“I love you too,” she replies, and I swear to God they’re the best four words I’ve ever heard.
I take her hand, the one wearing the two rings I gave her, and kiss her ring finger.
As I do I realize that if I love her the way I do, I have to change things. If I make it through this threat her father and Vlad pose, I need to make changes. I want to.
The minute we got back home, reality caught up with us. A call from Pa summoning me to an emergency Syndicate meeting heralded that things were about to change big time.
Riccardo would be in attendance. He made contact on receipt of the numerous messages left for him and agreed to come in for us to speak to him. I don’t understand how these people work. If I’d gotten that call, I would have tracked his ass and killed him. Maybe they did track him, but they still want him to come in.
I left Emelia almost as soon as we stepped into the house. I’m here now, at the high-rise building where the Syndicate meetings are held in.
The whole group is here. Everyone except Riccardo. He’s late.
Riccardo is now close to an hour late.
Pa and I have just gone into the lobby to get coffee and to talk between ourselves.
“I don’t think he’s coming, Pa. This is suspicious as fuck,” I point out.
“I know. And I agree, but this is their way. Talking out shit first while God knows what the fuck’s happening. Maybe I’m just being paranoid. The enforcers and soldiers are on high alert in case he tries anything.”
“Pa, this is shit. We’ve been here for an hour. He’s not coming. We know what he’s like. This isn’t his style. He wouldn’t be late,” I say with insistence.
“I’m gonna talk to Phillipe,” Pa says and leaves me.
I grab a cappuccino from the coffee machine and sip on it. I need something to keep my mind occupied. I hate being in a risky situation where I have to trust people who aren’t part of my team. This right here is exactly that. I don’t know these people, and I’m not really one of them yet. Everything has been spoon-fed to me. I understand there are reasons for that. They have an old-school process they’ve been following since the dawn of time, but fuck, emergencies are emergencies. I don’t think they’ve faced a situation in which one of their members has gone rogue.
A little ticking noise makes me look over my shoulder. It’s like a clock or some sort of timer that just switched on. It’s coming from the meeting room. When it gets louder, someone asks what the sound is, then panic flies through me when I realize what it truly is.
A bomb!
As soon as the thought enters my mind, an explosion rocks me and I find myself flying backwards. My body slams hard into the wall. So hard I feel broken. Something stabs through my stomach. I open my mouth to call for Pa, but darkness blurs my vision.
I must have blacked out for a few seconds. When I come to, I look around and see the devastation before me. One whole wall is gone, and fire is burning around me. The meeting room is… it’s gone. It’s fucking gone.
Pa… no!
Terror makes me try to lift… my body. The pain that courses through me as I try to move is excruciating. I look down and see one of the spikes from the wall impaling my side. Pain shoots through my body. There’re shards of glass imbedded in my arms and legs. Smoke and dust are everywhere.
A bomb. A bomb went off. Where’s Pa? I didn’t see which way he went to find Phillipe.
I try to get up and barely manage it. I need to see where Pa went. I pray it wasn’t the meeting room. I try to remember if Phillipe was inside. The men had dispersed to take a break from waiting. I was talking to Pa and Levka, one of the Bratva leaders, before we came out here. I can’t remember if Phillipe was inside the meeting room, and I don’t know what direction Pa turned when he left me.
I take a few steps forward, but footsteps crunching against glass cause me to turn my attention to the corridor on my left.
A shadowed figure emerges from the dust with a smile on his face.
The devil looks at me with pale blue eyes, exactly the way he did on the day of my mother’s funeral. Riccardo hasn’t changed one damn bit. Maybe there is just one thing: he looks more powerful than ever before.
“Well, look at this. My, my, my, how the tables have turned the shift of power back to me,” he gloats.
I open my mouth to speak, but blood trickles down the side of my chin.
“Motherfucker, you did this. Where is my father?” My voice shakes, and so does my body. I try to lunge for him, but I can’t. I can barely move, so I stumble.
He raises his gun and cocks the hammer. “You piece of shit. You thought you had me. Threatening me with the syndicate. Where the fuck are they now? When you’re gone, I’ll be the last man standing, and I’ll take back everything you took from me, including my daughter.”
“You aren’t getting my girl. You aren’t selling my girl, you motherfucking dog. You’ll have to tie me up to beat me. You’re a poor excuse for a father.” Listen to me talk. I wouldn’t even be able to draw my gun quickly enough to point it at him before he ends me.