Page 104 of Dirty Hearts

“She might not think so,” Gio added. “She saw the darkness our world could have more than once and didn’t run from you.”

Fucking Gio and his wisdom. There. That was one thing I’d never factored in. It still didn’t matter though.

“Asshole.”

He laughed when I frowned. “And you’re a fucktard,boss.Also, while we’re name-calling and being jerks, you should have just asked us straight if we were the rats. What you goin’ to do about Alex and Jude?”

“I don’t know. I’m thinking. That’s the part I hate. I don’t want to be right.”

“It’s too coincidental for you not to be right,” Dante added. “I don’t know if it’s the both of them though. That’s the part that bothers me.”

“I think it’s fucking Alex. Jude has better common sense than that. Alex is an opportunist.” Gio scowled.

“Hey,” Dante cut in before I could answer. He motioned below. “Looks like we got movement.”

I turned to see two black sedans pull up in the complex parking lot. The cars stood out against the other family-type cars like station wagons and hatchback Vauxhalls that had parked around.

I held up my binoculars to get a closer look at our new arrivals.

Dante was right. Barabbas stepped out of the back of the car. The driver, his cousin Freddo, out of the front. On the left was my dear friend Joe Manello with Cousin Corey, arm bandaged up.

On the right side of the back though was someone who made my blood freeze.

Goliath.

Goliath!

I dropped the binoculars, and my hands reached down to grab my guns on instinct like I was programmed to do that. Reach for my guns and end him.

End the fucking bastard before he could draw another breath.

I charged in motion like a bull ready for action. Ready to kill.

But hands held me back. Two very strong arms held me back.

Dante and Gio.

“Don’t fucking do it, Claudius,” Dante snarled.

“Let me go,” I growled.

Gio tightened his grip on me. “Claudius, we are vastly outnumbered. Look.”

I’d been looking, but all I could see was Goliath with that smug expression on his face. Dressed in one of those hooded coats with fur around the collar and a mohawk lining the middle of his big head. Tall as fuck.

With my eyes on him and my soul telling me to end him because it had been my mission for so long, what I didn’t see was the envoy of sedans that had pulled up. Ten more cars, and out of them stepped some of the worst people I knew of.

More Antonellas, Manellos, and fuck, even a few Salvatores.

Those were people above me.

I owned Chicago, but next to them, I was a small fish flapping against an ocean of sharks.

It was them and their bodyguards. Men who looked like my Four, just more of them.

I didn’t care. I wanted Goliath.

“Claudius, they will end you before you get a bullet in his head. One of him amongst a sea of mobsters. And we just have our guns. We’re not prepared.”