Page 40 of Ruthless Lord

Luca snorts and kicks some of the debris. “That’syour problem? You’re not wondering how in the fuck this happened?”

I look around and don’t answer. Because he’s right. The thought occurred to me the second we walked through that door.

The depot’s locked down tight when we’re not around. Davide’s very good at what he does, and he installed the security system himself. Multiple levels of protection were layered on top of each other, such that if one failed, another would catch any intruders.

“What’s on the camera tape?”

“Static. Not even subtle.”

“Any other data? Davide’s gotta have something.”

“He’s currently kicking around his lair, cursing up a storm and acting like it’s the end times.”

“In his mind, that’s probably how it feels.”

“Someone broke in here, Stefano.” Luca’s face gets hard as he stares at me. “They used your wedding as cover.”

Well, fuck.

I sit back against the wall and glare at the ruined office. A part of me is actually kind of happy this happened. Now maybe I won’t have to sit in here for hours a day doing mundane paperwork to keep this place afloat. I told Luca from the start that I wasn’t cutout for this desk life, but he insisted it had to be me. He said he couldn’t trust anyone else.

Now look at this place.

I’m the boss, and this total fuck-up happens on my watch.

I cross my arms, trying to keep my anger under control. A big part of me wants to go on a rampage and smash the shit out of the rest of the building. But the smarter, more rational side knows I’d better keep it together before I make this trouble worse.

“What’s missing?” I finally ask. The question I’ve been avoiding.

“Everything from the safe. Some shipping manifestos. Mostly Davide says the stuff’s clean.”

“We don’t keep the obviously cooked paperwork on the premises.”

“Which is smart.”

“But.” I look down at the safe. An ugly feeling churns my guts.

Luca’s gaze follows mine. “But?”

“Some of the files in there aren’t exactly legit. If whoever took them is as smart as I’m afraid they are, they’ll be able to make certain connections.”

“Like what kind of connections?”

“Trucks taking routes that weren’t planned. Carrying cargo nobody accounted for. That sort of thing. It’s subtle, but—” I gesture in the air at the mess.

Luca sighs heavily and leans his head back. “That’s not good.”

“Could be worse.” I push off the wall and crunch over papers toward the door. “They could’ve gotten my gold bars.”

“Where are you going?” Luca calls after me.

“Back to my fucking wedding.” I stomp out into the hall, frustration welling up like black oil bubbling from the ground. There’s no way in hell this should’ve happened. And the worst part is, it’s my fault at the end of the day. The depot’s supposed to be my domain, and I’m the one making the decisions. Which means anything that goes wrong is ultimately on me.

I’ll own that to Don Marino. If anyone’s taking a hit for this, it’ll be me.

“Hold on.” Luca hurries after. “We still have work to do.”

“Not right now.”