We stay there until the air settles, and the last of the cleanup is done. Vito excuses himself and goes to help his men while Ijust stand there, locked in a silent staring contest with the black fucking circle.
As the hours crawl past, the sky outside bleeds from ink to pewter. When dawn finally breaks, the fog drifts low over the depot, turning the puddles to mercury.
Dawn always makes blast sites look cleaner than they are. Softer. Forgivable. Like the night was just a nightmare instead of a warning someone carved into my fucking territory. But the circle doesn’t soften. It looks sharper in daylight—like a mouth waiting to open.
Vito comes up beside me again. “You want me to run the usual checks?”
“It won’t matter,” I reply, as pieces in my mind finally start making sense.
Grabbing his arm, I haul him back outside and as far away as we can get without actually leaving.
“What is it, boss?” he asks nervously.
I swallow thickly. “Rafe thinks I have a rat.”
Admitting it feels like cutting my own hand open. A rat inside my circle means betrayal close enough to breathe on me. And betrayal is always personal. Always. I can handle enemies. I can’t stand traitors. Traitors rot you from the inside.
“A rat?” he echoes. “As in—”
“Not the kind you catch with cheese,” I growl. “And he’s right. Tonight, I was meant to be here to count product. But Rafe did it last night because I had somewhere to be tonight.”
Vito shifts from one foot to the other. “No offense, but doesn’t that just make everyone lucky?”
I smile coldly. “Except, it doesn’t. If it’s a message, the timing wasn’t luck. They didn’t want me to be here.”
“And you weren’t,” he says, still not getting it.
“No,” I agree. “I was at the fucking Leone Room where any Tom, Dick, and motherfucking Harry could have seen me. I wasn’t alone, so I used the side entrance.”
At the time, I told myself it was to keep up the ruse. Now, I’m glad I did it. Because I’m pretty sure the only people to see us were employees.
I watch the realization hit him. “Fuck!” he roars. “So we have a motherfucking coward serving up information? Is that what you’re telling me? Who do I kill? Who, Matteo?”
“There’s no one to kill yet,” I reply, my hatred for the situation bleeding into my tone.
If there’s one thing I hate above all else, it’s not knowing what’s going on. And right now, I have no fucking idea. None. I bury the feeling of being helpless.
The old me would’ve flattened the building out of spite. The new me can’t afford to blow up the wrong fucking person. Not when someone out there thinks they can toy with me like I’m still bleeding on the concrete.
“You know who might be able to help,” Vito says cautiously.
My one remaining eye darts to him. “No,” I snarl.
He holds his hands up in surrender as he takes a step back. “Who else?” he argues when he’s several feet away.
I rake a hand down my face and curse under my breath. Asking for help always comes with a price, but with this particular individual, it’s always something I don’t want to pay. But he’s right. Unless I want to keep having my shit blown up, I have to man up.
After checking my pockets, I walk over to my car and grab my phone that’s still in the cupholder. I scroll through my contacts until I find Tony.
It rings twice before my call’s answered with a string of curses.
“Tony,” I interrupt, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I have something to discuss with you.”
Silence.
“What does a black circle mean to you? As a tattoo, symbol, anything—” That’s as far as I get before the line goes dead.
While I stare incredulously at my phone, a text comes in.
