Chapter Three

Aurelio

There was a tension in my spine as I pulled into the lot of the docks the night of the deal.

I couldn't pinpoint a reason why, and eventually chalked it up to unease at this unusual situation. Knowing the guys and I would be carting around a shitton of illegal guns until we could put them in the plastic containers I had waiting for them, then tuck them safely into a storage unit.

Then we would meet with the bikers, make a deal, and let them handle it.

My mind was on a million of those things when I heard a female voice—so unexpected in this place at all, let alone at night, and on an evening with a meeting like this going on—call out toward me.

My head whipped over to find a black SUV sitting there, engine off, the back window rolled halfway down.

I saw her first.

Because, fuck, how could I not?

I don't know if you've ever had the experience of not knowing exactly what you were looking for until you saw it—the right car when it was time for an upgrade, the perfect gift for someone hard to shop for, the kind of food you didn't even know you were craving—but this was that times a fucking million.

If there was a physical manifestation of a woman I could see on my arm, at my side, for the rest of my life, this was the one.

Judging by how much of her I could see through the window, she was tall, which I'd always known was a preference of mine. She was maybe a little too much on the thin side, but that was nothing some of my cooking couldn't fix.

She had wavy warm brown hair cut on a long bob—a ‘lob' Elsie had called it once when she'd come home sporting one she'd immediately regretted because she felt it made her face too round. But on this mystery woman, it perfectly suited her face with its slightly sharp, square jaw, highlighting her full mouth, her delicate nose, and these gorgeous amber eyes.

Not a stitch of makeup.

Still the most beautiful goddamn thing I'd ever seen.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to notice that her arm was jacked up at a weird angle. And that a fucking handcuff was around her delicate wrist.

Warren, because it had to be Warren fucking Graves, had handcuffed this woman in his car.

Why?

Afraid she would run away?

Was he keeping her prisoner?

"Angel," I said, voice soft. "What—"

"It's an ambush," she cut me off, voice frantic.

Then she told me something that I probably should have guessed all along, since Warren had given me bad vibes since I'd met him.

That he was going to double-cross me.

That he was going to kill us. Then, of course, take the guns for himself.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a squeaky voice as I drew closer to the car, wondering how long it would take me to pick her handcuff lock since I didn't have a key on me.

"I have to get you out of here," I told her.

There wasn't a single bone in my body that was going to let me walk away from a woman cuffed in a car, helpless.

"No! You can't! I can't," she added, and there was something so final, so sure about her words that they did give me pause. It was the kind of desperation in her voice that said that even if the door to her cage was flung open, there would be something preventing her from escaping to freedom.

I wouldn't pretend to understand.

Not in the short amount of time we were standing there.

Maybe I would have tried to, would have asked the right questions, and gotten the answers I was seeking, but a gunshot rang out, and I realized the guys had gone ahead without me.

And with the woman yelling for me to go, and knowing my men—my family, my cousins, my soldiers—were unaware of the ambush, I really had no choice but to do what she wanted.

For me to save ourselves.

And leave her to her captivity.

My heart was frozen in my chest as I reached for my gun, making my way in the direction my cousins—Dante and Santo—and my soldiers had taken off in, hearing more gunshots.

There were more of them than we'd planned on.

We'd only ever seen four or so men before, but this was double that, with their semiautomatics and a kill order from their boss.

The only thing we had going for us was the home base advantage.

That and, of course, the stacked metal containers that offered some protection when we ducked behind them.

"I'm out," one of my soldiers told me as we both ducked behind the same container, breathing hard, eyes wide.

"I'm low," I admitted, wondering how the others were doing. How much more prepared they might have been than I was.

My soldier suddenly stiffened and pointed toward the opening between the containers.

And there he was.

One of Warren's men. Alone. With a semiautomatic. Likely still full of bullets. With backups, given that they knew what they were planning this night to look like.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded at my man, who made a small noise, drawing the man's attention.

Distracting him just long enough for me to sink my final two bullets into him.

We watched as he faltered and fell flat on his face before we rushed at him, grabbing his gun from his dead fingers, his extra ammunition, and the second gun in his ankle holster.

"Let's end this," I said, nodding at him as he slung the semiautomatic over his chest, both of us knowing he would be better with it.

Then we moved out, and I watched as he picked off several of Warren's men.

It was right then that I saw the man himself.

Gaze lowered to focus as he tried to reload his own gun.

I raised my arm, aimed, and sent a bullet sailing right into his body, landing a little higher than my intention, but I got a sick sense of satisfaction watching the pain rip across his features as his right-hand man grabbed him, and they started to run.

I wanted to follow, but there was too much shooting still going on to even think of leaving my men behind.

Another minute or two, though, and it was done.

His men were all down.

Someone had thought to go to the office to put the floodlights on, so we could check around.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," a voice hissed, making me turn back and run toward it, knowing who it belonged to.

Santo.

My cousin.

The ‘middle' of my Aunt Giulia's children. After Nino, Massimo, and Dante, but before Valentina and Augustine.

Like the stereotypical middle child, he was the one with the jokes, the sarcastic sense of humor, the lighter personality.

And he sounded like he was in pain.

"God fucking damn," he growled, trying to peel himself off of the ground as I found him, running toward him.

"Don't move," I snapped, pushing him back down. "Where are you hit?" I asked.

"Where am I not hit?" he shot back. "Arm and leg," he said, and I saw how he was pressing his hand against his upper arm, but blood was still slipping through his fingers.

