“Yep.” I leaned against the wall, my gaze scanning the screens and tracking Mr. Blue as he entered the house. “Before he gets here.” I turned my attention back to Romeo. “I know you’re frustrated.” He opened his mouth, but I had zero fuckin’ intent on getting into it with him right now. “You’re used to being under your father.” I pushed off the wall. “But I do things differently. If you don’t like it, then maybe you should ask Lorenzo to go back under Antonio.”
“No,” he ground out, his jaw tensing. “I was the one who asked to be put under you,” he said, his voice low. He wasn’t looking at me, instead staring at a spot on the opposite wall. “You’ve got no idea what it’s like to have a man like Antonio as a father.” His shoulders moved up and down as he took a breath, his words haunted by memories.
He’d never opened up about what his life was like, but the way he’d said those words made me think his childhood hadn’t been so easy. Antonio was the torturer of the organization, the thought of his methods making me wince. I could only imagine what it had been like for Romeo. I’d assumed that he was like his father, but maybe he was the way he was for a different reason.
“So yeah,” he continued, shaking his head. “I’m just…finding my feet.”
I nodded, not needing anything more than what he’d said. I didn’t want him to spill his deepest darkest thoughts, I just needed to know that he was with me and not against me.
Two knocks rapped on the door, and I input the code, pushing what Romeo had just said aside, and letting Mr. Blue in. He rushed into the room and slammed a briefcase on the table, not taking a second glance at Romeo. He didn’t need to, he’d run deep background checks on every member of the Beretta Mafia. He probably knew us all better than we knew ourselves.
I waited until the door was shut, cutting us off from the rest of the world. Not a soul could hear what was said inside this room.
“I did it,” he announced, clipping open the locks on his bulletproof briefcase. He pulled out several devices, hooking them up to each other. “Took me a while, but it’s impenetrable now.”
“Well shit.” My eyes widened, my body thrumming with excitement. This was a game changer. “I can’t believe you actually did it.”
He didn’t reply, instead he twisted a button on one of the devices, and voices filled the room.
“He’s at his usual meeting place,” a female voice said.
“Who’s he with?” a man asked.
“Don’t know. I’ll put a tail on them
to find out,” the same woman replied.
The man snorted. “Good. He’s such a fool.” Their laughter crackled at the speakers and I winced. “He has no idea what’s coming his way.”
“Yep.” The woman sighed. “He’s leaving now. The tail is on him.”
Mr. Blue turned the button down, leaving just a murmur in the background. “You’ll be on the front foot now,” he said, clipping his empty briefcase closed. He handed me a piece of paper. “Payment to this account.”
“I’ll have it wired within the hour,” I told him, pushing the paper in my pocket then jabbed the numbers in the keypad to let him out. He left without another word, no doubt not wanting to be here a second longer than he had to be.
“Who are we listening in on?” Romeo asked, standing and moving closer to the equipment on the table.
“The FBI that’s listening in on Dante.”
Romeo’s head whipped around, his eyes wide. “Yeah?”
“Yep.” I strolled toward him, staring down at the devices. “We’re in the calm before the storm, Romeo. Things are gonna get messy.” It was the truth. We’d been through so much shit over the last couple of years, but it had been quiet on the organization front, if you didn’t count the two men I’d shot in The Enterprise meeting. But all things considered, it had been peaceful.
Not for long though.
The FBI were biding their time, but so were we. They thought they were ahead of us, but we were already several feet away from the finishing line and they weren’t even half way there.
“I’m ready,” he grunted, standing to his full height.
I didn’t answer him. It didn’t matter whether he was ready or not, when the waves came thrashing, he wouldn’t have a choice.
* * *
LUNA
“Are they nice, Luna?” Chiara asked, the side of her entire body pressed up against mine in the back of the taxi.
I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to figure out the best way to answer her. “Aida is nice. And her husband, Lorenzo, is Mateo’s boss. So they must be nice if Mateo works with them.” I breathed a sigh of relief at my diplomatic answer.