Chapter Ten

Aurelio

The docks were busier than I think I'd ever seen them in my life.

I was sure there were times, back when Luca's father had first secured the deal for the docks, when things were locked down tight as they started to work with all sorts of criminals they didn't know and couldn't trust.

But things had been so stable for so long that I guess I'd taken for granted how low we'd needed to keep security.

I mean, we always had men around. Most of Luca's soldiers and associates, at this point, were stationed at the docks, not out trying to make money. But this was clearly his guys as well as likely his brother's, and some borrowed guys.

"This how it is all the time now?" I asked Milo as I met him by his car. "Or is it because we're all here together?"

"Mix, I think," he said, nodding toward his soldier, then mine, both who'd followed us.

"Any word what we're here for?"

"Imagine we got more information on his organization. Doubt we're ready to make a move yet."

Luca was a careful leader.

I couldn't imagine the weight of his crown, given that these weren't just all strangers in his organization. It was a shitton of actual family. Deaths brought up by impulsive decisions could make grief ricochet through everyone we loved.

So he wasn't a boss who rushed into shit. He planned it out in exacting detail.

Did that mean it sometimes took days or weeks to get justice? Yeah. But we hadn't lost one of our family in a long time.

"Where's the meeting taking place?" I asked.

"All the guys have been going into the office," he said, nodding toward it.

With that, we walked in that direction.

The office was a long, squat building where a lot of the legitimate business shit was handled. Because of the nature of the work, it was a big, intimidating-looking man always behind the desk, one who was associated with the family, but not entirely inside the organization.

Luca took the legit books from him, then cooked them in whatever way was necessary.

"Everyone is in the back room," he said as we automatically turned toward Luca's office.

"Thanks," I said as we changed directions.

The back room was, in essence, a conference room with a long table and a bunch of chairs. I imagined that there were actually real meetings there for the docks on occasion. Tons and tons of containers came in carrying normal shit, and the men and women who those containers belonged to likely needed to meet Luca and sign contracts and official things like that.

The weird thing was, though, and I often wondered how this part didn't weird out potential clients, it was a solid brick room. No windows.

Sure, the wall that would have normally featured windows had heavy drapery to create the illusion of windows. But it still seemed obvious to me that there was nothing behind them.

Because this room was, essentially, a safe room in case of a bad attack.

Reinforced brick walls, no windows, and only one exit. That was a reinforced bank-grade door.

Across the room, Luca nodded at us as we came in, then looked around the room.

"I think that's everyone," he said, jerking his head toward the door, and Milo slid it closed. "So, Dante decided to take the lead on this recon again," Luca said, gesturing toward Santo who was seated at his side. "I'm going to let him tell you what he's figured out."

"Alright. So, William Warren Graves has been traced to eight different states, four of those since he took over for his father when his old man got gunned down about seventeen years back.

"From what we can tell, each time he moves, it's because the heat gets too hot, and he needs to cut and run before he gets himself killed. So, he takes his old crew, and whatever new crew he's built up along the way, and jumps.

"As such, his crew is bigger than we first thought. Our best count is about thirty to forty men, not counting the ones who died here at the ambush. He has a close personal guard of about ten, maybe twelve men who can almost always be found at his mansion.

"As for the mansion itself, there is a tall wrought-iron fence and a gate that is kept closed most of the time, save for when staff or deliveries are coming in. It's definitely well-protected, but not impenetrable, if that is the move we want to make."

"I got a question," Milo said at my side.

"Yeah?"

"If his move is to cut and run when the heat is on, why is he still here? You can't get much more heat than fucking with the mob. Why isn't he making moves to get out of Dodge?"

Across the room, Luca's gaze slid to mine, and a whole silent conversation passed between us.

The gist of it being… it was time to fess up.

"I have the answer to that," I said, watching as all eyes turned to me. Including Milo, who looked pissed that I was clearly keeping something from him. "This is a bit of a long story," I prefaced. "But it starts the night of the ambush, when there was a woman handcuffed inside Warren's car, warning me about said ambush."

"Handcuffed?" Nino hissed.

"I tried to free her, but she was having none of it. At the time, I didn't understand. Not until she showed up on my doorstep with a baby in her arms."

"Fuck," Dante said, shaking his head.

Because if he'd been doing a lot of research into this organization, he must have come across some sort of information about how much this family's legacy meant to them.

"Her name is Claire. Her son is Judah. He's two. And he's Warren's. He'd been keeping them both locked up at his place since he was born, and abusing Claire for a long time before that. The ambush and the aftermath just so happened to give her the opening for her to escape that she'd been looking for."

"And she ran to you?" Milo asked. "How'd she know to come to you?"

