Page 21 of Dangerous Men

Viper laughs, slow and soft at first, letting it build until he’s practically hysterical.

“I got a name!” he squeals. Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out a voice recorder.

A guttural scream fills the room when Viper presses play on the device, and this time, even Alec flinches. Ashton swears again, voice low and nearly inaudible over the sounds of the recording. I don’t move, don’t even blink.

I’ve seen Viper’s work up close and personal so many times it doesn’t even faze me anymore.

“Please!” the man on the recording shrieks. “Oh God, please, I’ll give you anything.”

“This is the best part,” Viper assures us, smiling. His eyes are wild and black, like a shark’s. The sound of loud buzzing whirs to life on the recording, and the screaming intensifies. I shoot Viper a glare, recognizing the sound of a bone saw.

Mybone saw.

“I cleaned it. Don’t worry, Doc,” he assures me with a wink.

Idiots, every single one of them.

“Viper, is all this really necessary—” Alec begins, reachingfor the recording device. Viper just laughs, holding up a finger for him to wait.

The screaming goes on for another ten seconds. Long enough that I’m sure, this time, Ashton is going to be sick.

And then…

“DANTE!”Giovanni’s disembodied voice screams from the recording. “Oh God, he said his name was Dante. That he knows you from way back. Please, I beg you?—”

The recording stops.

“Dante!”Viper coos, throwing his arms wide in excitement. “Told you I got a name! And what a fucking name it is!”

But Alec isn’t looking at him anymore. And Ashton isn’t looking for the waste bin.

They’re both staring at me.

The symptoms of a panic attack are remarkably similar to a cardiac event. So much so that patients often confuse the two. A racing heart and tightness bordering on pain in the chest. Sweating. Numbness or tingling in the hands and arms. A sense that you are, at this very moment, about to die.

I don’t let any of it show on my face as my brothers watch me.

“He’s lying,” I hear myself in a voice completely devoid of emotion. Inside, I want to fucking scream. “Dante is dead.”

Even as I say it, a sickening voice inside me asks,But what if he’s not?

What if you fucked up?

The look on my brothers’ faces makes me wonder if they’re thinking the same thing.

“It’s a trick,” I hear myself say. “We’ve been actively encroaching on his old territory over this last year. Someone is trying to scare us away, that’s all. Trying to make us think he’s back.”

It’s smart. Something I would do. Dante was the face oforganized crime on the East Coast for decades before I put a bullet in him. He was feared. Untouchable.

The perfect phantom for someone to use if they wanted to scare us.

We had hoped that the mess we’d left Dante’s organization in had hobbled any loyalists that bastard still had. Hoped it was over. And when Alec started taking over Dante’s territory in Empire City piece by piece over the last year with no pushback, it felt like those hopes might be proven true. That we could finally reclaim the kingdom that should have been ours. Alec as the heir apparent, back to take his throne.

Turns out I’m a fucking idiot, too.

“You think this is a takeover?” Alec asks me carefully. “Someone making a play for our organization?”

I shake my head.