Antonio's POV
THE NEXT DAY… "I don't fucking care how you do it. Get it done." I push the disconnect button, wishing I had called Alessio from a landline so I could slam the receiver.
"Still nothing, I take it," Vittorio mutters from the corner of my office.
This day has been one shitstorm after another. First, Enrico called to tell me the feds were sniffing around in one of his casinos, then the first prototype of my new helicopter line crashed, and now Alessio, one of my underbosses, tells me he has no idea how Carlos managed to get out on bail.
With a groan that makes me feel older than my thirty-one years, I get to my feet and pour Vito and me a healthy serving of Blue Label, my favorite whiskey.
"It's been five months," I say, handing him a glass. "Five months since that fucker shot my dad."
"And he'll get his dues soon enough," Vito assures me. He is the only one privy to my plans for the bastard. "Just hang tight for a little bit longer."
"Fuck tight." I throw the half-empty glass against the wall, shattering the expensive crystal and sending the amber liquid running down the wall.
Vito looks at the door, but nobody comes in. My secretary and bodyguards are used to my volatile temper. They won't bother coming in unless a gun goes off. I've trained them not to.
My phone rings, but it's not Alessio. It's Alfonso Romano, the family accountant. "Pronto," I bark into the phone.
"Good afternoon, sir. You told me to inform you when Miss Guiliana reached the half-million-dollar point."
A smile cracks at the corners of my lips. "And how has she managed that?"
Vito looks questioningly at me, and I mouth Gigi. His face lights up, but Alfonso distracts me. "She has been to several places: Bergdorf, Saks, and Krigler. Do you want me to put a stop on the credit card?"
It would be the sensible thing to do, but like me, Gigi is still hurting over the sudden loss of our father. If shopping gives my sister some relief, then I won't stand in her way. "No, it's all good. Just call me back if she reaches a million."
Now, that would be a feat, even for my little sister. I grin and hang up.
"Shopping spree," I fill Vito in, who suddenly looks a little guilty.
"What?"
"We may have had a small altercation this morning," Vito admits.
"Small altercation?" If he's hurt my sister, I'll skin him alive. It won't matter that he's my second-in-command or my friend.
"Easy, boss. She still doesn't want me to tell you about our relationship. I tried again to get her to marry me, but…" he drifts off. He refills his glass and hands me a new drink.
A chuckle escapes me. Vito and Gigi have been secretly dating for months now. When Vito came to me, asking my blessing for Gigi's hand, I surprised him by saying no. Well, that didn't really surprise him, but the reason why did. In our circle, women, sisters, and daughters are used as bargaining chips, trade-offs, to broker peace, and so on, but I would have never agreed for my sister to be used that way. I wanted Gigi to be happy, not stuck in an arranged marriage like our mother had been. It was the only point Dad and I disagreed on. He was old-fashioned, whereas I wanted Gigi to experience life. I even talked Dad into allowing her to go to college. In time, I might have talked him into giving his blessing to Vito and Gigi as well, but we never had that chance.
I told Vito it's not a no, it's a not yet. And that I wanted them to date and get to know each other first. If they marry, I want it to be her choice, not mine.
I'm not an idiot; I'm pretty sure the two of them do things that they aren't supposed to be doing before a mafia princess is married, but my sister's virginity is not my business.
Vito told her he would talk to me, but according to him, she had a minor meltdown and panic attack. For some reason, she's too scared of me to let him ask me. She's worried that now that I'm capo, I'll forbid them to see each other altogether—or even kill Vito.
The devil rode me when I told Vito he's not allowed to tell her I know. I want her to come to me and ask for my blessing. So they've been dating in secret ever since. Much to my amusement and Vito's frustration. He wants to make an honest woman out of her and marry her. One of these days, I might have mercy on him, but for now, I'm getting entertainment from the tangled web.
"She still doesn't know?" I ask, drinking the whiskey down and enjoying the burn.
