I shove past him. “Why would Matteo break omertà now? It makes no fucking sense – he knows he’d lose theentireCosa Nostra, whatever he chooses to call himself.”
“Because he’s a psychopath,” Dom snaps. “And he wants you dead.”
“Exactly.” I yank open drawers until I find a biro, snapping off the plastic piece and shoving it into my shoe. Another piece goes into my bra, digging into my skin. “But he wants towatch, Dom.He doesn’t want me locked up, getting out and coming after him.”
“It’s a set-up,” Luc breathes in understanding. “You think it’s fake?”
I nod. “Call Johnno. Ask him how many cops are covering the Asante compound right now.”
Stefan glances out of the window. “There’s a whole lot of fucking guns out there either way, Cat. We don’t have long.”
Gio mutters into the phone before he looks up. “One.”
I finally stop, my hands running over the blatant, visible weapons strapped to me. “We burned more than eighty bodies that night. There’s a fuckinghuman traffickingset-up in the basement. You think if they were really paying attention, they’d leaveonecop watching over all of that?”
A tic appears in Dom’s jaw. “You think he’s going to separate you from us.”
I nod. “A fake arrest, and I’m away in the car. He’ll probably leave you alive, let it play out, just to pander to his warped fucking brain. I get delivered to Matteo, and he gets to rub his clever little plan inmyface. You wouldn’t even know until you tried to find me, and he’d watch you tie yourselves up in knots when there’s no record of my arrest at all.”
I can only imagine his delight over the details of this one.
“Probablyleave us alive,” Gio mutters. “So what is the plan?”
Squaring my shoulders, I face them. “I’m going to leave with them.”
“Likefuckyou are,” Dom says immediately.
Four equally vehement refusals ring out. All except for Luc. He stares at the floor, frowning. I wave off their protests. “They’ll search me for weapons. They’ll find some, not all. They won’t be expecting me to fight back. It’s an easy win.”
“In amoving car,” Luc says quietly. “They could easily take the upper hand, Cat. Knock you out. Drug you. And you would begone.”
My heart thumps at the pain in his words. “I’m not going to let that happen again, Luc. And we don’t have many options. There’s more of them out there than there are of us.”
More guns.
Everything– the lives of the men in front of me – hinges on what I know of Matteo, and the way he operates.
“He wants to cause as much pain as possible,” I say, my throat tight. “He kills me first. Then pushes in and hits the rest of you.”
“You’re asking us to gamble your life on this,” Dante says heavily.
But I hold his gaze. “I could have kept quiet and gone with them anyway.”
But I promised him. And he closes his eyes. “Alright.”
“No.” Dom pushes in front of me, his hands on my shoulders. “No.”
“I’m giving you an order, Dom.” He jerks as if I’ve slapped him. “Are you my enforcer, or not? Am I your capo, ornot?”
Gio stirs. “We have to make it look real.Withoutthem suspecting. If they suspect, if they think we’re going to fight, they’ll just shoot anyway.”
“Can you do it?” I ask Dom outright. “If not, tell me now, Domenico.”
He grits his teeth. “Fine.”
I toss my phone to Luc. “Follow as soon as you can. Check the sides of the road.”
Stefan murmurs something to Dom as I pass them, striding to the exit. The stairs are in place, a handful of terrified-looking staff huddled together on the ground below us as they watch thecops.
