“Does Priest know about all this?” Luna asks weakly.
Lucky shakes his head. “Not yet. Saint’s planning on bringing him up to speed. He didn’t want to tell him over the phone.”
“Good.” Luna nods. “Otherwise, I’d be tempted to smother him in his sleep if he were keeping this a secret from me.”
There’s her inner Mafia princess, coming out to shine. I feel faintly relieved that she’s rebounding so quickly.
“I think we’re going to get along very well,” Antonella pronounces with pride in her voice.
Lucky wasn’t joking. The Andrianis really are one big, fucked-upfamiglia.
Why do I find myself wishing I were really a part of it?
Chapter 23
SAINT
I’ve never been more relieved to see Priest in my life than when he walks in the door of the warehouse that’s the designated meeting point with Colletti and Joey Bones Panzeri. It’s late—almost midnight—and it feels like a lifetime has passed in the span of one day. Our rat situation progressed at the speed of light, and I’m glad Priest made it back in time before we settle the issue with a bullet in Joey Panzeri’s brain.
“Frattore mio,” I greet him. We embrace and clap each other’s backs. “You look like you’ve been lying in the sun all day.”
Even though he had to cut his honeymoon short, it clearly did him good. He needed the break. Being a don is a hell of a lot of pressure. Being the stand-in almost did me in.
Priest gives me a once-over. “And you look like shit.”
“Could be because I’ve been dealing with a lot of it, thanks to our Russian friends and fucking Joey Bones Panzeri,” I say wryly.
“You found the rat?”
I nod. “Earlier tonight, undercover agents moved on the empty warehouse by the river, acting on information only Joey was fed.”
Priest’s expression is grim. “Where’s Panzeri now?”
“Colletti is bringing him in, making sure there’s no tail. He thinks he’s going to be overseeing a shipment.”
“Is he being tracked?”
Priest is all business. I can see him mentally checking off the list, making sure I crossed every T.
I shake my head. “Negative. Colletti’s gone over him with a fine-tooth comb. His phones were confiscated. There’s no way anyone will know his location until it’s too late. They should be here in the next fifteen minutes. The plan is to take him into the back office. He won’t know what hit him.”
“Who’s going to do the honors?”
As don, Priest can’t get his hands dirty. We need him clean. Many an excellent don has rotted away in prison for stupid crimes he never should’ve been caught committing. Clipping Joey Panzeri? Not worth it, even if his disloyal ass is what landed us close to an all-out war with the Bratva. No such fucking thing as omertà for Joey.
“Colletti’s got it covered,” I say, staying deliberately vague. “There’s something else I need to tell you.”
He rubs his jaw. “What the fuck is it now?”
I don’t know how the hell to break this down, so I just blurt it out. “Antonella Rossi is alive. Turns out, she’s been living in a coastal town all this time. She claims she cheated on our old man with Tomasso Revello and that when she realized she was pregnant, she went to our father with the truth. She says he threatened to kill her, so she ran and had twin daughters in hiding. Their names are Camilla and Bianca, our half sisters. Sidorov found them somehow, and that’s when she came slithering back to us. Lucky’s taken her in, and now she and the girls are at the safe house with Isla.”
By the time I finish, Priest is clearly shocked.
“Wait a fucking minute. You’re going to have to say that again, because I thought I heard you say our mother showed back up.”
“You heard correctly, but I prefer not to give her a title she doesn’t deserve.” The word mother feels wrong. She spawned us. Abandoned us. That’s it.
“And that we have half sisters who were spawned by fucking Tomasso Revello,” he adds.
