“You’re right.” I shake my head, blowing out a breath of annoyance. The money doesn’t matter and we have more cars in the garage that I can use, so it’s not of any consequence, but we need to end this shit with Sheffield now.
This bomb was a little too close to the mark, too close to the compound. I should have been ten steps ahead but I’ve been distracted for weeks now, thinking about the way I let my temper get the best of me and nearly spoil plans I’ve had in place for a long time.
Winter has proved to be nothing but a nuisance, disrupting the way everything is supposed to work around here.
“Lucia, take care of Federico.” She doesn’t need anything more than that, looking up and giving me a nod.
The hitman will be dead by the start of tomorrow.
“Vito, my office,” I tell him, turning around and heading back into the house. Vito tells Amadeo to take care of the car.
When I step into the house, I find Winter standing at the top of the stairs. Her gaze meets mine and I don’t miss the way her hand clenches on the banister.
She’s kept her distance from me since that day and it’s for the best. I only have so much control left these days, and it’s proved to fail whenever she’s around.
“Go back to your room.” I glide past the stairs, headed to my office.
Once inside, I grab a cigar from my drawer and pour myself a shot. By the time Vito enters the room, the stem is burning slowly and my shot is gone.
He closes the door behind him, his expression cautious as he approaches my desk. He sits down in the seat across from me and doesn’t say a word.
A tension that has been following us around for weeks enters the room, making me pour another shot.
Winter fucking Chastine.
I’m not mad that Vito pulled her out of the pool that day. We haven’t talked about it, at least not directly. But I know what he did and he knows what I did. I’m also aware of the fact that Enzo helped him take care of her while she recovered.
The one event switched up the way the machine that is our system works. Vito is pissed at me, which makes me want to beat the shit out of him. Enzo got too close to Winter, not shielding himself from his own heart when she was sick and vulnerable. Maximo almost killed him for it.
Now they’re not talking at all.
And I can’t trust Enzo to watch Winter at the moment, so I’ve had to put Amadeo on her. He’s the most trust worthy man I have, but I prefer to keep him in the background and that’s the way he likes it as well, no one knowing his connection to the family.
It works in our favor when we need someone to go incognito.
Vito shifts in his seat slightly, bringing my attention back to him.
Things were already bad after I threw Winter into the pool, knowing she couldn’t swim. I’d watched her many times on the camera from my computer as she’d waded back and forth through the water, never crossing the five feet point.
And I know everything about her, I was thorough in my research before I brought her here.
I knew before we even reopened the pool for the summer that she couldn’t swim or even float for that matter.
What had made things even worse between Vito and I was when I ordered him to kill his rat of a cousin and make Winter witness it.
At the time, I couldn’t think of a better way. I knew it would teach them both hard lessons, Vito that I’m still the one in charge and Winter isn’t on the table for him. He has to let her go. Now. Winter… I’d made sure she saw what happened to people who betray me.
Because she’s been doing way more than betraying me, snooping around the club with Diamond. She thinks she’s being discreet, when in reality I’ve been giving her just enough rope to hang herself. Those little papers he gives her keep me up at night. I’ve yet to find said papers in her room whenever she’s out, but I know she had to be bringing them into the house and hiding them somewhere in those four walls.
I’ll find them eventually, but I already have an idea of what those papers say.
It tells the truth, or at least part of it, and that truth is feeding into whatever lies Diamond is actually telling her. He’s manipulating the story because if she really knew the truth she wouldn’t be walking toward him whenever he comes to the club, getting the hell out of dodge instead.
Again, I can’t quite blame Diamond though. He’s younger than me by a few years and though he was initiated into Seven Quad young, he wasn’t really a hardcore member of the gang when our families were at war. He only knows what his two timing father has told him, and while he’s never blindly followed his father, holding a rage for the man that Dox should be wary of, he probably thinks his father had no reason to lie about what went down back in those days.
I don’t see Diamond letting his father continue to breathe if he knew the truth. He already walks around always looking like he’s right on the verge of killing his father. If Dox ever told him what really happened, I think he’d do it. Because if Dox was willing to do what he did to Winter’s mother, then he’d be willing to do it to Diamond as well and the younger man is definitely full of self preservation.
“We’ve got to move now,” I say, finally bringing my attention to Vito. He’s tense, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair.