Chapter 2

CHAPTERTWO

“CAN SOMEBODY TELL me how the fuck this happened?”

The room went deadly silent as Vincenzo Rossetti stared down each and every member of the family gathered in his extravagant dining room. The heels of his Italian leather shoes clipped along the hardwood floors as he paced inside the circle they’d made.

Vincenzo wasn’t someone who showed his temper. He preferred to take his anger out in productive ways that told someone without words that they’d messed up.

The fact that he was yelling now? Not a good sign. And no one felt the brunt of his wrath and the shame that went along with it more than Dom.

His ears were still ringing from the gunshots in the parking garage, and he was fairly sure he had a concussion, but none of that mattered because of one simple fact: he’d failed.

The one job he’d been tasked with, the most important, and he’d let Luca slip through his fingers like water. If his father hadn’t demanded he come straight to his compound, he would’ve trailed the Fiores to hell and back to reclaim what they’d lost.

And what he’d lost was Luca.

It wasn’t just anger flowing through him at that moment—it was concern. He hadn’t been lying when he told Luca he was better off with the Rossettis. There was no telling what the Fiores would do to him, heir or not, or the amount of brainwashing he’d suffer in an attempt to turn him against Dom and his family.

That shouldn’t bother Dom. He shouldn’t give two fucks about what a Fiore did or thought, but Luca wasn’t a Fiore, was he? Maybe by blood, but he’d never survive in their world.

The fact that Dom cared wasn’t something he was about to admit, and he tamped that emotion down as his father came to a stop in front of him. His gaze was measured, firm, but Dom could see the flash of worry in his eyes as he spoke.

“You all almost cost me dearly tonight. I almost lost my son and my daughter. Why?”

Dom opened his mouth to take the blame, but Vincenzo raised his hand, silencing him.

“We were outnumbered,” Joe said. He’d been the only one with Dom tonight, and the fact that he’d also survived a several-on-one situation basically made him inhuman.

Vincenzo aimed a steely glare in Joe’s direction. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” He shook his head, the disappointment rolling off him in waves, then began to pace again.

The air in the room was all but vibrating with tension, and if anyone was breathing, Dom couldn’t tell. This was a colossal fuck-up. His colossal fuck-up, and the fact that he’d potentially ruined years of planning made him wish the floor would open up so he could disappear into it. He’d never been angrier or more ashamed in his life. How could he have let this happen? How could he have let his father down this way?

He ran back over his and Joe’s moves. The exit of the penthouse, the trip to the basement, the walk across the parking garage. Each step of the way they’d been vigilant, on the lookout for an ambush, yet those Fiore fuckers had still managed to get the jump on them.

It was infuriating and almost too coincidental.

“How did they know we were leaving?” Dom’s voice was low, but with no one else daring to make a sound, it was as though he’d just spoken through a megaphone.

Vincenzo turned to face his son. “What are you getting at, Dom?”

“The Fiores. How did they know that Joe and I were leaving the penthouse at that exact time? It wasn’t preplanned. It wasn’t on the cards. Not until Cat was ambushed and you called. So how did they know?”

Dom scanned the men gathered around the room, looking for the rat in their midst. But these men were cold-blooded killers. Men who were paid to end lives and go to their grave carrying secrets no man should ever know. They were indoctrinated members of the Rossetti family, and they all knew how to lie.

“It had to be someone here,” Dom said as he began to walk around the group. “Someone close.”

Vincenzo turned his attention back to the men and nodded toward Riccardo. “You.” Vincenzo took a step in Riccardo’s direction, and Dom’s hand immediately moved to the gun holstered at his chest. “You were there when I made the call. The only one there.”

Dom’s jaw tightened as Joe—who stood to Riccardo’s left— shoved the guy forward into the center of the men. Riccardo shook his head as Joe clamped a hand down on his shoulder and held him in place.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t tell anyone anything. I wouldn’t—”

“Shut. Up,” Dom growled. “There was no one else. The only people who knew I was leaving the penthouse were my father, Joe, and…you.”