Vito shakes his head. "Every time I bring it up, she shoots me down. She's petrified you will stop our relationship." He looks at me pleadingly. "Please let me tell her."
I swirl the whiskey in the glass. I might be a bit more free-thinking than my peers, but I still enjoy watching Gigi squirm, and nobody is going to cheat me out of seeing her squirm when she finally decides to share her little secret with me.
"Boss," Vito huffs.
I chuckle. "Nope."
He shakes his head. He owes me. He knows he owes me. I'm enjoying this way too much, but in my life, there is little to bring me joy, so the two will have to pay the price until my little sister grows some balls and fills me in on her sordid affair with my second-in-command.
"How much longer will you have me wait?" Vito sinks back in his chair in the corner.
"If she were anyone else's sister, you wouldn't wait for her to come around," I say, swirling the whiskey in my glass. "You'd make her yours."
Vito exhales slowly, his jaw tightening. "She's not just anyone's sister.
She's yours."
"Damn right," I smirk, throwing back my drink. "And if you want her, you better prove you can handle her, because Gigi doesn't need a man who will fold every time she bats her lashes."
He shakes his head, muttering something under his breath. He knows I'm fucking with him, but the truth is, I need to be sure. If he can't handle Gigi now, he sure as hell won't survive marrying her. We get interrupted by Vito's phone vibrating with an incoming text.
"Judge Lambert is here. He wants to talk to you." He says, looking up.
"Good," I tried to call him earlier, but the puto didn't pick up.
Judge Lambert is one of the few judges in this city whose record is spotless.
He is one of the few righteous men, which is why I bribed the clerk at the courthouse in charge of assigning judges to cases. I wanted him to oversee Carlos's trial. He's the only man I know with the guts to send the fucker to prison, where I can finally lay my hands on him. Figuratively.
Unfortunately, I won't be the one doing the deed, but the hit has been set in motion. Enrico's words echo in my head; I'd tell you to be smart about it.
And to make sure there's no blood on your hands when it's done. He's right.
To prevent a bloody vendetta, it has to look like a prison hit. Carlos's death cannot be traced back to me.
And with Lambert being the hardass he is, I'm having a hard time understanding what could have possibly possessed him to grant Carlos bail.
Unless… My last conversation with Lambert was… unpleasant. I've never met a more stubborn man than him. I might have admired the old bastard for it had he not been my enemy; on some level, despite of it. There are few people I would hesitate to have killed, but he is one of them. Don't get me wrong; I'd order it done if absolutely necessary, but luckily, the same clerk I've bribed in this case also ensures Lambert handles no trials involving my employees. It's an expense Vito has counseled me on many times, but even before shit hit the fan, I knew that a man like him would come in handy one day, and I was right.
"Send him in."
The man who enters is a mere shadow of the man I met with a few months ago. He looks shrunken, somehow. Dark circles frame deep-set, tired-looking eyes that seem to have lost all zeal. I've seen men like him before— men who have lost everything they hold dear and who are hanging on just by one fine thread of hope. Even his posture is diminished. The once proud, straight shoulders are hunched forward.
A deep sense of trepidation rises inside me. As the judge sitting over Carlos's trial, there can only be one reason for the man to look this… beaten. I was right; Carlos got to him.
Still, I'm too pissed at him right now to play nice. "What the hell, Judge?
My impression of you was that you were unbribable."
Lambert straightens himself, and some of the steel I admired before returns to his eyes. "I need your help."
Vito closes the door and takes his place by it, making sure nobody will interrupt us by standing with his back to it. His eyes are filled with the same questions that run through my mind.
I motion for Lambert to take a seat. Few people manage to surprise me anymore, but he just did.
"Does it have anything to do with you letting the bastard out on bail?" I ask while sitting down in one of the leather recliners. He takes a seat opposite me on the couch, fiddling with his phone.
Curiously, I eye it. "You're not trying to trap me into something, are you?"
