Before I left with Oleg and the other two, Rossi thanked me for assisting. For standing by. We weren’t true allies. My father ruled with the principle of being friendly yet not claiming official alliances or friendships. The Rossis fell in the general category of “not enemies”, and that remained constant tonight.
He didn’t accuse me of bringing trouble to his door. He hadn’t blamed me for those agents and cops showing up.
On the drive home, though, as we all winced and cringed through our injuries, Oleg shared the opposite sentiment.
“Someone knew.”
I furrowed my brow at him as we sped back toward my building, holding my hand over a wicked cut on my forearm.
“Someone knew what?”
“Someone knew we were going there tonight.” He frowned. “Someone had to have that intel.”
I shook my head. “But how? Are you suggesting the Rossis have a leak? A mole?”
He gave me a sober frown. “I don’t know. But we’ve had issues with it ourselves.”
“Past tense. I handled our traitor.”
“Unless someone else is spying in your building.”
I gritted my teeth. “Who? For fuck’s sake, who? Emilio was hacking. They found evidence of the hack into my systems and tracked it back to him. I killed Yusuf.”
He shook his head. “Something ain’t right.”
“No shit,” I quipped. Nothing could be right about two different families hit tonight.
“Maybe the Rossis got a leak. But maybe not. All I’m saying is this shit could have been from our end.”
I shook my head, willing the car to hurry and get us back to my building faster.
“I don’t even know how. I never message or email about the quarterly meets with the Rossis. We confirm it with a call.” I scowled at him. “You heard me on that call. No one else was at the building then.”
If he dared to suggest I had another mole to hunt down…
I bit back a growl at the potential headache. Who could be spying still? Renee? Sofia? The cooks? Any of the guards? It was laughable. I’d had all the members of security triple-checked after Yusef.
I didn’t want another liar or traitor to have to find and execute. I’d just spent months on that, rooting out the source of intel Roberto Giovanni had been relying on to fuck with us.
Another threat in my building, from someone close to me, was the last thing on my mind. The very last strain of bullshit that I wanted to focus on.
It would pull me from Sofia. It would compete with being able to explore this new thing with her, and right now, that was the only goodness I could let myself seek.
She wasn’t just the temptation I struggled to resist.
She was becoming my salvation. My precious reward.
Because when the gunfire broke out and the familiar fight-or-flight instincts kicked in at the Rossis’ restaurant, one crucial fear entered my mind.
That I’d see my men wounded or killed.
That one of us would be captured.
That… I could have died.
After a lifetime of danger, I was used to and hardened to the violence and threats of being killed. This was how deeply we swore our servitude to my father, to our Bratva, to the Orlov legacy.
For the first time, though, it wasn’t the loss I’d be for my father, my brothers-in-arms, or my family.