Riccardo gulped as Joe’s grip tightened on his shoulder, and Dom gave Joe a clipped nod then delivered a hard kick to the backs of Riccardo’s knees. He went down in an instant, and Dom drew his Glock.

“Look, Dom, I don’t know what you think I did or didn’t do, but—”

Bang.

Riccardo didn’t even get to finish his sentence before Joe let him go and he fell at Vincenzo’s feet. As blood began to pool around Riccardo, Dom met his father’s eyes.

“Anyone else?”

Vincenzo began to move again, taking his time as he eyed each of the men in the room. None of them looked at all affected by the dead body lying among them or how easily it could’ve been any of them. Loyalty was the most important part of being in the family, and if you didn’t rat, if you had nothing to hide, then you had nothing to worry about.

Too bad Riccardo hadn’t taken that message to heart.

As Vincenzo finished his lap around the room, he looked back at Dom and shook his head. Dom holstered his gun and moved back to his spot in the circle.

“None of you are to leave, is that understood?” Vincenzo said. “As soon as I decide our next steps, I’ll let you know. Dismissed.”

As the majority of the men filed out, Joe and a couple others took it upon themselves to deal with cleanup, while Dom followed Vincenzo and his advisor, Lorenzo, into his office. He waited for his father to sit down before doing the same.

“I’m sorry,” Dom said. “I should’ve anticipated an attack and done more—”

“Stop.” Vincenzo reached for a cigar from the ornate box he kept on his desk and cut the tip before lighting up. He closed his eyes for a moment before slowly letting out a stream of smoke. “You’re not infallible, Dom. I know you think otherwise, but you’re getting reckless with your life. Why?”

“I don’t see it as reckless. It’s part of the job.”

“But you take it to an extreme. Even now. Tell me, if I hadn’t ordered you to come here, would you have gone after them?”

Dom knew better than to lie. “Yes.”

“And you would’ve done that alone.”

“With or without Joe, yes.”

“So it wasn’t enough that you were outnumbered, you thought it wise to continue the fight even after you’d lost.”

“They took Luca—”

“Yes, and that’s unfortunate. It doesn’t mean you go on a one-man crusade to get him back.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

Vincenzo took another long puff of his cigar. “I’m glad to see you can still take direction when your life is at stake.”

“You’re the boss,” Dom said, ignoring the way Lorenzo raised his brows. “So what’s the plan to get Luca back?”

“We won’t be getting him back.”

“What?”

Vincenzo shifted in his seat, leaning forward and setting his cigar on a glass ashtray. “We don’t need the kid. He’s not worth the men we’d lose to get him back.”

“How can you say that? We’ve spent all this time looking for a way to knock the Fiores down for good, and now you’re saying we just let their heir go?”

“We found him. We made our point. But the kid is not a threat. You said so yourself. He doesn’t want any part of this life.”

Dom narrowed his eyes as his mind played catch-up. “So, what? We’re just going to leave him there?”

“Yes. Not that I think he’ll last long. Once Fiore realizes the kid wants nothing to do with him, he’ll take care of our little problem for us.”

While that should’ve been a relief to Dom, the knowledge that he wouldn’t have to be the one to end Luca’s life, the thought of Fiore—Luca’s father—doing it, made his skin crawl.

“I think we should go get him.”

His father arched a brow. “You do, do you?”

“Yes. We can still use him for leverage.”

“We don’t need him. When Fiore gets rid of him, as opposed to letting some scared kid run off back to his ‘normal’ life where he could yap to anyone, their family will be in a state of chaos. With no heir, dissension amongst the ranks is inevitable. That’s when we make our final play.”

Dom knew what his father was saying was right, knew that the best move here was to leave it alone, but there was a niggling feeling in the pit of his stomach that wouldn’t leave him be. He couldn’t just let Luca go. Not now, not when they were this close. But even as he sat there formulating his next plan, he knew deep down this had nothing to do with the family and everything to do with getting back what was his.