Page 54 of My Solemn Vow (The Mafia Arrangement #1)

VALOR

THE VISITOR IN THE NIGHT

My suspicions are heightened, and I grab the gun from the lockbox under the entry table’s decorative lip as I approach the front door.

But through the weather stripping, I get the scent of a trusted member of the pack and lower the weapon to my side.

“Good evening, Father.” I open the door for the clergyman, not wide enough to let him in but polite enough to talk.

“No one could get ahold of you, so they sent me. We’re reading someone their last rites.” He speaks mostly in code.

News of the shooting, and we don’t want to talk over the phone.

Stepping back, I invite him into the house. Antonella’s breathing gives away that she’s still at the top of the stairs, but the good priest is human and won’t notice.

“Your new wife is awake?” Father Michael asks, looking up to the staircase.

I shrug. “I had tied her to the bed, and we were about to copulate when you knocked.”

His eyes go wide.

Serves him right for asking about our mate, my wolf huffs as I lead him to the heart of the home .

“We have a problem. And I do have to say it sounds like quite the conundrum.” He stands at the counter, practically stick straight.

“Can I offer you a cup of coffee?” It’s polite, but I hope this conversation won’t last that long.

“For the road, perhaps.” He nods with a thought. “They pulled the bullets out of your SUV, and I don’t have any good news.”

“Well. They’re bullets, embedded in my SUV. I wasn’t anticipating good news.” I turn on the coffee pot and begin measuring out the grounds.

Father pauses, and it gets me to turn to look at him rather than the coffee pot.

He tosses his head in the direction of the stairs. “They’re ones we recently sold.”

“To who?” I ask, not wanting it to be true and needing him to say it.

“They’re the ones Gregorio wanted as part of the negotiations,” Father whispers.

“You can’t be serious that they violated the truce already.” It doesn’t make sense.

“Well, the evidence is circumstantial. It could be that they sold them. They recently seemed to solidify their relationship with the Russians. A daughter of the brother married to the next Pakhan,” Father Michael huffs.

I go back to making his coffee. That information was discussed at dinner when Leticia updated Antonella on everything back at home. Their cousin, Sarena, was married off to the man Gregorio intended for Antonella.

Kill him for proposing to Antonella, my wolf suggests.

We have no claim to hurt him. She wasn’t ours yet.

I remind him of the same conclusion I forced myself to come to at dinner.

The realization I could have been married to an eighteen-year-old for the truce chills me.

I don’t mind the single-year difference between me and Antonella, but ten years?

She’d be right between me and Kerrianne in age.

“You know this information?” Father Michael startles me, standing next to me. I’d frozen thinking that through, and he takes over making coffee. “You’re clearly too tired to make coffee.”

With a sidestep out of his way, I lean my hip against the counter so I’m facing him, arms crossed, not caring that it’s a defensive maneuver.

“Antonella’s cousin, Sarena, was married off to him.

It was organized before the existence of the truce.

If it was the Russians, and it was a deal struck before the truce, I don’t know what that would mean. Are we sure that would be a breach?”

“Using our own bullets against us?” Father Michael implies heavily that he thinks it should be considered.

“What bothers me, though, is that it’s not a Russian-style attack.” I tilt my head back and forth. “Though... our friend Marc did say that the Yakuza were interested in our business.”

Father Michael is already shaking his head before I finish my thought. “No, Gregorio pissed off the leader of this area. Badly. I think there was a game of poker or something that went bad. It wouldn’t be the Yakuza.”

“We have plenty of enemies Gregorio could have sold that ammunition to. If selling it to someone who uses it against us isn’t a violation of the truce, then this isn’t as big of a deal as we’re making it.

I don’t like it any more than you do, but there are rules in place, even if they weren’t negotiated well. ”

I dislike it. I dislike it very much, but I wasn’t part of the negotiations, and every time I think of that... I feel myself getting more wound up.

“Your father is reaching out to the arbiters since this time of night is the best time to contact them.”

Father Michael’s coffee is pooling in the pot. I cross the kitchen and grab one of the composting travel cups that Winnie insists are better for the environment, since I can’t seem to keep track of reusable ones, and bring it to him.

He pours a cup and asks, “Sugar?”

“Brown or white?” I ask, headed to the pantry.

“White. You young people and your coffee, making it too fancy.” Father Michael scoffs.

When I come back with the container and a spoon for him, he mixes his drink before looking at me with a distinctive set to his mouth and pitying eyes.

“Neil is adamant that it was your new bride who gave them the information about your whereabouts.”

“If Antonella informed them of my whereabouts and the D’Medicis are trying to strike the pack where it hurts, wouldn’t they have waited until I had Kerrianne in the vehicle?

Take out an entire path to succession? It would move to Royal then rather than him caring for the pack until she’s of age.

It’s the easiest path to take.” I question the logic of it.

I know I should be rebutting against Dad and Neil directly, but the man of God is here, and it’s the best I can do.

Father Michael bobbles his head, considering it before attempting to draw a sip of too-hot coffee. He stops himself before burning his mouth. “That’s a very good point.”

“What bothers me about the day the truce was called is one thing I don’t have eyes on.” I add the suspicion I haven’t spoken before. “We’re believing that Berto D’Medici managed to take down a fully trained, highly armed wolf?”

“Well.” Father Michael pauses and furrows his brow. “Was there proof he acted alone? Perhaps if there were several of them or he got the drop on Sean somehow.”

“It may be nothing, but it’s been bothering me. I watched the footage from Kerrianne’s school. Antonella isn’t half assed in her defense of Kerrianne. It didn’t seem scripted in the slightest.” I defend her outright, but the longer it sits in my brain... the more uncertainty brews.

Could she have called the truce and regretted it ?

“Kerrianne has nearly fourteen years before she can rule. That’s plenty of opportunities to take her out of the running.

Maybe the D’Medicis have a greater plan we don’t know about, and even if Antonella acted on her own and called the truce, we all know women can be softer for children.

She called the truce against her family’s wishes and, as a result, is paying atonement by feeding them information on your movements.

” Father Michael voices what feels so unlikely to me.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. It is possible. I don’t like it, but it is possible.

This evening has turned from fun and lighthearted to a chaotic nightmare of what-ifs that come with an infinite number of conclusions.

“It may be that only God knows. Stay sharp until we can learn more.” Father Michael heads toward the door.

I follow him, showing him out before locking up behind him.

Mind reeling, I head upstairs. Antonella isn’t at the top of the staircase. But I find her pulling back the covers on the bed.