Page 6

6

OBI

C iel looked terrible. His eyes were sunken and red-rimmed. His leg bounced uncontrollably as we all sat in the living room. Both he and Leona looked like they were about to burst out of their skins.

I took a deep, steadying breath. In this moment, we needed leadership.

The club explosion was a complete failure. Not only due to Leona’s temper but also due to my own errors. I let my emotion cloud my judgment, change my focus away from the danger at hand, and Volpe had almost succeeded.

No more.

I was the leader of the Shadows. I needed to remain in control—of myself and of us—for our partnership to succeed.

I rested my elbows on my knees. “Ciel, where have you found Volpe?”

He exhaled a heavy breath, looking at Leona. “You’re not going to like this, but he’s with the Tommasos.”

Don Vincenzo Tommaso. The only other Italian Family that could rival the Vero Family. The Veros and the Tommasos had been jostling control of the Five Families back and forth for over a generation.

She jerked back in surprise, glancing to Caspian. “Don Vincenzo? Why?”

Why, indeed. My conversation with Leona the other night—about her father having help in high places in order to have been trafficking and stealing drugs for so long—flashed through my mind. Her eyes slid my way, and I knew she had the same thought.

“I don’t remember Max being particularly close to Vincenzo,” Caspian responded, frowning. “But we do know that the other Dons approved the coup. Maybe they knew what Luciano was doing, too.”

I did believe they knew what he was doing, but it seemed unlikely that none of them were also involved. What Luciano was doing was far too lucrative for them to turn away.

“But he could have gone anywhere,” Leona said, confusion etched on her face. “Back to the casinos, to his own house, to mine . Hell, he could have stayed underground forever, especially now that he knows we’ve teamed up against him. But why’d he go to Don Vincenzo?”

Leona had said that Tommaso and her father were close. When I’d snuck into her birthday party, I’d seen her dancing and celebrating with Tommaso’s daughter, Chiara. Leona had spoken about how the two of them were best friends on more than one occasion.

There was something deeper going on here. We had to find out what before Volpe got the upper hand. Prior to the club explosion, I had believed us to be on even playing fields. But now, we were fighting an uphill battle—one that I did not intend to lose.

“Ciel, what exactly did you see?” I asked. We could postulate forever, but we needed information, and a plan. “Do we have footage? Access to the security? What are we working with?”

Ciel glanced at Leona. “I took your advice, and I looked where he might eventually show up. I cross-referenced it with all the other data I could find from our previous camera feeds and GPS tracking. There was increased movement within Tommaso territory. It was a hunch that he might have run to some of the other Heads, so I tapped into their security feeds. The software pinged him immediately.”

“You have a lock on him? Right now, you can see him there?” she asked, excitement lifting the tenor of her voice.

He shook his head no before he looked at the rest of us. His jaw clenched before he looked down. “There’s more. Someon—Someone is covering Volpe’s trail.”

“What do you mean?” Wynn asked, leaning forward.

“The reason it took so long to find him was because someone wiped all the feeds within a significant radius of the club. Completely inaccessible, even to me.” Ciel sank deeper into the couch cushions, his leg bouncing faster. “As soon as I got into Tommaso’s system, someone kicked me out. It’s clear Volpe has a hacker on his side—and they’re good, too. The feed I connected to went dark, and then Tommaso’s entire system went down. I’m locked out. If we could get a phone or something inside the compound, I might be able to bust my way through, but—” He swallowed, his throat working. After a moment, he shrugged. “I stopped for now.”

“Well, fuck,” Ryuji said from his place next to me. He spun his phone around in his lap. “Never thought someone could be better than Ciel.”

Ciel’s eyes went hard, his fingers clenching into the fabric of his jeans. “Nobody is fucking better than me. Two steps ahead, maybe, but not better.”

Ryuji opened his mouth to retort, but I raised a hand. “Ryu, that’s enough.” Ciel was a skilled and valued member of our team—everyone knew that, including Ryu. I looked back at Leona and Caspian. “Do you have any idea who could be working with Volpe?”

She bit her lip and shook her head. “I don’t know anyone from my father’s organization that might be able to stand up to Ciel. Most of the men I knew were aging capos who could barely operate their smartphones, let alone be prepared to hack into city security feeds faster than Ciel could and then shut him down.”

Caspian rubbed his chin. “I can’t think of anyone, even in the younger generation of up-and-coming guys, that could be that good. But Max spent a fair amount of time in Italy over the last two years. I stayed back to protect Leona. Maybe he found someone there.”

Hmm. Volpe may have brought in someone from outside.

In my younger years, after I’d left Nigeria, I’d gone to the mafia in Italy. I had even lived in Campania while I trained there. I clasped my hands together. “I might be able to find out. I have some contacts with the Camorra. If one of their people is helping Volpe, they would know.”

Leona’s eyes widened. “You know the Camorra?”