My left hand shot out toward his leg, wincing right before I pressed against that wound, hearing him let out a litany of curses as my right hand reached for my phone, unlocking, and scrolling until I found her name.

Lettie.

Our cousin.

The one who'd dropped out of med school right before she finished, who eventually opened up her own sort of hospital, ambulance and all, to take care of us, and those like us. Those of us who didn't want to go to the hospital because then the cops would get involved, asking shit we couldn't answer, and putting suspicion on us that we didn't need.

"What's going on?" Lettie picked up, tone no-nonsense, knowing we only called when there was an emergency.

"Santo is shot twice," I told her, and I swear I could hear her springing into action. Something squeaked, then there was a zipping sound, keys, and, finally, a door slamming before an engine started up.

"Where?"

"Upper arm and thigh."

"How is he? Conscious? How's the blood loss? Pulse? Breathing?"

"He's alright," I said, having seen enough gunshot wounds over the years to know he was almost certainly going to make it through this. "Bleeding, but not like an artery is hit. We're putting pressure on. Breathing is fine. Heart is going, but we were just ambushed," I told her.

"Okay. Where?"

"Docks."

"The docks?" she asked, voice tense.

And, yeah, it should be.

We'd been attacked on our own goddamn turf. That shit was insane. The Family was going to be reeling when this made the rounds.

"Yes."

"I'm five minutes away. Tops."

Turns out Luca made it first, likely called by Dante as I called Lettie for his brother.

And as soon as Lettie's ambulance showed up, and she and one of her people rushed out, the lot was starting to fill up.

Santo's brothers—Nino, Mass, and August—ran up. My brothers—Lucky and Milo—came at a slower pace as they talked to their soldiers, fanning them out to do a sweep, then likely stand guard.

For the first time in a long fucking time, we felt exposed. Vulnerable.

Warren fucking Graves was going to pay for this shit. But, first, we had to worry about Santo.

"You're new," Santo said, shooting a charming smile to the curvy redheaded nurse who was taking his pulse as Lettie checked out his wounds. "Does this treatment of mine involve sponge baths, by any chance?" he asked, getting a laugh out of the woman and an eye roll out of Lettie.

"Yeah, you're fine, alright," Lettie said, ripping his pants leg wider to poke around the wound. "Gotta get this out," she said, then gestured to her nurse to put pressure on it as she went to check out his arm. "This went through," she told him. "Okay. Let's get moving," she said, nodding toward my soldier who was standing next to the gurney, and he rolled it over, then the two of us lifted Santo onto it.

"Who's calling your mom?" Luca asked, looking at Dante, August, Massimo, and Lucky.

"That's on me," Lucky said, taking a deep breath.

No one wanted to tell any of the women that any of their men were hurt, even if they were going to be okay. We all knew the burden of worry our lifestyle put on our loved ones. It sucked when all that concern was proven necessary.

"But I'm gonna go see her," he said, nodding at Luca. "If you don't need me."

"We're covered here. Go be with your family. All of you," he said to the brothers. "I'll call you if I need you," he added before they could protest. "But I need your gun," he told Dante, who was already holding it out.

"What the fuck?" Luca asked when they were gone.

"It was an ambush," I told him. Then I explained about the woman in the car, the warning she gave me, and going ahead and leaving off the shit about how pretty she was.

We had Santo shot.

And one of my soldiers was dead.

There was other shit to worry about.

But my mind kept flashing back to her pretty face, her worried, tortured eyes, the cuff on her wrist.

"I want that container stripped of identifying marks and moved," Luca barked to one of his men who worked at the docks, pointing at the box with the guns. "If they're coming back for it, they'll have a fuck of a time finding it. You," he said, pointing to the manager of the docks. "I need you to work up a new schedule for protection. Day and night. No fewer than twenty men at all times. Borrow soldiers and associates from every capo if you need to. This place is getting locked down tight."

Because we all knew what happened after shit like this.

We looked weak.

Other people might see it as their opportunity to make a move on us. To try to take the docks—and the millions and millions of dollars of passive cash it brought in each year—from us.

We had to show force.

And we would have to be ruthless for a while until the dust settled.

But that was after cleaning this mess up.

Meaning the bodies.

The blood.

The guns.

It was no easy task with so many bodies scattered, but as the men kept rolling in over the next half an hour, it would be easier.

"This was my fucking fault," I said, looking down at the body of my soldier.

He'd come to me as a street kid, just broken himself out of the foster care system, looking for opportunities for himself.

Young and hungry, that was who he'd been.

Maybe a bit too cocky, too sure of himself.

But he'd been a good, loyal guy.

And now he was dead.

"Can't take this on your shoulders without putting it on mine too," Luca reminded me. "I signed off on this. Without doing any research on this fuck."

I hadn't done much either.

Mostly out of pure ignorance. Thinking that we already knew everyone in the area who might be a threat. And the name Warren Graves had never been spoken of before as far as any of us were concerned.

We'd gotten too complacent.

Too sure of ourselves.

And too cocky, thinking no one would dare to fuck with us.

Clearly, though, Warren Graves hadn't gotten that memo. Which also meant there would likely be others who didn't either.

"But now," Luca said, "now we research the fuck out of this bastard. He has to pay for this."

"Yeah," I agreed.

Despite everything else that had gone down, it was the woman with the cuff on her wrist that flashed back into the forefront of my mind.

Yeah.

He had a fuck of a lot to pay for.

And I secretly hoped I would be the one to make him do it.