“Sure, she was.” He snorts. Silence falls over the car once again, but it only lasts a few seconds before he speaks. “What do you think Rossi is up to? Why hasn’t he come after us?”
I’ve asked myself this very question every day for the past four years. Nite and I took six of his men on the mountain that day. Why not make his move? The mob isn’t known for their patience. If they want you dead, they will pull up to your house, your kids’ school, or even your church and shoot you right between your eyes and then drive away.
“What if this is a setup?” He goes on. “They could have paid the hooker a hefty amount in return for her to make up this fake drop. We run in. They kill us. Boom. All a lie.”
I run a hand down my face. “Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.” I see headlights coming toward us, and a white utility van follows shortly behind it. “We won’t have to wait long.” I reach over and hit him in the shoulder.
He sits up straighter, picks up the gun in his lap, and loads the magazine into his .380. All jokes aside for now.
I do the same and look over at him. “Stay with me.”
He nods.
“I mean it,” I growl. Last time we did a job, he skipped out on me and ended up getting shot in the arm. You would have thought the fucker was dying. I even had to carry him.
“I know—”
“No, you don’t,” I interrupt him. “Stay the fuck with me, or I’ll shoot you myself.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He shoves open the passenger door and jumps out.
I exit as well, and he follows me across the dark street over to the chapel. Running, I come to the side and push my back up against the brick building. I hold the gun in front of me and aim, ready to shoot at any given second.
“Is this all of it?” a man asks. I recognize the voice. It’s Rossi’s right-hand man, Donatello. He replaced Bernard, the guy I left for dead on the side of the mountain four years ago.
Rossi and my father once were friends, and they worked together until they went their separate ways. Nobody knows what happened except for them. Honestly, I’m surprised they’re both still alive. For the most part, we stay on our side of Vegas, and he stays on his. Then he came after my family, and all bets were off.
But once again, tonight, we’re going to him. We’re going to take from him again. Because I don’t care what I have to do once I enter those back doors, but every one of his men that I see tonight will be dying. I’m going to tip the scales in the Bianchi favor. And my marriage to my college sweetheart is going to push my family to the front of that war. It doesn’t matter if she’s always loved me, or if she now hates me. It’s business. My life has always been that way, and I’m not about to change now. Not when my family needs me, plus it gets me what I want. Her.
“No. There’s one more bag in the truck,” an unfamiliar voice answers him.
“Go and get it,” Donatello demands. “It’s late, and I wanna get the fuck home.”
“Yes, sir.”
I walk down the side of the brick building until I come to the back. I peek my head around the corner to see a man dressed in dark jeans and a black T-shirt walk over to the white van. The double doors in the back are open. He leans over and grabs a trash bag.
I shove my gun in the waistband of my jeans, remove my knife from my black boot, and rush over to him. I come up from behind, slap my hand over his mouth, and yank his head back. Then I slash his neck from ear to ear, making sure to dig the knife in deep enough to get the job done.
Blood sprays across the bag and on the back of the van. His body goes limp, and I remove my hand from his mouth. He falls to his knees, then forward, his head hitting the back bumper before he slumps to the ground and bleeds out.
I step back and run the side of the blade across my black jeans before placing it back in my boot. Grabbing the bag, I throw it at my younger brother. “Take this back to the car.”
He arches a brow. “What about …?”
“Now, Matteo,” I snap, knowing I told him earlier to stay next to me at all times. I’m not in the mood to listen to his shit right now. I have blue balls and need to get this over with.