Page 12 of Intrigue (Dark Syndicate #4)

Alessandro

I wait in the rank alleyway, trash cans overflowing beside me.

Angelo emerges from the shadows, his footsteps splashing through puddles.

I lean against a damp brick wall, one boot kicked up, arms crossed over my chest, watching Angelo light a cigarette with shaking hands when he stops.

He’s nervous. Good. That means he’ll listen.

“This better be worth my time, Vescovi.” He adjusts his collar, keeping distance between us.

“Twenty grand to stir up trouble with your Moretti friends.” I pull out my own cigarette, lighting it with steady fingers. “Make it look good.”

He takes a slow drag, exhaling smoke through his nose. He looks me over, sizing up whether I’m playing him. He should know better. I don’t play.

Angelo’s lips twist. “You want me to set up an attack on your own shipment? What’s your angle?”

“My angle is money in your pocket.” I blow my own smoke towards his face. “Unless you’d rather explain to Moretti how you’ve been feeding me information for months?”

His shoulders stiffen. “You’re a bastard, Vescovi.”

“And you’re running out of time to choose sides.” I toss him a thick envelope. “Stir the pot. I’ll clean it up.”

“The Don trusts you.” Angelo thumbs through the cash. “Does this have anything to do with his daughter coming back?”

I pin him with a look that makes him step back. “Set it up. Tonight. South docks.”

“Your funeral.”

“Make sure they hit the shipment hard,” I say. “Messy. Loud. Make it look real.”

He pockets the money, glancing toward the mouth of the alley like someone might be listening before melting into the shadows.

Moretti’s crew has been circling me for months, waiting for me to turn against the Don. They don’t know I’m going to use them first.

Angelo swallows, nods once. He’ll do it. He wants the cash, and he knows I’ll gut him if he screws me over.

The plan unfolds exactly as intended. Three hours later, I’m directing the unloading when shouts erupt. Gunfire peppers the shipping containers. I dive behind a crate, drawing my piece.

Five Moretti soldiers emerge, faces covered.

Then, the first shot rings out.

I spin, ducking behind a stack of crates as bullets tear through the air. The Moretti crew swarms in from the shadows, knives flashing, boots pounding. It’s chaos—just the way I planned it.

I take the first one out with a bullet to the gut, the second with a blade to the throat.

Blood sprays hot against my arm. A knife glances off my ribs, cutting deep.

I let out a sharp breath, shoving my attacker back, my own blade driving into his chest. He gurgles, eyes wide, before collapsing at my feet.

Pain burns through my side, but I don’t have time to feel it. Moretti’s men scatter as my crew retaliates, gunfire echoing against the metal containers. I stagger back, pressing a hand to my wound. Blood seeps through my fingers, soaking my shirt, but the wound isn’t fatal. Perfect.

I let the chaos cover my escape, slipping into the shadows. The remaining three retreat, leaving their dead. Let them think they got me. Let the Don believe the threat is real. And let Selene see what she does to me.

***

Her apartment is in a quiet neighborhood, warm light spilling from the windows, the scent of something sweet lingering in the air. The kind of life I don’t belong in. I shouldn’t be here. But my feet move anyway, my vision blurring as I try to make sense of my surroundings.

“Goddammit!” I crash into something in the kitchen and let out a sharp yelp.

I press a hand to my side as I straighten and take in the décor.

Her house is spacious but it’s the kitchen I’m most awed by.

Everything has been painted a vibrant shade of green and white, like nature spit into the architecture.

Mostly, I think it’s the pain rocking through my body that keeps me wide awake and assessing.

I glance at the watch on my wrist and groan at the time. Almost midnight. Just great!

Now, I’m going to have to explain what I’m doing at Selene’s place so late into the night without sounding obsessive.

I stumble forward and crash again into a chair. It scrapes in the silence and maybe I’d have cared more about it if not for the second bout of pain running up from my stomach to my chest. Fuck, I’m bleeding out for real. I need help.

“I’m armed.”

I’m shocked that I don’t hear the footsteps until it’s too late but even then, I’m relieved to hear Selene’s voice through the blood and pain.

“And I have a surprisingly great hold on guns. If you move, you’re going to be doing so with a bullet in the back of your head.”

Despite the pain, I find it funny and badass. “If you put a bullet in the back of my head, then I wouldn’t be able to move in the end. Be kind, love.”

It takes her a second or two to respond but when she does, her voice is a strangled whisper. “Sandro? Is that you?”

