Top Dog

“Stop it!” I roared. “I’ll give you what you want! It’s yours!”

The silence on the other end of the line was frightening. Then, a chuckle graced my ear.

A disgusting, gut-wrenching laughter in the midst of the darkest place I’d ever been.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll give you everything if you give me my family.”

“I also want one last thing,” Stefano said.

“Name it.”

“I want you to show up and shake my hand on it. So I can put a bullet in your head.”

“No! Romeo, don’t do it!” Julia yelled.

“Silence!” Stefano roared.

“Help us,” Matteo said.

My son. His sweet little voice. Begging me to do something. A stranger to him, and he was begging. But I wasn’t a stranger. I was his father. And if dying ensured my son and the woman I loved would live, then I would gladly do it.

“Fine Stefano. I will come to wherever you are and give you whatever you want. You can kill me if you want, but you have to promise me that Julia and Matteo will be let go unharmed to live their lives in peace and safety. I want you to swear on your family name that you won’t hurt them.”

“Not on my brother’s name?” he asked.

“You killed your brother in cold blood for stepping out of line. You never gave a shit about him.”

“I loved my brother!” Stefano exclaimed. “He was everything to me!”

“You don’t kill someone who’s everything to you,” I said. “So I want you to swear on your mother. Swear to me you will spare my family because of my death and the giving of my family’s business over to you.”

I closed my eyes and swallowed thickly. I knew at any second this could go sideways. That Stefano could rain down bullets and massacre my family within a split second. But I hoped the dangling of my family business was enough to keep his actions from exploding. To keep his anger from sliding to the tips of his fingers. I closed my eyes and held my breath as Julia and Matteo’s sobs filled my ears.

I hope you both know how much I love you.

“I swear on my mother’s life,” Stefano said. “But you better come.”

“I will. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll text you with a time and place. You’ve got ten hours to get everything in order. And you come alone. Because if you don’t, you and your new cop buddies will be fishing bits and pieces of Julia and this little boy out of the river for months.”

My fist gripped at my side as my eyes darted around. My mind was swirling. I had no idea how I was going to get out of this intact. I looked back at the abandoned car and my heart stopped in my chest. Someone had to be here. Someone drove that car out to the docks.

Fuck. I couldn't think straight any longer.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come alone.”

“Good boy. Wait for my text. And you better hurry. It’ll come quicker than you think.”

CHAPTER 32

JULIA

I looked over at my son and saw him shivering in his chair. My poor baby was cold. Petrified. And I couldn't reach out to him. Stefano had us tied up. Strapped to uncomfortable metal seats in some office of an abandoned, dilapidated old warehouse. They had cornered us as I had careened down an alleyway. They blocked us in and two men had cut off our seat belts and tossed us into the back. I held Matteo, his sobs rattling his whole little body as we rolled around in the back. I tried to keep him from getting hurt. I tried to tell him that things were going to be okay.

But I didn’t know if they were going to be okay.

Romeo had been right about everything. My uncle had killed my father and pinned it on the Martine family. Silent tears fell from my eyes as my mind stood at a standstill. My poor father. Holy hell, I’d let that disgusting man around my son. I’d let him babysit. Talk with Matteo. Fix him food and tuck him in at night.