Something occurs to me then.
“Were you naked when that bastard got here, or did he take your clothes?”
“I was already naked,” she says softly. “I was sleeping in your bed. When I woke up, he was standing over me.”
Relief mixes with the rage.
“I’ll get even with them for this. I promise you that much.”
I don’t give a fuck who I have to kill. I’ll murder Mikhail Sidorov myself if need be, and I’ll look him in the eye as I pull the trigger, watching the life leave him. One day, when the time is right.
“I don’t want you to get even,” Isla says, reaching for me like I’m a lifeline, when all I really am is death and destruction.
Violence and ruin run in my blood.
“He gave me a message for you,” she adds, her voice urgent. “He said that the Andrianis are responsible for some of their men’s arrests and one of their businesses being shut down. They said they wanted to take something in return, and that the Pakhan would be in touch with options.”
I have no idea what she’s talking about. We aren’t rats, and none of us has gone to the cops with anything about the Bratva. Our alliance has been too sound. Why would we risk it? As for taking something from us, that’s going to start a war. And they’re about to fucking get one, like it or not.
“Do you know what that all means?” she asks.
Haven’t got a goddamn clue.
“Don’t worry about it and just get yourself dressed,” I tell her, and then I shrug away from her touch, turning and leaving the room.
I’m so furious I’m trembling from the force of it, hands shaking at my sides as I scour the apartment, looking for a gray-and-white furball. I find Cid under a table. His eyes are wide, reflecting my phone’s flashlight as I shine it underneath.
“Found him,” I call out to Isla.
She doesn’t answer, or if she does, the shrill ring of my phone drowns out her voice from the other room. It’s a burner number I recognize as Scorpion, so I answer immediately.
“What’s happening?” I ask instantly.
“Sergio’s is gone,” he says.
“The bomb…”
“Detonated,” he fills in the blanks for me, his voice hard with barely leashed fury. “Everyone’s out and accounted for, but the front half of the building’s demolished. It’s going to have to be torn down.”
“Fuck.”
“You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” I scrub a hand over my jaw.
It means we’re going to have the Feds crawling up our asses, but I’m not going to say that out loud. Whoever was responsible for this is a complete idiot with a death wish. Because not only will we get even, but a bomb going off in the middle of the city at a high-end restaurant isn’t going to go unnoticed. We’ll be on the evening news and splashed all over the internet. The city police department, the FBI, and the ATF are all going to have a fucking field day with this.
Which is going to mean a lot more scrutiny for the Andriani family. Eyeballs watching our every move. Warrants and wiretaps and God knows what else, none of which will be good for us. Priest is going to lose his damn mind over this.
“You good with everything there?” I ask Scorpion, still reeling.
“Good as I’m going to be.”
He doesn’t have to say anything else. He doesn’t need to. We’re probably both still in shock. This, on top of being blindsided by Antonella rising from the dead, bringing the two half sisters we never knew we had along with her. And Priest is on his honeymoon. It doesn’t get much more fucked up than this.
“Keep your head down,” I tell him.
“You too.”