I nodded. The Camorra was one of the most powerful and oldest criminal organizations in Italy. Leona’s own family branched off from them before they moved to New York generations ago. “I worked with them closely for a few years before I formed the Shadows with Ryuji.”

All my brothers stared at me, surprise evident on their faces.

When the Camorra had invited me to learn beneath them, I’d jumped at the chance. I had originally been unsure about leaving my family, but after my sister’s reaction to me…I’d had no choice.

“Regardless,” I continued, hopeful to move the conversation along. Revisiting the past was unnecessary. Only pain lay there. “They are skilled in credit card fraud. They may have produced a hacker with elite capabilities.”

My brothers knew where I came from, and some of how I became the person I am today, but I’ve kept much of my history to myself. Even Ryuji barely knew about the time I spent with the Italians, and for now, I would prefer to keep it that way. When it became relevant, I would make them aware of my desire to undermine the Italian empire and replace it with our own.

But only when it became relevant.

“Does it matter?” Wynn asked, one leg resting over the other. “We know where he is and who he is with.”

“It fucking matters,” breathed Ciel.

“So we go after him?” Leona asked a moment later. “We know where he is. Let’s go finish him.”

“You’re the best assassins in the world,” Caspian added. “Be assassins.”

“I’ve been to the Tommaso estate plenty of times. I know the ins and outs. Now that we know he’s there, we can kill him.”

An awkward silence fell over the group. Each of my brothers looked at me.

“So?” Leona continued, eyes flicking between me, and the rest of them. “What are we waiting for?”

I inhaled deeply. “I think it is fair to say we all vastly underestimated Volpe.”

“It won’t happen again.” Leona’s words sliced through the air as she stared at me.

I had always been the leader of the Shadows, and my brothers had, for the most part, deferred to my ultimate decision-making. But as Leona stared at me from across the room, a defiant glint in her eye, I felt a glimpse of a challenge. It was the same she’d had in the van during our trip home after the explosion.

I wanted her to be our queen. I wanted her to grow into her own power, so that we could acquire everything we’d dreamed of, together. We could rule New York and create a new future for our families.

But she was not ready. Leona may be brilliant, but her inexperience nearly got her killed. She needed guidance, a mentor to teach her how to exist in this world. In the meantime, I would remain in control.

Everything I did in my past was to become strong so I could keep the people I love safe. My siblings and my hometown were, for now. But I had only achieved that because I made choices separate from my own desires to gain the power I needed. That meant thinking with my head.

“It will not.” I picked my words carefully. “Which is why it is important to take our time assessing the proper course of action to remove Volpe as a threat. We mustn’t rush.”

“It’s not rushing ,” she countered. “It’s finishing the job. Get in, get out. Dead.”

Ryuji stood and poured himself a glass of scotch from the wet bar. “Look, I’m all for a nice dose of revenge, but he got the drop on us once. He’s smarter than you gave him credit for.”

“Fuck off,” Caspian said snidely.

“I’m just speaking the truth,” Ryuji snapped back, one finger pointing over the rim of his glass. “You came to us for a reason, and that was because you couldn’t take him out by yourself. He knows what he’s doing, but so do we. We should wait until he’s least expecting it, and then I’ll slip into his bedroom and slit his throat while he sleeps.”

“And how long will that be?” Caspian replied, shifting on the couch. “When he’s fucking sixty years old?”

“When we are properly prepared for this job,” I answered for Ryuji before the argument between the two of them took a turn for the worse. “Leona, he may not even stay at Tommaso’s for long. He could already be gone. Additionally, we do not want to make enemies where they are not warranted.”

Despite how he might be involved with Volpe, Tommaso could be a player we could use. We needed to choose our moves carefully. Her mouth pursed as she weighed what I said.

“Wynn?” she asked, looking at my youngest brother sitting beside her. “What do you think?”

Wynn brushed a hand over her knee. “I think the longer we wait, the more difficult it will become. I agree we should make plans to take out Volpe immediately.”

Leona’s eyebrows raised, and she nodded, as if to say duh.

“No surprise Wynn agreed with her. Whipped,” Ryuji sniggered. At that, voices from Wynn, Leona, and Cas broke out to respond.

“Volpe has been busy himself,” I said, raising my voice to reestablish control over this discussion. It silenced the grumbling. “He has been talking, spreading dissent, through the underground channels. I have already received multiple contacts asking if our partnership is true and whether we are officially off the contract market.”

Ryuji frowned and glanced out the window, no doubt unhappy about his revenue streams being impacted.

We had expected this. We knew the organizations we previously served would not be pleased, and we needed to be prepared to deal with that.

“What did you say to them?” she asked.

“I have confirmed our partnership, though it is to be determined whether we still take contracts. Or whether any will be submitted to us, with the forming of our new syndicate.” I rested my arm against the back cushion, crossing my feet at the ankles. “Volpe is heavily implying that we will present a threat to the underworld, and we must be dealt with.”

He had spread rumors that if we grew in power, we would turn on those we once served. He wasn’t exactly wrong, at least where I was concerned. But nobody else needed to worry about that until we had the power to actually be a threat. Other moves needed to happen first.

