Page 27

26

KILIAN

I crack my knuckles as I pull up to the Renzetti estate and throw my rental in park. This could be the biggest mistake of my life. But this is something I have to do. For The Partners. For Bella.

Guns are drawn as I step out of the vehicle. I hold my hands up in the air as one of the guards walks toward me to pat me down.

“He’s clean,” the man says as the gates open. He grabs my arms and zip ties them behind my back. Then walks us up the path toward the house.

I sent a note to Giancarlo yesterday calling this meeting. He didn’t respond and I didn’t expect him to. It was more of a courtesy to let him know I was coming.

Dante walks out the front door as we approach the front of the house. The fifteen-foot-tall doors a stupid display of their wealth. “Kilian, so good to see you. Alive nonetheless.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

“How’s my cousin?”

I don’t answer him.

“Don’t get shy on me. I know you’ve been fucking her. I know that kid is yours. I would just say she is your flavor of the month but considering you are a father, I’m guessing it’s more.”

I clench my jaw, not giving in to his taunts.

“You know, back in Dublin, I saw the way you looked at her and I knew you were fucking her. I could tell by the way she lied about you too. Such a pity. I was ready to kill you back then. But I didn’t out of a courtesy to her. If I killed you, she never would have come back with us.”

I raise a brow at Dante. “Nice try, Renzetti. But you could have killed me and never told her. I’m not an idiot. Your father told you not to kill me.”

The smug look falls off his face and he changes the subject. “Let me guess then, you are here to negotiate their safety.”

“I’m here for the weapons you stole from us.”

He taps his finger against his bottom lip. “I think it’s more than that. You know you can’t have both.”

“I’m not here for you, Dante. I’m here to speak to Giancarlo. So either shoot me or let me into that house.”

A cynical grin crosses his face. “Oh, I will shoot you. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been wanting to for the last twelve years.”

I shrug the man still holding my arm off me. “Then do it,” I challenge him.

“I don’t want blood on the front steps.” He glances at one of his guards. “Untie him.”

The zip ties are snapped off my wrist and I roll my shoulders back as I follow Dante into the house.

The opulence of this place is outrageous. Marble floors, priceless art, gaudy vases lining the entryway. You’d think that the family would have turned the place more modern instead of keeping it like a museum. I’m sure they haven’t changed the decor in fifty years.

I follow Dante down a long hallway, lined with sconces and more artwork. He opens a set of double doors and on the other side, Giancarlo sits at a massive carved wooden desk. His meaty hands steepled in front of him. His balding head barely noticeable against the large burn scars that take up the right side of his face.

“Kilian Bancroft. You look rather good for a corpse.”

I sit in a giant leather wingback chair across from him. Not bothering for an invitation to sit. “And you look like the ever-ruthless boss to a mafia family. Although, I do have to say I would rather see you dead.”

“Feeling’s mutual,” he retorts. “I’m not all that surprised to see you.”

I laugh. “Well, I did send you a note saying I was coming. Did you prepare a guest room for me?”

Dante shoots me a death glare from the seat he took next to me.

“Unfortunately, I have no intention of letting you walk out of here alive, Mr. Bancroft.”

I cross my leg over my knee and settle farther into my chair. “Pity.”

“I don’t appreciate your nonchalance.”

I lean my elbow on the side of the chair and rest my chin in my palm. “And I don’t appreciate you killing four of my men and stealing four hundred million dollars’ worth of my weapons.”

“Why didn’t your father come here? He is still in charge, isn’t he? Or does he only send his pitiful son to do his work these days?”

I ignore his words. They don’t affect me at all. “Give us back our weapons or we will expose you. Humiliate you.”

He laughs. “I think you are the ones humiliated. Your weapons being stolen on your own turf.”

“That’s not what I was talking about. You are the one who gambled the family money away. You’ve resorted to threats and stealing weapons. Which I wouldn’t put past a mafia family. But the others don’t know who it is. And now that your errand boy is dead, what will you do?”

“You have no idea what you are talking about,” Giancarlo spits.

I don’t miss the look Dante gives me when I mention the money. “I think you’ve forgotten who you are dealing with.”

“No, I think you have forgotten.”

I chuckle. “Oh, Giancarlo, do we really need to dig up the past? I remember that deal you tried to make with my father years ago. But your brother told you not to. Told you not to cross The Partners because that’s what you planned on doing, wasn’t it? Making a deal just to steal from them. Then my father played you, did what you were going to do to him, and stole from you instead.”

“My father had nothing to do with that,” Dante chimes in. “That was Benito getting too risky with business.”

I look over at Dante, into his dark eyes. “That’s what Giancarlo told you.” I click my tongue and shake my head. “Your father pretended to be his brother. Benito was the smart one, he knew when a business deal was bad. But Giancarlo over here doesn’t. He thinks he can take and take and take. My father should have killed him, but instead, he killed Benito and his wife. Mistaken identity because your father is a coward.”

“You’re lying.”

“Am I?” I turn my head from Dante to Giancarlo. “What about the other times?”

“What other times?” Dante asks his father.

“How about your own father, Giancarlo? Or your first wife? Or the gambling? Those nights you go out on business but you are just losing money—”

“Enough,” Giancarlo commands.

I smile at him in a devilish way, knowing I got to him. Knowing that Dante will badger him about everything I just said.

“What do you want?”

“Don’t threaten my daughter’s life again.” He nods. “And I want all those weapons you stole from us.”

He laughs in my face. “Oh, Kilian, you think you have the upper hand here? Because you spout some lies about me.”

“You know they aren’t lies.”

“Believe what you want. But I know the truth.” His eyes burn into mine. “You have to choose, Mr. Bancroft.”

“Father,” Dante hisses. “You aren’t really going to let him walk away?”

Giancarlo ignores his oldest son, his Underboss, and keeps his eyes trained on me. “What’s it going to be, the safety of your daughter and my niece or the weapons?”