He takes a deep breath and looks behind his shoulder for a second. “You’re going to get us killed,” he tells me. “I’m not at all concerned with you, but my own life… I’d like to keep on living.”
I grab him by the front of his shirt and pull him closer.
“Then you’d better start talking. I know you know what I need to know, or you wouldn’t be here. Playing pretend with my enemy…you stupid son of a bitch,” I threaten him, and shake him up a little.
He remains calm despite my fists grasping at his shirt and my face right up in his. He smells sober right now, not reeking of alcohol like the last time I saw him.
“Get your hands off of me, or you’re going to have more of a problem than you can handle,” Aleksandr tells me, voice like ice.
I nearly shiver.
I let go of him only because there’s people walking out of the restaurant toward their cars. A family of five.
“Here to kill another father?” I ask him. “Or are you really here to have dinner with your own?” I glare at him.
Aleksandr straightens up his shirt. “You’re making quite risky moves, Tommaso,” he reminds me. “You’re going to blow your own cover.”
“No, I’m gonna blow yours and you’re terrified,” I hiss at him. “There’s one way to fix that.”
“Work with you?” he asks and scoffs. “What makes you think I’d want to after this ridiuclous display?”
I glance to the side for a moment, watching as the door began to open, slower and with more purpose.
“I could walk right in there, draggin’ you with me, and tell them you’ve been working with me the whole time. How would that go over with your big boss, huh?” I ask him.
Aleksandr’s throat bobs with a swallow and he straightens his shoulders.
“You’re crazy,” he mumbles.
“You have no fuckin’ clue.”
“Trevor?” a voice from behind the door.
Aleksander’s eyes go wide for a moment, and I have a decision to make in a split second.
I turn on my heal and head away from the restaurant and back to my car. Deciding not to blow his cover, at least…not yet.
“Done chain smoking out here?” I hear someone say, a voice I recognize as Petra Bianchi, followed by Aleksander’s voice, but without his Russian accent.
“Never,” he says. “But I’m starving.”
I slide into the driver seat and my eyes catch the ends of long hair ruffling in the breeze before disappearing inside the restaurant.
“They’ve been tailing us for how many months?” I ask. I’m standing in front of Alessio and Damian back at the family estate. In the board room I stand near the head of the table, where Carmine would usually stand. It’s a nice feeling, however brief, to feel like I’m the one in charge.
Though, I know Alessio is above me, and it seems that even Damian has more power than me at times. That’s going to have to change.
“Five months,” Damian explains. “They’ve been in and out of the city frequently, that much we knew, but they’ve been keeping an eye on Carmine’s movements since before the situation with the Fiorellis hit it’s breaking point.”
“I bet they’re watching Soren now too,” I say with a click of my tongue. “Are they watching all of us?” My nerves creep up my spine. I had a feeling that they might be, but I’ve been taking my best precautions not to get caught doing something suspicious as I can. Talking to Aleksandr… Well, that’s something neither my brothers nor the Bianchi want.
“We’ve got in touch with a security guard who has been watching the video feed they hacked into,” Alessio tells me. “They’ve also planted bugs around the estate.”
My eyes widen. “You better mean the kind with six legs and an interest in biting,” I tell him, glancing around the room. “How are we talking safely if?—”
He interrupts me. “We’ve managed to scramble the feedback in this room for a short period of time, but we’re going to need to find somewhere else to talk for the time being. Be careful what we say.”
“Why don’t we just rip the bugs out and find out who put them in?” I insist. “Why are we just sitting on our asses like this and tiptoeing around our own house?” My voice raises a bit.
