Page 5 of Fixate (Devious Mafia Daddies #2)

Ricardo

As it turned out, Stasia couldn’t mobilize the men as fast as we’d hoped. We had a much smaller force with us when it came time to infiltrate Romano’s place.

It was difficult being in the same space as them.

While I knew Dante trusted them to help us with this mission, I had a strange feeling when it came to Pharrell’s wife.

Something about her didn’t sit right with me.

For someone who was so tough and strong, she came across as distracted and far too eager in the moment.

I almost told the team to stop, but pointing fingers without any evidence wouldn’t help us. Besides, we had to provide a united front if we were going to take down this man once and for all.

No more puppet strings.

No more outlandish demands.

We’d be free after this was over. Well, as free as one got when they inherited a mafia organization.

Dante would have to step into the role he was born to lead. Meanwhile, I’d have to figure out what that meant for me. With Preacher in the picture, I couldn’t see myself being his second-in-command anymore. And really, I wasn’t sure if it was the right fit for me.

I’d been questioning a lot of things as of late.

Once we breached the perimeter, we split up to move through the compound. Dante and Preacher were headed straight to the elder Romano, while the rest of us were to take out the guards. We needed to clean up the place as much as possible to prevent anyone from coming upon them during the attack.

To add to the chaos, we had more than one organization here since Yamamoto was coming to avenge his wife as well. Couldn’t blame the guy after all the ways Romano fucked him over.

Thanks to the comms Memphis had us wearing, we could hear everything going on between Dante and his father as we worked through taking down the rest of the men we could find.

It was only as we finished up that I realized someone vital was missing.

“Where’s your wife?” I asked Pharrell.

He frowned as he searched the space around us. “She was just here…”

I took off further down the hall, curious to know where she could have disappeared to. Had someone snatched her up and we missed it? Pharrell would never forgive us if something happened to her.

It might even be the thing to start a war if it wound up being our fault.

Panic began to build the deeper I went without finding her. Pharrell was right on my heels, his gun ready to take on anyone who wasn’t his spouse as we looked high and low for any sign of her.

It was only as her voice echoed in my ear that I realized she was ok.

We both breathed a sigh of relief. It turned into shock at the words she said next.

“Drop it,” she bit out to whoever she was facing.

Preacher replied, “Not happening. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

I recognized Dante’s father’s voice as he spoke next. “You both look confused, so I’ll help paint the picture.”

“Stasia?” Dante’s voice was broken, like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

One glance at Pharrell showed his confusion too.

The only person who wasn’t startled by this revelation was me. I knew something was off with her. I would have never suspected a double cross though. Not from a woman people have said to be so smart.

As we listened, I motioned for Pharrell to follow me. It was tough to look at him while he heard the vile words spewing from the woman he trusted and the man she was having an affair with. A man he’d come to help kill.

Thankfully, Memphis jumped in to let us know he’d interfered a bit. “Alight fuckers, listen up. I cut that bitch Stasia’s line so she can’t hear me. Since she’s fucking Romano, we can’t let her know anything new.”

We could hear the sounds of smacking lips. Without being there, I could only imagine the horrible vision the pair of them made as they tried to prove a point about their adultery benefiting them in some way.

Idiots.

They had no clue the wrath that was headed their way.

“Yamamoto, you need to fucking move it. Your window of time is slipping. Preacher is two minutes away from ending the venom being spewed at Dante with a bullet to Romano’s head.

Pharrell, your wife is a cunt, and she’s going to die.

Sorry, not sorry. Deal with your emotions how you need to before moving to the office.

Ricardo, cover Pharrell as you both make your way there.

His head probably won’t be on straight after hearing that spiel of hers.

Let’s fucking move people. I’m getting hangry. ”

Memphis made his feelings very clear with his tirade. I wanted to laugh as much as I wanted to cringe on behalf of the man beside me.

Pharrell replied right away. “Make sure to record this, Memphis. I don’t want her fucking family coming after me for her death.”

Oh, he was angry. That much I knew.

The hard set of his jaw. The way his eyes had gone cold.

Stasia’s minutes were numbered. Whether she knew it or not, she’d fucked up big time.

“Already on it, Boss. You’ll have this shit in 4k with surround sound if you want.”

I made a mental note of Memphis’s tech skills. He’s someone I want to keep in touch with should I ever need a favor.

We rounded the corner to the main hall that connected to Romano’s office. We could hear the raised voices, both through the comms and from the echo in the hallway.

Yamamoto, who’d jumped in the fray to help us, took off in a sprint. Pharrell and I sped up to follow right as a gunshot went off.

“I fucking killed her, just like I’d love to do to you. But that honor belongs to someone else,” Preacher said in a bitter tone.

“That would be me,” Yamamoto declared as he burst into the room. We were only seconds behind him.

The next few seconds would live forever in my memory. The Yakuza leader took out his blade and carved into Romano as if he were crafting artwork. It was bloody and beautiful in a way I’d never witnessed.

As I watched, I felt an odd sense of need. Like I was supposed to be doing something but had forgotten.

That’s when I remembered what we heard right before entering the room. I looked down to see Stasia’s body sprawled across the floor, her eyes wide and vacant.

“Come, Pharrell,” I encouraged.

He didn’t move at my demanding tone. Instead, he kept his eyes on the woman who’d betrayed him. The woman who’d betrayed us all.

Then all at once, he was a different person. His face went blank as he said, “Let’s leave Yamamoto to his work while we begin cleaning. Unless, of course, you’d like to burn this place to the ground.”

What happened next was a discussion over what Dante wanted to do with the house he’d grown up in. As the heir, it was his right to either clean things up or let it all go.

I kind of hoped he’d do the second option because I couldn’t imagine a single good thing coming out of the Romano compound aside from the men in this room.

It was eventually decided that we’d clean everything up and go from there. Pharrell and I got paired together for body dumping duty.

An empty moving van got loaded down with all the bodies we could find, each wrapped up in carpets and other fabrics to make transport as simple as possible.

As I drove, I kept stealing glances at Pharrell. There was a cloud of darkness over him that hadn’t been there before Stasia’s betrayal. I hated the way it made him look now.

I wanted to make things better, but I didn’t know how.

“What happens for you now?” I blurted out when we were about halfway to the pig farm.

Pharrell turned my way, his gaze vacant. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, what happens now that you’re a widower? Will they let you stay that way, or do you have to marry someone else? Is it going to be ok to show them the recordings Memphis got as proof?”

He sighed, then scrubbed a hand over his face.

“Honestly, I have no fucking clue. Her family is full of hotheads. I have a feeling it won’t be so simple. As for the marriage, it was an alliance between families and nothing more. With her backstabbing ways, I have no desire to hitch myself to another person — now or ever.”

“Ever? That’s a long time,” I mused aloud.

His gaze remained on the side of my face, though he didn’t speak. It was like he just wanted to watch me as I drove us to our destination.

While part of me enjoyed the attention, I knew it was weird to want his eyes on me like this. The man just suffered from a terrible experience where he had to listen to his wife be murdered after she set him and the men he worked with up to die.

Like, now is not the time Ricardo.

Besides, what did I need his attention for? It wasn’t like anything romantic was going to happen between us. I was straight. Super straight.

The straightest of straight.