Page 39 of Hateful Vows

TWENTY-NINE

DANTE

T he next few weeks are bliss, spent in my wife and lover’s arms, having dinner under the shade of the trees with Lucie, my mother, our men starting to all come to the table like a dysfunctional family.

We don’t hear from Misha Petrov, and there’s no attempt on my life. It’s quiet. Too quiet.

I observe everyone seated at the table for lunch today, exchanging tales of the past. Lucie and Aleksei are absent and it feels all wrong.

My brow dips when I see Tino hunched over his phone, not participating in the conversation. He’s never one to miss an opportunity to reminisce about our shenanigans.

“Something on your mind, Tino?” I ask, doubt a heavy rock in my stomach.

Only the people around this table knew about the garden.

He straightens in his chair, turns the phone upside down on the table. “Nothing to worry about. The Manchester mogul you met at the gala is very demanding.”

“No talking shop at the dinner table, boy,” my mother quips before she insists on serving everyone yet another plate of the pasta salad Irina cooked. Everyone declines. I haven’t hired another cook yet, and my wife’s good at many things but cooking isn’t one of them.

Her phone pings with a notification.

“I’m sorry Mariella, we’ll have to cut this wonderful evening short.” Then to me, she says, “Signore Casio has just booked another flight to Ireland, dorogoy . He’ll be there tonight and stay over the weekend.”

My blood sings with the promise of retribution.

Casio has been a capo for years. He’s a quiet man, with two sons who work hard and a wife we barely see at functions.

He’s kept to himself but never raised any suspicion.

Which in itself is suspicious. Especially after what happened with Popov.

No one is that fucking clean or perfect.

He has no debts, no gambling addiction; he doesn’t smoke, he barely even drinks.

Tino and I exchange a look. My second-in-command looks like he knows something I don’t. Or maybe I’m reading into things that aren’t there. Paranoia spreads like a disease in my brain.

No one likes to kill a man who’s been nothing but loyal, but these trips make no fucking sense unless he’s playing against us.

“Prepare the jet, we leave in an hour.”

“I’m coming with you,” Irina says as she stands like she’s about to pack an overnight bag.

“Absolutely not. You’re to act like the queen that you are in my place.”

“Your men hate me. I’ll be more valuable at your side.”

“No. This is non-negotiable. Tino will come with me as my right-hand man. I’ll take five other men with us. Lorenzo, the capos trust you,” I tell my underboss. “If anything goes to shit, protect Irina.” He nods and our merry party springs into action, my mother retiring quickly to her room.

Irina follows me inside the mansion that we have turned into a HQ of sorts. She’s about to argue when I whirl around, stepping into her space until our chests touch. Holding her throat, I whisper into her ear.

“Don’t be difficult, vipera . Me giving you the key to the castle is a power play, and you know it.

If someone makes their opinion known and they disagree, kill them.

I have no use for dissidence and no patience for disobedience.

Besides, it’s just one night. You can live without me for that long, can’t you? ”

She fumes and my smile grows. It’s so easy to rile her up. She’s always so ready to fight. Which confirms it’s a good idea to leave her behind to take care of business for twenty-four hours.

My underboss knows her well, the security of this place respects her. And she’s trigger-happy, which anyone who voices their disagreement with any of my or her decisions will find out soon enough.

In just an hour, Tino, the five soldiers and I are at the airport, getting into our private jet.

“Something on your mind, fratello ?” Tino asks mid-way through the short flight to Dublin.

I let silence settle between us, zoned in on his body language but my best friend is relaxed. He doesn’t break my stare. Then, he shakes his head, chuckles and withdraws his phone from his pocket. Opening the text app, he hands it to me.

“I met someone, Dante.” My lips pull into a grimace and I take the phone, going through sweet nothings and Tino’s bad attempts at flirting. “She’s so fucking talented. She studies piano at the Royal Academy of Music. And so pretty it hurts to look at her sometimes.”

My friend blushes and I whistle low.

“Who is she?”

“Ilia’s sister.”

I bark out a laugh. “He’s gonna kill you.”

“We’ve only talked,” he retorts. Then with a whimsical look of someone falling in love, he says, “She makes me feel so… light. And a little stupid, too.”

“You’re always stupid.”

“Fuck off!”

I hand him his phone back. The exchange eases the anxiety inside my chest, but it reminds me that we’re on a goose chase, the ghost that wants me dead five steps ahead of us.

“You know it’s probably not Casio, right?” Tino asks.

“Yeah. But whatever he’s doing in Ireland, it has to stop. Moore’s not gonna tolerate an Italian coming into his territory that many times much longer.”

Speaking of the Irish mob boss, I dial his number, one I have never used before today. He answers on the first ring as though he was just waiting for my call.

“If you land in Dublin, motherfucker, you’re dead and I’ll send your corpse to your wife in little pieces.”

“I knew you were obsessed with me, Cian, but this is a lot, even for you.”

“Don’t bring your shit here, Dante. I know someone wants to kill you and I won’t put my people in danger,” he seethes.

I sober. I know how he feels. The responsibility of our title means we need to make sure we protect the people who can’t protect themselves and even if Cian and I never liked each other, we see eye to eye on this.

