Bryan turned his head with a sharp spin, looking damn close to the exorcist with the sudden movement. My hand twitched, going for the gun at my waist as my paranoia rose along with his.
Surprise was not the friend of a combat veteran.
The sound of rapid gunfire hovered at the edge of my consciousness as a bloody haze settled over my vision. I shook it off with a shrug of my shoulders, inching my Glock back toward its holster slowly.
A group of six strolled through the back doors of the club as if they didn't have a care in the world. I understood very well that they had every right, but a knock wouldn't have gone unappreciated.
The shits.
I slid the gun back into the holster, shaking my head at Lino’s grin. He should know better than anyone that sneaking up on me wasn't intelligent. "I could have shot you in the face," I sneered at him, making Bryan chuckle as he started over with his count of the cash.
"But it's such a pretty one," Lino grinned back, scrubbing a hand over his cheeks and faking a grimace.
"I've seen prettier," Matteo grumbled, casting an annoyed look behind him when Simon and the others shuffled him and Lino into the door fully so they could close it behind them. Counting cash was always a motivation to close the door. But the knowing look on Simon's face as his eyes landed on mine communicated that I wasn’t the only one plagued by the need for stricter security.
Matteo wasn't the type to hide behind the safety of the walls of his Estate. He'd never let another man intimidate him in his own city, and that made Simon's life more difficult. Protecting a man tucked safely in a fortress was easy.
Protecting a man out in the open where any decent sniper could blow his head off? That was another story.
The only saving grace was that taking out Matteo would change nothing for Murphy. In his absence, the rest of the Bellandi family would rally behind Lino and their desire for revenge. You cut off one head of the hydra, and you ended up with two more in its place. The same logic applied to Tiernan Murphy himself. I wanted nothing more than to go to the building across from Murphy's, set up my rifle, and blow his head off for his crime of trafficking women within our city.
But I knew the score. I understood how it worked. Just like when Ivory had killed Adrian Ricci and his men, his absence only created a power vacuum for another predator to claim.
It didn't stop me from doubling security on both Matteo and Lino to two bodyguards each, and I only stopped there because the bastards wouldn't let me put more men on them.
The only ones of us who didn't have any personal security were Ryker and me. Mostly because I dared anyone to fuck with Ryker. The man was certifiably insane and enjoyed bloodshed far too much to let a bodyguard take the joy of it away from him. And also because he'd threatened to cut off my trigger finger if I gave him personal security.
I very much liked that finger right where it was on my right hand. After the Army trained me to shoot with that instead of my left, something which did not come naturally to me, I couldn't imagine not having both hands and being able to shoot with both of them.
The thought of having one shooting hand seemed so crippling after that.
We waited in silence while Bryan finished his count, nodding his head to Lino as he packed the cash into the false-bottomed case of wine to load into his trunk and drive to drop off at various businesses for laundering. Some of it stayed in the club, getting laundered throughout the night whenever Ash had time to make it happen and didn't have nosy Vanessa or one of the other bartenders watching him.
Once he'd grabbed the case and moved to the door Simon opened for him, the group followed me to the front. We maneuvered through the Valentine's Day crowd, using them for camouflage, and then made our way up the stairs until we reached the VIP area. Vanessa glared at me as we passed the VIP bar she was in charge of at that moment, the look softening when she found Simon. He ignored her pointedly, rounding the bottom of the steps and taking the lead up the stairs so that Matteo, Lino, and I were in the middle and followed by the other of my guys.
I trusted them with my life. I trusted them with Matteo and Lino's lives.
It might not be the same brotherhood I'd found in the Army, but it was a brotherhood all the same. I'd ev
en argue it was stronger since I didn't do the job out of a sense of loyalty to my country. I protected them because I wanted them to be safe, and there was nothing more satisfying than having a direct love for the people the cause benefited when you put your life on the line every day, instead of a general vague responsibility that never quite felt tangible.
We passed my office, going further down the hall to the one that Matteo and Lino shared. It rarely saw use. Not since the Manager took over the daily operations at the club. He had no use for a big office since he spent most of his time down on the floor supervising employees and interacting with our VIPs.
But the office was off-limits to anyone not in the upper echelons of the Bellandi family. Even I only went inside when I had specific permission, and considering I frequently ate dinner at the estate, I suspected I'd somehow maneuvered my way through the ranks to be one of them.
Matt and Rocco stayed in the hall, guarding the door and the blind spot it created as Georgio closed it behind us. Matteo took his seat behind the desk like a king on his throne, glancing down at the dance floor through the two-way mirrored glass with a scowl on his face. He and I had more in common than I liked to admit, with our hatred of the overly loud music.
"Where's Ryker?" I asked, settling in to lean against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest. Lino took one of the chairs, but Simon and Georgio stayed standing with me. Once you trained to become a soldier, whether for the Bellandis or the Army, it became difficult to relax. Even in the safety of a private office in a club your boss owned with guards on every entrance.
Nothing was safe. Nothing was sacred.
Danger was everywhere.
"At the warehouse," Lino said. "He grabbed another one of Tiernan's men with a bait girl." I flinched, hating the fact that we used any of the girls from our stables as a snare. There were too many variables for my taste, too much at risk if we failed to protect them, but if the alternative was to just let them take women until we were ready to launch a full-scale take down, then it was a risk we had to take.
Until we had Liam O'Connell, the head of the Irish, on our side and willing to help us rid the city of the scum he allowed to walk in and out of his house without consequence, we couldn't dismantle Murphy’s human trafficking operation. So Ryker watched. Ryker took photos. He gathered evidence of every betrayal Tiernan committed against the man who was soon meant to be his father-in-law. A man who was already his boss.
And in the coming weeks we'd sever Tiernan from most of his network, and then, when our additional support came from our allies around the world, we'd have everything we needed in place to take down his entire operation. His buyers. His transports. All of it.