“Alexander. Jaxon.”
“Carmine,” Alexander told him. “I’m sorry to interrupt your day off but you chose to ignore my calls. Unacceptable.”
Zorro was instantly on edge, which meant Carmine was exactly the man I believed him to be.
Unreliable and a liar.
“I was busy saving lives while you were doing the opposite. I understand you believe we have an issue to discuss,” Carmine spit out.
He was staring at me, obviously realizing I’d been the one to bring him dead bodies. I resisted reacting. For now.
“Why don’t we go into my den to chat.” He led us through the house and into a room that appeared like a glorified man cave, closing the doors behind us. What I noticed first was the weapon placed on a long walnut bar.
He’d prepared. How thoughtful.
“Drink?” he asked, already pulling down glasses. In doing so, I noticed his hand was shaking.
Not good for a surgeon.
“Why not. Scotch.” Alexander sat down in one of the massive leather chairs, acting as if he was completely comfortable.
“Scotch it is. How’s my sister? Isn’t she about due? Another baby in the family.”
“We’re not family,” I told him, but Carmine chose to ignore my comment.
Alexander laughed. “Yes, she is, but she is still demanding to work a full day in the courts. You know her. She refuses to allow anyone to threaten our family.”
Carmine paled. “I don’t know what you think is happening, Alexander, but I did not break our alliance. Why would I do that?”
“I can think of a dozen reasons including whatever the hell is going on in Italy.” I continued stroking Zorro, but my pup’s hackles were definitely raised.
My statement obviously threw him. He slowly turned with the bottle of Macallan in his still shaking hand. His pinched face said everything along with his silence.
We allowed him to finish preparing the drinks, accepting as gentlemen should do.
He was pained as he sat down, leaning forward in the seat. “You know Sergio and I have never gotten along.”
“What did he do?” Alexander asked.
“I don’t know this for certain, but I think the Russians recruited him. He’s been acting weird for weeks. I don’t know him any longer.”
“Are you talking about the Barishnikoff family?” His proclamation did surprise me at least to a point. If the issue with the drugs was a local situation, then it would make perfectly good sense, but I had a feeling this was a global affair.
The damage we’d done to the Bratva family and the holdings made it next to impossible for them to be of any real threat to us. Although Russians were Russians and would always find a way to retaliate. That’s why we kept close tabs on them. But close enough?
Unless he wasn’t talking about the American Bratva.
He laughed. “They’re pussycats in comparison to the bastards out of Moscow.”
“The Ivanov family.” Alexander glanced in my direction. We’d heard about them before. Their reputation was as savages, their lineage going back for several generations. They all but ran Russia, using the prison systems to build their rank of soldiers and occasionally invaded either the Netherlands, Poland, or Eastern Europe, trying to glean more territory for their illegal drugs and weapons.
“Where did you hear this?” I pressed.
He took a long swallow of his drink. “You’re aware my father breached trust with our family in Italy. After his death, I reached out to my cousin. As kids we used to talk against my father’s wishes. He mentioned a few months ago he thought somethingwas going down, an unholy alliance the Ivanovs tried to put together years ago. He also mentioned there was some concern about the Camorra coming back into the picture.”
“The Camorra?” Alexander asked.
“Yes.” Carmine didn’t seem so certain. The group was from Naples, once truly the most powerful crime syndicate in the world.