I turn around slowly, hands up in the air, and step out of the shadows. “Hey, Selene.”

She gasps again, louder this time, before pressing her right hand to her chest and hitting softly. “Jesus Christ, Sandro. What are you doing at my house at midnight?”

“Bleeding I thought that was obvious,” I mutter and take off my jacket. “Sorry about your floor. I think I’ve got blood all over. I’m dying, princess, don’t look so angry.”

“I’m not a doctor,” she says but as the light fawns across her pale features, I note the concern in her eyes. “And we hate each other. Why would you even think to come over right now? It’s stupid.”

“Maybe I’m stupid in love with you?”

“If you still have time to be smug and flirty, then maybe you aren’t close to death.”

I let out a sharp groan again and fold into myself for a moment. When I straighten again, she’s closed the kitchen door and is now close enough to touch me.

“What the hell happened to you?”

“Just a regular…hmm…fucking…day,” I pant just before she reaches over to take my hand in hers. “I’m sure the cut isn’t deep but it hurts as hell and I’m bleeding out like a goddamn—”

“Cassian is here in the shower, so you better keep your voice down.” She’s stern in the way she says this so I snap out of it and swallow down the pain as best as I can.

To be honest, I don’t know why I came here either.

All I know for sure is that I’d been consumed with the grave need to be by her side.

“Come here, take a seat. We need to get the bleeding under control.”

She hurries to a cupboard, opens it and brings out her first aid box.

I take a seat on a stool by the island and watch her.

Even at midnight, Selene oozes sex. She’s dressed in a blue, silky nightdress that falls just over her thighs.

I can see the long stretch of legs and creamy skin.

I can see the curves of her hips and that perfect, rounded ass.

I can almost taste her, a fact that has me freefalling into a daydream where she’s still mine and there’s not a chance in the whole fucking world she’s ever going to look at someone else.

Then she turns and tosses me a clean towel. “Keep that pressed on the wound. Hold it firmly there. We can’t have you bleeding out here.”

I press the towel to the cut and hold. The pain slices through me again and I groan, loudly, head bent low. She puts the box on the island and hurries to stand in front of me.

“Let’s see the cut, Sandro.”

I take off the towel and lean back so she can assess it. Her eyes widen when she does. “What the hell happened? This is bad.”

“I’ve had worse happen.”

“You’re gonna get yourself killed at this rate.”

I shake my head at her, a smile tugging at the corners of my mouth. “What? Don’t tell me you’re starting to care for me.”

She hits my shoulder and I groan, playfully but then wince once I start to feel lightheaded. “You’re lucky I took some courses.”

“Are they going to be enough to save me, huh, doc?”

She sneers. “Don’t be so dramatic. You should have asked that question before you broke into my house with my fiancé in the next room. If he finds you here, you’re gonna be dead for sure.”

“Then, we’ll just have to be careful, right?”

“Tell that to yourself, ass.” She scrubs her hands in the kitchen sink before taking a pair of gloves from the cabinet.

“You really got to be so serious?” I ask, not sure I’m going to be awake much longer.

“They’re rubber gloves and cheap but they’re the best you’ve got right now.” She takes a chair next to where I am and slumps down with a sigh. “Besides, I’m not going to risk you getting an infection in the middle of my kitchen.”

Usually I’d drop some retort but I don’t. When she tugs my shirt upward to get a better view, I hiss out a curse. “You’re killing me here, baby.”

“Don’t distract me, Sandro. I’m sure you don’t want to die right here like this.”

I shut my eyes for a second and almost forget to peel them open. “Ah, wouldn’t it be nice? Dying in your arms would be so fucking worthwhile, Selene.”

She uses gauze to clean off the blood around the cut and I wince, biting down to avoid screaming out. “I don’t have a local anaesthesia here and you’d need one if you’re gonna want this cut stitched—”

“Stitch it!” I growl.

“What? No way. It’s going to hurt like hell. I’m going to be sewing you up—”

“Just do it.”

“Fine!”

She starts the sewing almost immediately and even though I know she’s upset, her hands are careful, the stitches neat. A few minutes of that and she finally looks up at me with a satisfied smile. “You didn’t die, so you can quit being dramatic.”

“It got you to do this for me, didn’t it?”

She slaps a bandage over the stitches and stands to clear the space. With everything back where they should be, she tears off the gloves, stuffs them in the kitchen bin and washes off her hands under the faucet a second time.

“Next time, you won’t be so lucky, Sandro.”