“I do,” he agreed.
“Look, for tonight, just go to Gia and tell her you love her and that you’ll be close if she needs you. You’re right that now isn’t the time. It’s been a long fucking day for all of us. Cara is fine with Dante and Cal for now too. So let’s all just go to bed and leave them both to get some sleep. Everything else can wait until the morning,” I suggested.
“I need to know who did this, Dar. Whoever it was, they’re finished,” he growled and I completely agreed.
“The clean up crew took photos and will search for anything to identify those bodies. We should have some idea by morning who set that whole thing up,” I explained.
“Good. Whoever is behind this, I don’t care, we end it all, and them tomorrow. It’s time we reminded people that the De Santis’ are not a family to be fucked with.”
***
I was in a foul mood at the office the next day. I hadn’t seen Cara that morning, nor had I seen any of the others to ask how she was. All I had wanted to do was go to her room, stride in there, and pull her into my arms. It was more than a need inside of me to know that she was alright, it was a need for her to know that I actually cared about her too. I wanted her to know how much she meant to me, and how terrified I had been when I realized she had gone missing the day before. I wanted her to know the lengths I would go to, to end the bastards who hurt her, and any other who dared to try ever again. I wanted her to know that she was mine, at least as far as I was concerned.
But I hadn’t gone to her room. Instead I had gone through my usual morning routine, dressed, got my shit together, and driven to the office. Rafe had told me what he needed the night before – answers about who we needed to destroy for taking Gia and Cara from him and the family – and that was what I had to do. At least in doing my job - and backing Rafe up, as I always had, and always would - I was also getting closer to enacting revenge on those who had dared to hurt Cara. It was something, and it eased some of my rage inside, but it didn’t ease the desperation within me to just hold her and never let her go.
I looked up at the sound of a knock on my office door and found our head of security – Brax – walking in. Usually our ‘security team’ – an official job title for the men who worked for our family, and got their hands dirty doing it – reported directly to Dante and Arran, but I didn’t have time to wait around that morning, so I’d called to arrange this meeting myself.
“Come in and take a seat,” I told him as I stood and moved over to the sofa in my office. Brax closed the door behind him, then sank into a leather, high back chair opposite me.
“I’m assuming you want an update on what I have so far about last night?” he asked as he set a cardboard folder on the coffee table between us.
“Yeah. It can’t wait. Rafe wants it handled right away. He feels we need to send a message, and I agree.”
“Well, we found the names of the five men we took out. Obviously, we already knew Jase, and that was his real name. Jason Rossi. I don’t know why he was double crossing us, but I have Dom digging into his background right now. The others all have criminal records that link to organised crime.”
Brax opened the folder and laid out several pages before me with images and police records.
“Wait. Is that…” I picked up a picture which had been taken the previous night, a corpse, covered in blood – courtesy of Dante’s handiwork – but it was a face I knew.
“Yeah. Yuri Kozlov. Pretty definitive proof, isn’t it?” Brax questioned, and I nodded.
Yuri was a cousin of the leader of the Kozlov family – Dimitri Kozlov - and he worked with his cousin, mainly running theclubs that they owned and operated. He had also attended some meetings with his cousin, so I knew the face.
“Proof enough,” I agreed, and I was sure Rafe would too. “And the others? Do they link back to the Kozlov’s?”
“Yep. Every one of them, except Jase. He doesn’t link to them anywhere on paper. Whatever he was up to, he was good. They put a lot of work into burying him in our organisation.”
“We need to know why. See what else you can dig up on the prick. And be prepared. I’m pretty sure Rafe is going to want to take action in some form or other tonight,” I warned him.
“We’ll be ready. I’ll leave the file with you and let you know if we find anything more.” With that, Brax left the office.
I just sat staring at the photograph of Yuri Kozlov, shocked, if I were honest. I knew the Russians were pissed with us still holding so much power over their imports and exports, primarily because they wanted to traffic girls in from Eastern Europe, and we were standing in the way of that. But I never thought that they would be desperate enough to touch Family. Rafe’s family, at that. They had to have a death wish.
As the leader of a crime family – which is essentially what Rafe was – he was pretty laid back. He tended to handle all dealings in more of a business like way, never needing more than threats, and the occasional intimidation tactic to ensure others saw our illegal dealings his way too. But it was also well known that, while Rafe was nothing like his father, he could be as ruthless as the man if anyone touched his family.
That had been made crystal clear to everyone we worked with when I had been taken on my drive home from the office a few years ago, to use as leverage against Rafe to make a deal. Rafehad been ruthless to get me back from the Albanians, and once I was out, he killed their entire leadership structure brutally and without mercy, leaving them so messed up that they were still flailing around to reestablish their strength and their family even now. And that was just me. I wasn’t even blood.
Kozlov had targeted Rafe’s world – Gia and Cara. The Russians were completely fucked. Kozlov was a dead man walking. If he had any sense he’d already be half way back to the homeland, not that running would protect him. Rafe’s power had a far reach and he would find a way to make Dimitri pay for harming his sisters.
My main concern was Jase though. If Kozlov took the girls for leverage to get his way at the docks, that was a spare of the moment thing – him reacting to our orders following the police digging into his operations. None of that explained what exactly he was up to though, that required him to plant a mole in our operation over a year ago – which is when Jase started working for us. We needed answers, which may mean holding off on the bloodshed temporarily. If there was a bigger plan in play, I wanted to know every facet of it before we killed the man with the information I needed.
CARA
I’d woken that morning laid in my bed, pressed between Cal at my back, and Arran at my front. They had both been laid on top of the comforter, but Cal had his arms wrapped around me, holding me tight, while Arram just lay facing me, a little space between us. It had been a shock at first, but then I realised I was actually laid in my bed, not in the closet, and I felt okay about that with them there. I had also slept through the whole night, without a single nightmare, which I had truly needed, so I had no objections about them being there ultimately.
It wasn’t until I extracted myself from between them to head to the en-suite, that I saw Dante had stayed the night too, sleeping in the uncomfortable chair from my desk, his head hanging forwards, and his arms folded across his wide chest. I smiled when I heard him snoring just slightly. I vaguely remembered him bringing me up to my room, and setting me in bed when I became uncomfortable in his arms during the night sometime, but it was fuzzy.
I was still aching pretty badly and my left arm and shoulder were throbbing angrily, but I was more with it than I had been the night before. At least my head didn’t hurt as much.
