Page 107 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

Especially because Carter Andretti had told me they wouldn’t stop at the Salvatore borgata.

The motherfucker di Carlo brothers wanted it all.

Which was why I had brought the two looked-over members of the Accardi and Belcante outfits into my confidence. If I could convince them the di Carlos were a threat to their own organizations, that meant allies, and I knew well enough that the older generations were just as happy to see me dead as the Cosa Nostra.

Without warning, I reeled back and threw another punch at Andretti. His cheek crumpled under my heavy fist, the bones crumbling.

“Fermo!” he groaned, head lolling.

“I’ll stop when you tell us what I want to hear,” I offered reasonably as I wiped his blood off on his equally dirty shirt.

“It’s true,” he whimpered softly through his split lips. “They paid us to hit Otto’s. Agostino and Gideone. It was the first step.”

“And the second?” I pressed, flipping a knife out of my sleeve to scrape the blood out from under my nails.

His eyes darted madly between the knife and my face, then over to Accardi and Belcante. “They were gonna kill you and go for the others.”

“How?” Santo demanded, stepping forward until he was at my side, looming over him. “You tell me how, or I’ll use Salvatore’s knife to skin you alive.”

“They were gonna blow up your deal with The Fallen MC,” he panted, bloody spittle drooling down his chin. “Apparently, they got an in with the New York chapter.”

Santo cursed savagely.

“And the Accardi family?” Caelian drawled from behind us as he began to saunter forward, lighting a cigarette.

Carter went quiet.

Caelian sighed, took a drag of tobacco, and then leaned over to blow it out in Carter’s face. “You have one chance to tell me.”

The sharp, acrid scent of urine perfumed the space as Carter pissed his pants, the heavy steam dripping from the chair he was tied to.

Still, though, he didn’t talk.

He was a decent foot soldier.

But no match for three furious capos.

Caelian shrugged almost casually, then reached forward to grasp Carter’s face in one hand while he put the cigarette out with the other…straight on the inner corner of the di Carlo soldier’s eye.

His scream echoed throughout the cavernous space.

“He was gonna take Ravenna,” Carter shouted, neck straining as he fought his bonds. “Take her and rape her and marry her.”

Anger rolled through Caelian, and for the first time since I’d known the bastard, he looked every inch the ruthless mafia don his father was.

“I’ve heard enough,” he decided, looking over his shoulder at me. “What are you suggesting, Salvatore? I imagine you have a plan.”

I grinned at them both. “I do.”

After they’d left, I’d let my inner crew into the sanctum and given Adriano a crack at Carter to make sure there wasn’t any information I might have missed. I was pleased. The shit show my life had become in the past year was slowly beginning to untangle itself.

I had a plan for the di Carlos.

A plan for the Irish fuckers.

And a plan for Elena, even if she didn’t know it yet.

“How could you trust thosebastardi?” Jacopo muttered from over my shoulder as I surveyed the trunks of weapons we kept stored in one corner of the abandoned station.