Still watching me, frowning at my obvious turmoil, Mateo asks, “What’s going on, Adrian?”
I’ve already decided not to tell him about this play—he won’t okay it if I do. He’ll know how dangerous it is, borderline reckless, all things considered. Because he does care about me in his way, he wouldn’t let me do this, not even if it meant cutting the risk in half and saving a multitude of his own men.
“Thank you,” I say, visibly surprising him.
“For what?” he asks.
“For Elise.”
“Adrian, what the fuck?” he asks, frowning. His gaze darts beyond me, down the hall for a second, then back to me with a frown. “Are you planning something I should know about? Do you have new information?”
I shake my head. It’s not new information, just a new idea, and I don’t want to talk about it or he’ll figure it out. Even broaching the subject would let him know where my mind is, and then he’d hone in on it, and before I could get a cup of coffee in the morning he’d be there forbidding me to take matters into my own hands.
In a sense, that would be nice. Take the burden off me.
But in a larger sense, in the practical sense, it would just mean we keep fighting a war we’re going to lose against an opponent who’s somehow playing better. One of Mateo’s many flaws is that he thinks he’s infallible. Why wouldn’t he? I guess if I lived his life, getting away with everything over and over again, always winning even when I should lose, maybe then I, too, would feel infallible.
I know better.
He will someday—when it’s too late.
Hopefully I’ll be around after tomorrow to keep throwing demons off his back, because I don’t know who else will if I’m not.
“You should be nicer to Vince,” I tell him. “He’s got a lot of loyalty in him and you’re not using it to your advantage.”
Shaking his head as if that ship has sailed, he tells me, “The damage has been done. There’s nothing I can do to repair it.”
“You say that like you’ve tried.”
He shrugs. “It would be a waste of energy. The source of our strife isn’t going anywhere. I’m not going to stop pissing him off, and he’s never going to get past what’s already happened anyway. There’s nothing to be done there. We’ll tolerate each other until we can’t anymore.”
I raise my eyes pointedly. “And then what?”
He shrugs evasively, not offering anything beyond that.
We both know where that ends up though, I know we do. If he doesn’t back off, it will come down to him or Vince—it already has, he just doesn’t know it yet.
Mateo usually wins, but Vince has the element of surprise now because I covered his ass. Cherie’s comments from dinner float back to my mind, suggesting Vince in power. It seems ridiculous to me with Mateo at the helm, but for how long? They’ll both age, assuming they don’t kill each other. Vince won’t always be too young, and if he’s nursed resentment for years, he just might be capable of doing it. If Vince goes the way Matt went, he’s going to get cold. Dark. Cruel. I saw a glimpse of it already in Mateo’s study when he realized Mia was going to play nice, despite her true feelings. He took sadistic pleasure in the way she endured his affection for the sake of appearances. Having a girlfriend who fawns over Mateo is going to break him down the same way Belle’s disdain wore on Matt; it’s not going to be pretty.
I shouldn’t have spared Vince. That was a mistake. I should tell Mateo now, consequences be damned, just in case I don’t come back tomorrow. Give him a heads up. But how could he not already know? If another man did to him what he’s done to Vince, he would do the same goddamn thing.
Mateo just doesn’t think rules apply to him. He doesn’t think anyone will ever make him suffer the consequences of his own actions—and Mia can’t bail him out every time.
“You should let Vince out,” I tell him.
“Out…?”
I meet his gaze. “Out. Give him some money and let him start a life of his own, removed from all this. If you’re going to do whatever it is you’re doing with Mia, you should give the kid what he’s always wanted and just let him out. Keep Mia around, let Vince go. If you’re gonna steal his girl, let him get out of your way.”
“I already have a girl,” Mateo reminds me, but not like he normally does, not dismissively, not amused by my judgments. He hasn’t thought of what I’ve just suggested, I can tell. There’s a spark in his eye, the spark of a new possibility.
I don’t know if I did Vince a favor or fucked him over, but at least I tried.