“Fine. Stay out of it all you like.” I turn on my heel. “I need to go warn my brother.”
Just as I’m about to walk down the hallway for the door, Aleksandr follows after me.
“Wait, that wasn’t everything.”
“Who the fuck do you think you are?” I growl out at Carmine as I storm around the board room. “You tell me that I can’t do anything, can’t talk to anyone. Leave the Bianchis alone, yet you’re out here sending them letters. Trying to get them to talk to you.”
“I’m the leader of this family,” he reminds me. “I don’t go through you for my decisions. I don’t need you questioning them.”
“The hell you don’t,” I slam my fists down on the table between us. “I’m part of this family too. I should have say in things that define the future of it!”
“Well, apparently, it doesn’t matter what I say,” Carmine tells me. “Because you’ll just go out and do whatever you want even at the expense of this family.”
I swallow hard and don’t respond. If I do, I might say something I can’t take back. I look away from my brother and try to calm down.
“You went to the Rose even though I specifically told you not to,” Carmine accuses me. “You could’ve been followed, or worse, you could have gotten yourself killed.”
“I didn’t!” I spit out my words. “I’m standing here, ain’t I? Yeah, I went and talked to them because you wouldn’t. Because you refused to use our assets to our advantage.”
“How am I supposed to trust that you can do your job, when you can’t even follow my orders for a day?” Carmine asks me. “I would have let you go talk to them eventually—after we got the intel we needed from our own sources.”
“Our own sources—see what I mean? You don’t see me, and my sources, as your own. You don’t see me as anywhere near equal to you. You want me to follow your orders and that’s it. The Rose aren’t just my sources, they’re our source. We need them to figure this shit out, don’t you see that?”
“Give me one good reason why we should have gone to them now instead of later,” he tells me. “Why we couldn’t just wait for our guards to find out who has been tailing us before risking our asses talking to the Rose?”
I growl under my breath. “Because they’re planning on kidnapping you, you jackass.”
Carmine stops and stares at me. My own angry eyes are mirrored in his.
“Excuse me?” he asks as he steps around the table and to the side of me.
“You heard me. The Bianchis have a plan to kidnap you at the charity gala,” I explain. “Which you damn well wouldn’t have found out if it weren’t for me talking to Aleksandr.”
“Aleksandr?” he eyes me slowly. “He’s working with the Rose?”
“Yes,” I say slowly, looking at him suspiciously as well. I’m never sure what my brother is thinking. “Shit, it’s still safe to talk in here, right?” I glance around. I should’ve been more careful before saying his name.
Carmine nods. “It’s safe. All the mics in this room were disconnected early this morning. They’re probably scrambling to figure out how to get them back on. We’ll know for sure who is the mole in our system when they come in to try to fix them.”
I chuckle. “That’s funny; you don’t know who it is yet,” I say slowly. “I do. He told me who each and every one of the assholes who thinks they can get away with spying on us are.”
Carmine taps his fingers on the top of the table. “You know who all of them are? How many?” he asks.
“Four,” I tell him.
“How do you know you can trust this Aleksandr?” Carmine narrows his eyes. “He’s working with the Bianchi family and the Rose. Who’s to say he won’t turn his back on the Rose when the Bianchis give him a good reason?”
I grumble. “Trust me, he’s on our side. Besides, he knows if he fucks us over, his ass’ll be dead by the next morning. He’s not going to mess with me.”
Carmine takes a step back from me and runs a hand through his hair as he’s thinking.
“I know that look on your face,” I tell him. “You know I’m right, you just don’t wanna admit it.”
He glares at me. “Fine. You’ve gotten good intel from the Rose, from this…Aleksandr. Information we didn’t have before. But it doesn’t mean you were right to go against my orders.”
“Please,” I scoff. “I got us more than you’ve gotten us in months and you still can’t admit I was right.”
“Watch yourself, Tommy,” he points at me. “You’re walking a thin line… I might be willing to let it go this time, but if you disobey my direct orders a second time, we’re going to have a problem.”