“A threat to him,” Caspian said. “He’s a coward.”

“Max will never let up,” Leona said. “He will never let his guard down. Until I am dead, he won’t stop. He will have to kill me after we made such a big commotion at the club, with both the Russians and the Irish.”

“That will not happen,” Wynn interjected.

“As I told you before, Leona, you will be safe,” I responded. My heart rate spiked at the thought of her coming to harm. “Every man in this room will make sure of it.”

We’d claimed her, and we’d stand behind that claim. She was ours. We protected what was ours.

My feelings were nothing more than compassion and care. We were a team. We needed to protect one another, or we would fail.

“Then we can’t afford to let him run around. We have to go after him again,” she said. “If he’s at the Tommaso’s, I think we should strike quickly. I think we should use your skills and take him out before he has more time to turn the world, including other worldwide communities, against us. It’s six against one. We can take him.”

It was the six of us against two entire criminal organizations—the vast Vero Family he still controlled, and the unknown Tommaso Family. They had manpower we did not. They had defenses we had to break through.

I looked to Ciel, who still quietly observed the conversation. “Is it possible?”

“Yes,” he said, understanding the meaning behind my question. “Of course it is. We’ve broken through worse.”

We had infiltrated secure government buildings and assassinated world leaders before. But Volpe knew specifically that we were coming, and I could not ignore the feeling that this was a trap. If this was a trap, there had to be a target. That target was most likely the highest-priority person in this room.

We could wait and potentially lose track of Volpe. The longer we waited to finish him, the more time he had to secure allies against us—and the more he could fearmonger the stronger organizations across the world against us.

Or we could turn our efforts to assassination, yet unaware of the cards he may hold up his sleeves. The faster we could eliminate Volpe, the faster our new syndicate could grow.

They all looked at me as I weighed the risks.

“We will plan to take Volpe out as soon as possible,” I began. An audible sigh of what felt like relief passed through the group. The strategy of how we might execute such an assassination began to take shape in my head. “Leona.”

“What?”

“You will be unhappy with this, but if this is our plan, you must not be involved.”

She jumped to her feet, surprise raising her eyebrows. “What?”

“It’s safer for you to stay here,” I amended. Her eyes went hard, and it twisted something inside my chest to see her anger directed at me, but Volpe was planning something, and he would go after her first. “Let us do our jobs and finish this once and for all.”

“No,” she said with the shake of her head. “Absolutely the fuck not. I’m not hiding here. I’m part of this. Part of us .”

I stared, unmoving as a statue, while I waited for her to process the order. Ryuji’s eyes flicked between us. Caspian reached to grab her hand, but she jerked away. Wynn rubbed his face. Everyone shifted uneasily at how Leona and I had an unspoken battle of wills. I would not budge.

“At the club,” Ciel interjected, “Volpe said if he dies, so do you. We already know he likes to set traps. He thinks he can lure you into something.”

She fumed, color blooming on her cheeks. “He’s not smarter than me. I won’t make the same mistakes.”

“It’s not about mistakes.” Wynn tried to pacify her, a hand overtop hers. “It’s about the mission with the highest likelihood to succeed.”

“What does that mean?” She pulled her hand away. “I’m a liability?”

“You’re a distraction, little vixen,” Ryuji said softly. “A beautiful one, but all the same. Trap, distraction—whatever we want to call it. It’s best that you stay here while we do what we do best.”

“The world’s best assassins can’t handle a woman existing on the same job? Unbelievable.”

I shook my head. “Volpe has his sights set on you. If you are not there, it gives us an advantage.”

And it would allow us to remain clear-headed. Focused on the task at hand.

“What about Cas?” She pointed at her bodyguard. “Max hates him, too. He’s out to get both of us.”

“Princess,” he murmured, reaching for her.

“Cas?” she asked, avoiding his touch.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry. I agree with them.”

“Fuck, no,” she said. “Wynn?”

“Darling…”

Her hands fisted at her sides as she looked at us all like we had betrayed her. While I understood her pain, this was also why I needed to remain in control—to direct us to victory. I could remain in control of my emotions—I could see the right paths to take—even if she could not.

“I am in charge of selecting which contracts we take on, and which we do not,” I said sternly. She had unlimited potential, which I wanted to cultivate. But even queens needed to learn, and to know when to defer to the knowledge of their advisors. “There are decisions that need to be made in order to secure the safety and future of our organization, even if they appear upsetting on the surface.”

“You don’t trust me,” she accused. “You don’t trust that I can handle this.”

“It’s not about trust. Regardless, I will make the final decision.”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. Slowly, she closed it, and left the room without saying another word.

In the silence of her leaving, my chest twisted . Instinctively, I pressed a palm against it.

There were realities in our world. If things were going to go according to plan, we needed to make the most strategic decisions. Without feeling. With logic and control.

So why did seeing the hurt on her face feel like a dagger to my ribs?