He follows my line of sight and puts the phone on the wooden table between us. "No, I think we're past that."
"So it has to do with Carlos?"
He closes his eyes for a moment, and when he opens them, I see he is fighting tears. Fuck. What else but family could possibly get a man like him into such a state?
"He has my daughter," he continues without preamble. Picking up his phone, he taps a few times and hands it to me.
What the fuck?
"Hit play." Lambert's voice is barely audible.
In the video, Nestor Peak, Carlos's second-in-command, comes into focus.
He holds up a piece of paper with a tag. After a second, he leans forward, and when he steps back, I notice a young woman sitting tied to a metal chair. The note now pinned to her chest reads, You know what to do.
A tiny whimper escapes her. Long, brown hair hangs messily over her features, hiding her face from the camera. I clench my jaw. I know it's not unheard of to kidnap family members and torture them, but I've always tried to abstain from involving family; there are other ways to get the job done, in my opinion. One wrong decision on an objection call, and she pays the price. For each piece of evidence allowed, she will lose a finger or an ear, clear? Nestor says into the camera, hoist her up.
It's not until the chains she's bound to lift her off the floor that I realize how drop-dead gorgeous the woman is. The dark brown hair falls away from her face, and she shakes her head so her gaze can follow Nestor as he retrieves a knife. Large sapphire eyes turn toward the camera for a split second, and my heart rate picks up. I pause the video so I can study her angelic face.
Even in her fear, she's beautiful beyond measure. Her face has the classic lines of an old-era Hollywood actress; Ava Gardner comes to mind. Perfect full lips, a long, elegant neck… Something inside me tightens. She is off-limits to me, just another casualty in this war. Yet… I don't like knowing Carlos's hands are anywhere near her. Just the thought of him touching her raises my blood pressure.
Neither do I like where my thoughts are going, and I push play to listen to Nestor's laughter as he makes her spin on the chain that keeps her in the air.
Across from me, Lambert puts his hands over his face. Undoubtedly, he has watched the video a few times. Even for me, it's hard to watch the video as Nestor rips the back of her shirt to expose her milky, elegant shoulder blades. Slowly and with a glint in his eyes, he slices a long line down it.
I turn the phone off and hand it back to Lambert. "Why did you come to me with this? I'm not the one holding her."
Lambert's hands slide from his face, and the steely look is back in his eyes, similar to the woman's in the video. "No, but I do know that Carlos killed your father."
I stiffen. If the old coot is trying to blackmail me… "I know that you have a very vested interest in seeing Carlos go to jail." His eyes meet mine. He knows.
He knows that Edoardo has forbidden me to lay a hand on the bastard who killed my father. What he doesn't know, what nobody besides Grigori and Vito knows, is that I've made a deal with the Bratva to have Carlos killed as soon as he steps foot into jail. In a world as black and white as Lambert's, going to jail is a just punishment.
"Then you also know that I can't touch him." I steeple my fingers as I lean forward on the chair.
Lambert nods. "I don't know why you haven't killed him yet, but if I had to guess, I'd say you have your orders." His gaze would have been challenging had it not been shrouded by worry.
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Get my daughter out of there," Lambert demands, and then a bit lower, "save my only child."
Vito's eyebrows flare up as our eyes meet. He slowly shakes his head, very aware of Edoardo's orders.
"What's in it for me?" I turn my attention back to Lambert, who doesn't look surprised in the least that I would ask that question.
"You'll get what you want. You'll see Carlos sentenced," he stops, trying to read my expression. With a sigh, he adds, "I'll have him sent to any prison of your choice."
"That's very generous of you." The sarcasm in my voice doesn't deter him, and he glares right back at me.
"You have a funny way of asking for a favor." I tilt my head.
"Trust me, if there were any other way to save my child, I would take it."
"How long has he had her?" I ask, ignoring his little righteous tirade.
"Since… the night before yesterday."
