Each one for different ways and reasons.
My father had molded me into who I was. He kept our family safe, risking his own life at every turn.
Someone’s desire for his demise meant a threat toallof us.
I looked up when the door opened. Nico squeezed through the doorway. In a line behind him was Cedric and Cassian. Their expressions were just as murderous as Benny’s, Antonio’s, and mine.
Seraphina almost knocked Cassian over when she charged toward our father and rushed him into a hug, not even thinking that the man had just been shot. Behind her were Livia and Benny’s daughter, Gemma.
A stab of guilt struck me for not waiting for them so they could ride to the hospital with me. I knew they’d find a way here. All that had been on my mind was that my father needed me.
Livia hugged Mom tight before going to Seraphina. Gemma made a beeline for my father to hug him. The girls’ sobbing made Gigi and my mom cry even harder. Their emotions all seemed to blend.
While Livia and Cassian might have the last name Lombardi, they still had Marchetti blood flowing through their veins. Dad was their grandfather.
I said goodbye to my father, thanked the guard at his door, and walked outside with the guys to Benny’s SUV. Dad was alive. Now, it was time for revenge.
But first, we needed a motive. And a name.
“I can’t believe you guys have nothing,” Nico said from the third row of Benny’s Escalade.
Benny twisted in the driver’s seat to look at all of us. “You think it could be tied to your little secret society?”
Cedric coldly glared at his father from the captain’s chair beside me. “It’s not alittle secret society.”
That was a familiar argument when the Night Sons came up. My father and Benny never fully understood what the Sons were, even though joining them had been their idea. I figured they saw the extra power, extra money, and stopped thinking beyond that.
They’d only ever owed loyalty to the family. But our loyalty to the Sons strengthened the Marchettis, which meant it protected the family too.
“Has anyone checked on the whereabouts of the Bratva?” Cedric asked.
“What about the fucking Irish?” Nico cut in.
“I talked to Pippa’s cousin,” Antonio said from the passenger seat.
Pippa was the wife of his underboss, Damien. Her sister ran the Irish mob.
“We keep them in business,” Antonio went on, dragging a hand down the back of his neck. “Hell, we helped Riona kill her father and take power. She wouldn’t turn on us. She knows the consequences.”
“All right, and the Bratva?” Cassian asked.
“We’re working on them, but Liliya is saying no.”
Liliya was another Lombardi capo’s wife who also happened to be connected to the Russian Bratva.
We had connections everywhere—goodones.
The kind that had kept us safe for decades. I couldn’t remember the last time my family had been at war.
Well, I could, actually.
It was with Antonio’s ass.
“Circling back to the Sons,” Benny said. “You don’t find it suspicious that the president of the United States, who brought you into the society, was also shot on the same day?”
I nodded, my head pounding. “I do.”
“Who would want the president and Grandfather dead?” Nico asked.