“One of my men has been coming to Dublin regularly for years, Cian. And I know you protected him, otherwise the bastard would be dead already,” I tell him, my voice more deadly, the threat barely hidden beneath the calm of my words.

Silence meets my declaration and I know I hit true.

When Irina first realised Casio was coming and going out of Dublin for the good part of the last three years, I only focused on the betrayal.

But Cian made a mistake by revealing he knows exactly where I am.

If he’s watching me, there’s absolutely no way that he didn’t know a man from the Cosa Nostra was entering his territory and for that man to come out alive.

“You need to be gone by ten pm this evening. Not a second later or I swear the bullet with your name on it will end in between your eyes.”

He hangs up.

The bastard knows more than he lets on. Why else would he allow me passage and not ask for anything in return? When I get my answers, we’ll be even. And I don’t like not knowing what I’m walking into.

Irina’s sharing Casio’s location in real time with a tracker on his phone. The red dot on my screen moves at a steady pace until it stops just outside of the city limits, in what looks like a quiet suburb.

The men are on high alert as we drive to Casio’s location, shoulders bunched up to their ears.

Casio’s travels started three years ago.

By then, my father and I were busy expanding our real estate business, buying people out of their cheap and decrepit flats to convert the buildings into high-profits rental spaces and commercial malls.

Casio wasn’t anywhere near the most important part of our business, focused on small protection deals in London.

“It doesn’t make sense, Tino,” I tell him.

“We’ve had feuds with every other syndicate but since our established peace with the Russians ten years ago and our move to go legal, there hasn’t been anything remotely close to assassination attempts.

And Casio… Fuck, if that man bested my father, it’s not even funny how ridiculous it’s gonna sound to our men. ”

“Did Francisco get any news?”

“No, the kids’ phones have gone silent and they’re all busy with training. Even the girls are enrolling now,” I tell him with pride. Even before Irina, I’ve always resented the way my father and his regime kept women down.

“Did you think they wouldn’t with the wife you have?”

I smile. Irina would hate being a role model. Maybe that’s why she’s gonna make such a great one.

“We’re here.”

We park in front of a small town house. The evening has set in and light filters through the windows, exposing a simple interior with a large TV on the wall and cases of books behind a black leather couch. I frown.

I didn’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t that.

The five men establish a perimeter around Tino and I as we walk the three steps that separate the street from the porch.

Their gazes are alert, screening the street and shadows.

We’re conspicuous as fuck but I don’t really care.

I want this business over with so I can be back with Aleksei and Irina as soon as possible. And Cian’s clock is ticking.

I knock heavily on the door, a cold sweat dripping down my back. Everyone by my side is tense, eyeing the street like he expects the people in this small town to jump us at any moment.

A toddler with dark locks, no older than three, opens the door. I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose.

“We’re here to see your father, can you call him?”

“Papà,” she yells, then says in Italian, “Two weird men are at the door for you.”

Casio rounds the corner and blanches when he sees us. “Don Ventura.”

His lower lip trembles and he bows. The man fucking bows.

We enter his second home and I make it quick.

There’s no reason to prolong this ridiculous trip.

I’m spitting mad, not only at Casio for leading a double life and cheating on his Italian wife, but because this is another dead-end.

I’m nowhere near finding who’s after me and who killed my father and my men are going antsy.

They want answers. I want answers. And once again, I come back empty handed.

The pressure and failure close in on me like the lid of a coffin.

“Casio, I’ll make this as painless as I can. You’re ex-communicated, and you better pray Cian Moore is as indulgent as I am. I should kill you for the slight but your records speak for you. I guess the girl is Irish?”

“We met one night and I didn’t know she was pregnant, but…”

“Listen, no offence but I don’t give a shit about your life story.

Right now, you’re keeping me from my wife and for that alone, I want to rip out your throat.

” He gulps but bows his head in submission again.

“You can never return to London nor contact your family. They will be told exactly what you did and it will be up to them to contact you, if they wish.”

“Will you… kill them?”

“ Cazzo !” I slap the back of his head like I would a rowdy teen. “Who do you think I am? I’m not about to punish your innocent wife who you’ve been cheating on for years, and your two sons, who are some of my best soldiers.”

I stand and walk out, energy buzzing inside me like a live-wire.

Tino follows me outside, scanning our surroundings like he always does. The five soldiers move around the car, opening the door.

Their protection isn’t enough.

One by one, without a sound, their bodies slump to the floor. Like hooked by an invisible line, Tino jerks, the last one to fall. I whirl and unholster my gun, ready to fire at the attacker, but see nothing moving in the shadows.

“Tino!”

I point at the empty street. Shift my focus to the roofs.

Then run to my best friend.

A pool of dark liquid seeps from underneath his still body and I fall to my knees.

I shake him. “Tino!” My cries echo in the empty street, but he can’t hear.

His open eyes stare at nothing. Even through my misty eyes, full of tears for the man I considered another brother, I can’t miss the red dot on his forehead.

I fish my phone out of my pocket, dialling Irina, but a sharp sensation at my neck has me frozen in place, thumb hovering over her name.

Then, my vision brightens to a kaleidoscope of light and nothingness.