"She heard Warren and Denny talking about me. Then she used the library to find my address. And walked to me."

"From Warren's?" Dante asked. "That's…"

"Two and a half hours, at least," I filled in. "In her socks. Carrying a toddler."

Gazes moved around the room, people having silent conversations as I avoided the way Milo was glaring at me.

He was young still.

It was "the Family" over everything else still for him. He'd get it. As he got older. If a woman ever came into his life who sparked the interest, that need to protect her above it all.

Many of the men in the room—Luca, Matteo, Massimo, Lucky, Nino, and August—had all been there themselves. They got it.

"You knew?" Milo asked, looking at Luca.

"Yeah, Aurelio told me the day she showed up at his door. I decided to keep it quiet while we tried to figure all this shit out."

It was his place to make decisions like that, but there were some less than thrilled faces in the room at that information.

"So, is that why he's still here?" Nino asked. "Because of Claire and his son?"

"Just his son," Dante said, surprising me. "Warren's history with women is of the short and brutal sort. Two, I haven't even been able to find after Warren left town. Making me think they're in the ground somewhere. He wouldn't give a fuck about Claire. But knowing what I know about his family, he wants his son back."

"And, obviously," I said, in case it wasn't already clear to all of them, "we are not handing Judah back to him."

"So, what, then?" Milo asked.

"In my eyes, this changes nothing," Luca said. "Sure, it would have been nice if he was hightailing it out of here already. But we still need retribution for what was done to Santo and Aurelio's man. Not to mention the disrespect to your family. This changes nothing."

"Then why keep it secret?" Milo asked, and I almost wanted to smack him on the back of the neck, remind him that Luca was the boss, not just his cousin.

"Because shit was new," Luca said, tone a little harder than usual, and Milo had the good sense to relax his damn posture. "We had no idea where the threat had come from, if any of our men were involved. And we damn sure didn't want it getting around to the moms and wives about Claire and Judah, in case anyone overheard, and that information got back to Warren.

"Now that we have more information, and we have limited the possibility of one of ours being in Warren's pocket, it was time to share. Until now, it was only pertinent to people who needed to know."

The conversation veered back to Warren's crew, naming some of the higher-ups, and what their strengths and weaknesses appeared to be.

In my pocket, my phone kept buzzing with texts.

Worried maybe it was Claire, I pulled it out.

To find about half a dozen texts from Smush instead.

Someone's been keeping a dirty little secret locked up in his fancy house.

She's gorgeous, by the way. And the kid is adorable.

Mom is going tolove this. Don't worry. I won't tell her. Yet.

She's totally got a thing for you, by the way. In case you're too dense to see that.

I added some of her requests to my list, btw. Just so you know why the price is up.

Oh, and stop fucking referring to me asSmush to people.

I tucked my phone away, trying to flatten my lips into a straight line, knowing this was important shit we were discussing. But some part of me was flying high on one particular text she'd sent.

She's totally got a thing for you, by the way.

I knew there was attraction, of course. She wouldn't have let things progress as they had without that. But I'd been around long enough to know that attraction and interest weren't exactly the same thing. And that just because I was interested in her, didn't mean she was interested in me.

But I had to admit that Smush was usually a really good judge of this sort of shit.

Hope built in my system, and I decided to maybe try to find a way to broach the subject when I got home. Maybe after Judah went to bed. So things could… continue to progress. If that was what she wanted as well.

I forced my focus back to the meeting when Dante started bringing out charts and shit, showing the major players in Warren's crew, layouts of his home, makes and models of cars.

It was all really fucking impressive, actually. I could tell by the way Luca was nodding along that he felt the same way, that Dante had definitely gained a lot of respect from the boss from this job.

Sure, Dante was likely motivated by revenge, wanting to make the fuckers pay who put bullets in his brother.

Still, it was showing a lot of maturity on his part that he didn't let his anger blind him, that he was able to get such intricate plans and details about everyone without snapping and just shooting at the fuckers.

It was almost two hours later when the meeting seemed to be winding down.

And my phone started to ring in my pocket.

I ignored the first two, thinking maybe it was Smush, annoyed that I hadn't responded to her texts.

But the third one had my stomach twisting, and I reached for it with clumsy fingers, seeing Claire's name on the screen.

My stomach fucking bottomed out as I answered, and heard the panicked voice on the other end of the phone.

"He's here. He's here. He's coming for us," she choked out, her voice tight and small.

"Fuck," I called out, putting my phone down for a second, making all the eyes turn in my direction, faces tight, some immediately rising out of their chairs. "Warren is at my house, coming for Claire and Judah," I said.

Then I was turning and running.

"I'm coming, angel. Just hold on."