I rub the bridge of my eyebrows, trying and failing to ease the tension there. “Blackmailed him forwhat?”
“To lie to you about a woman called Ava?” Matteo says.
“Hmm,” I grunt.
“To tell you she was dead.”
“Anything else?”
“No, boss.”
I hang up, then head downstairs to my car. I’m too restless to sit still. My men are scouring the city, searching for Tony, but I don’t know what to do with myself. This isn’t like other conflicts when there are targets to hit and plays to make. Tony has gone to ground, the bastard.
My cellphone rings as I’m aimlessly driving around the city. It’s Dante. When I answer, I hear grunting in the background. “Boss,” Dante says. “We might have a line on a Hungarian bar Tony’s been using as his base here.”
“How?” I say.
He’s been allying with the Hungarians. I suspected as much – it seems like he’s the asshole who sent those men after me last year when I was in Ava’s apartment, the asshole who made me leave her – but hearing it makes me livid.
“The phone in his motel room,” Dante tells me. “Had outgoing calls to a couple of Hungarian bars.”
“What’s the address?” I demand. “I’m coming to you.”
“Boss, it might be better?—”
“Address, Dante.”
He gives me the details. I hang up and stomp on the gas. It makes sense that Dante wants to keep me away from the nittygritty. Few dons get their hands bloody. But this is family. This is betrayal.
He blackmailed one of my men, made him lie, told me that the woman I fell in love with- I can acknowledge that now—was dead.
I pull up outside the bar, nodding to Dante and my men across the street. Dante climbs out of his car and walks over, leaning down to my window. “Want me to go in first?”
“No, wait here, all of you,” I tell him.
His eyebrows shoot up.
“Did I stutter?” I growl.
Dante inclines his head, his scar puckering around his lip, making him look like he’s smiling when he’s doing the opposite. “You got it.”
I climb out of the car and stride across the street. In my head, I hear myself telling Ava this won’t always be complicated, wondering if I’m lying.
The bar is quiet, with just a few people sitting at a corner table. Big, rough-looking, covered in tattoos. From the way they look up – like they’re shocked anyone would dare come here – I know they’re mafia.
I walk over, whistling softly. Four of them, one with a broken nose, another with tattoos all over his neck and face, the third tall and broad with a long neck. I guess the man who stands at the front is the leader, leather jacket, gold rings on all his fingers, cracking his knuckles.
“Rafael Bellini,” he says. “This is… unexpected.”
“I need information about my cousin and his association with your family.”
“And you came alone.”
I spread my hands. “With no gun. My men outside might take issue if they hear shooting through. If you’re going to come at me, it’ll have to be with fists.”
The man smirks. “And you like those odds?”
“That would be easy work,” I tell him, looking him dead in the eye.
