.” He jabbed me in the chest with one finger. “Wouldn’t have even been looking into this if it wasn’t for me. He’s my nephew, and I’m going.”

“We do have a balaclava he can wear,” Dante added, unhelpfully. I was gonna kick his ass when this was over.”

“What’s that?” Cory asked.

Throwing my hands, I said, “This proves my whole point. You don’t belong anywhere near this.”

“It’s the gangster ski mask,” Dante whispered.

Cory looked intrigued, and I headed for the bathroom before I lost my shit. This was a complete disaster. This wasn’t how I did things. I was a planner, meticulous. I didn’t get information and run with it the same day. Yeah, I knew it had to be this way this time. Now that Tracker had tracked down Emilio, Cory would’ve lost his mind if we waited.

But it wasn’t just that. It was how fast Rocco took off for home to get his favorite gun. It was Frederic heading straight to the property without backup to wait for us. It was how agitated I was that Dante wouldn’t be at the hotel tonight keeping an eye on Harlow and Charity. Which was ridiculous when I hadn’t wanted him stationed here in the first place. Most of all, it was Cory being unreasonable and insisting that he was coming.

My phone buzzed with a text.

Nico: Have fun tonight. It sucks that I can’t make it to the party, but I know that you and my brother will have fun. Make sure he doesn’t drink too much.

I snorted. Personally, I didn’t care how much he drank, a.k.a. how many people he killed, but I worried that I’d catch him bathing in the blood of his enemies. Good God, Cory didn’t need to see how much Rocco enjoyed eliminating his enemies.

Assistant sided against the bathroom door. “Come on, Romeo. Cory and I are ready.”

I came out of the bathroom and stopped short at the sight of my boy in black jeans, a plain black Henley, and black boots. He looked like any other guy going on a covert mission. He looked ridiculous.

I plucked the keys out of Dante’s head. “I’ll drive.”

Cory sat sullenly in the passenger seat while we picked up Rocco, and all the way to our destination. Instead of trying to make him feel better, I left him in his anger at me. Better that, than him fretting about what tonight would hold. We had no idea if Emilio would be fine or not. Had they gotten him hooked on drugs? Had they been using him as a slave or a prostitute? Until we had him, we wouldn’t know the answers to any of those things.

Half a mile from the house in the woods, I turned off my lights and rolled up next to Emilio’s car right outside the line of sight for the windows. “Is that him? The Penis soldier?”

“Pasini,” Dante and I said at the same time.

“Yeah, yeah. I want to meet him.” He hopped out of the car.

I felt like I had no control. As Cory grabbed the balaclava that Dante held out to him, I realized it was because I didn’t. “You stay in the car.”

Cory glared at me. “Fine but can’t I just get out to say?—"

“No, boy,” I said cutting him off. “It’s dangerous enough that you’re here. Stay in the vehicle and lock the doors.”

“You’re being a bad Daddy,” he muttered under his breath.

In other circumstances, like if I wasn’t terrified of something happening to him, I would’ve laughed. As soon as I got out of the car, Emilio headed over to me. “I can’t believe it’s my Capo. How didn’t I know?”

I gripped his shoulder and squeezed hard. “Because he didn’t want you to. Don’t beat yourself up.”

“That’s fucked up, man,” Rocco said. “It’s one of those keeping your enemy close kind of situations.”

“I get. What I don’t understand is why I’m his enemy. My old Capo, the one who screwed my wife, him I would’ve understood.”

“No time to worry about that now. Tracker got security footage, and there should only be a few guards around. Let’s get in and out, you understand?”

Emilio and Dante, both being good soldiers, nodded. Rocco cackled, the sound both low and evil. “No problem. I don’t even need help to take three fuckers holding innocents out. An eye for and eye, and all that, am I right?”

“Rocco, keep your head. If you end up dead, I’m gonna revive your ass and kill you myself.”

“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”

On silent feet, we made our way to the back of the house where there were stairs down to the bottom floor. I had no idea how he did it or where he got his information, but he’d turned off any alarms for the building as soon as I told him we were on our way. When I asked how he could be sure it would work, all he said was, People rely too much on remote shit . Like I had any idea what that meant.

As luck would have it, the door was triple-bolted from the outside. Sick fuckers. I guess they never figured on anyone trying to release the captives they had on the inside. I quickly picked the lock on the knob and turned it. There was one young man sitting in a chair behind a sewing machine. He looked up as I entered, and his eyes widened. “Is there anyone down here with you?” I whispered.

He shook his head. Stepping all the way inside, I motioned Frederic through, leaving Dante and Rocco outside, armed and ready to kick ass if necessary. Our Pasini ally went through, the kid scrambled out of his chair, almost knocking the machine off the table to get to his father.

“Dad.”

As sweet as this was, we had no time for a reunion. If we could get out of here without anyone seeing us, that would be ideal. “Come on. You have any issues?” I asked Emilio, noticing for the first time that he had on nothing but a pair of basketball shorts and a ratty old T-shirt.

“Yeah,” he whispered, running for the other side of the room. A quick glance around showed six single beds with handcuffs on the headboards. Maybe I didn’t want to run into somebody that we could kill. This was fucked up.

“Is there anyone else with you? Anyone else we need to get out of here?” I asked.

He shook his head. “They’re supposed to be new girls in a few days. The last group last about a month ago.”

There’d be time to ask him questions later, once he was out of here and had a chance to breathe. Frederic grabbed his son’s hand, and we were heading for the door when I heard the first shot. “Frederic, you take him and get him and Cory out of here.”

“Uncle Cory?” Emilio asked, his shock at a rescue fading to fear that we wouldn’t get out of there.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let me go out first.”

As I got outside, Rocco yelled, “And that’s three!”

“Come on,” I urged in a harsh whisper. With Dante ahead of us, Frederic and Rocco ran with Emilio in the middle of them, and I brought up the rear, checking every which way for movement.

No one followed us, and I was just thanking all the gods in the universe when our vehicles came into sight. A round man in a suit, standing a whole head shorter than Cory, was using him as a shield with a gun to his head. Dammit. This was why I hadn’t wanted to bring him. It was exactly what I’d been afraid of.

My boy looked scared, pissed, and full of awe at seeing his nephew. How he managed to convey so many emotions was beyond me, but it was all there on his face. Frederic pushed his son behind him and stepped forward. “I can’t believe you. My son?! How could you take my son?!” he raged.

Ah. This must be the Capo. The swarmy man spit on the ground. “Your son. You’re not good enough for him. He’s mine! He was supposed to be mine!”

I didn’t stay around to listen to this bullshit drama. Nico had wanted to find a way for us to question someone, anyone, but Rocco and Dante had effectively taken that off the table. Grabbing the Capo would’ve been even better, but he’d fucked up. He’d taken my man. My boy. My quirky Cory, who trusted me to keep him safe and whole.

Since the two members of the Pasini Family were totally focused on each other, I fell back into the shadows, moving down the tree line. My focus went laser sharp as my breath evened out and that familiar feeling of low boiling rage consumed me. The narcissistic idiot was in the middle of some diatribe as I came up behind him, pulling my trusty girl out of her sheathe and did what I did best.

The satisfying feel of skin slicing vibrated through my hand and up my arm as the Pasini Family went down a Capo and Cory fell into my embrace. I’d never wanted any of this to touch him. Not the Families, him having to witness me committing another murder, and the presence of more blood. So much blood. But I’d always do whatever needed to be done—unapologetically.

He might need therapy. So would Emilio. But that was a tomorrow problem. For tonight, it was time to go home.