"The night before yesterday? He has had her for two days? It took you two days to swallow your pride and ask me for help?"
Lambert's fist hits the table. It's made of strong mahogany wood, and I'm sure he does more damage to his hand than the surface, but he doesn't show it. "I didn't know what to do," he finally admits. "I can't go to the police.
He'll kill Scarlet."
"I played his game yesterday," he admits, looking again like a broken man.
"But last night… the worry for her… and the guilt of what I did… that's when I thought of you." He raises his head but won't meet my eyes. My instincts flare up; there's something he isn't telling me. "Scarlet is all I have left in the world. Her mother died in a car crash."
This story would be heartbreaking to hear for a man with a heart, but mine died when my father was killed. Dad, Gigi, and I were tightly knitted, more so after Mom's death. What little was left of my heart turned to stone after Don Edoardo ordered me not to lay a finger on his killer.
Edoardo is so sure of himself that he will never suspect me behind Carlos's arrest and trial. Neither will he suspect me when Carlos gets killed in jail.
Grigori will make sure that it doesn't come back to the Bratva. I don't like giving Grigori Arsenyev, the Russian Peckham, leverage over me, but I already have a plan for that, too. He and I are not exactly friends; too much blood has flown between our families for that, but we are both adult enough to realize that working together is better for our families than being at each other's throats. Especially with the fucking Venezuelans breathing down our necks and invading our territory.
I consider having Lambert eliminated, appointing a new judge to Carlos's case, and washing my hands of his daughter, who Carlos would inevitably dispose of once she outlived her usefulness. But then I'd have to track down another judge as untarnished as Lambert, setting the whole circus in motion again. It would take time, and every second that bastard still draws breath is an insult to me.
Sapphire eyes pop up in my mind's eye, wide and defiant even in the face of terror. That kind of spirit won't last long as Carlos's prisoner—unless someone strong enough intervenes. I would hate to see her broken. And that realization pisses me off more than I care to admit. With all this teetering the scale in Lambert's favor, I say, "Alright."
"Alright?" Hope sprouts on his face.
"What?" Vito nearly shouts.
"Let's be clear, though. Nobody, and I mean nobody, can ever know that it was me who got your daughter out of there."
"Of course," he nods eagerly, ready to make any promise to save her, even if it means dealing with the devil himself.
"Don Carlos will go to jail," I add.
"Done." There is not an ounce of reluctance in him.
"As a precaution, your daughter will stay with me until the trial is over. I promise I'll keep her safe. You'll need to move to a safe house, and my men will protect you in and out of the courtroom."
"I understand," he mumbles.
"Send me that video, and we'll figure out where he's holding her."
Lambert rises and extends his hand, but I don't take it immediately. Instead, I let the silence stretch, making him feel the weight of what he's asking me to do. Finally, I clasp his hand with a firm grip.
"You're in my debt now, Judge," I say quietly. "You better not forget that."
Lambert swallows hard but nods. He knows exactly what that means.
Before he reaches the door, I stop him, "Out of curiosity, why did you come to me with this? Why not go to Don Edoardo? Or one of the other capos?"
He doesn't hesitate to reply, "Because you are the only man I know with a reason to free my daughter. You want Carlos to go to prison for what he did to your family."
I watch Lambert leave, his shoulders still sagging with the weight of his decision. I should feel victorious, knowing I have him under my thumb now. But all I can think about is the woman in that video and the way her blue eyes locked on the camera. The way my blood burned watching her spin in those chains.
It may have been just a second, but that second is burned into my memory —a frozen image I can't shake.
Nestor just earned himself a spot at the top of my shitlist. That thought alone lifts my spirits. Edoardo may have tied my hands when it comes to Carlos, but Nestor? He's fair game.
A slow grin spreads across my lips.
I'll have it all—Carlos will die in prison, and Nestor will be bleeding at my feet. And then, whether she realizes it or not… Scarlet is mine to save.