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“ F uck.” Reaching for my tablet, I send everything I’ve uncovered to it and push away from the desk.

“What’s wrong?” Leandro asks almost absently, as the tiny human in his brain clues him into the fact he should react to my outburst.

“I've finally found out why the gang betrayed us,” I reply. “I need to go see Roman.”

That gets his attention. “Does that even matter anymore? They’re dead as soon as Ten gets his hands on them, so why does the reason matter?”

“Knowing what they’re thinking will only help us eradicate them. It’s best to know if everyone was on board with the betrayal, or if they’re just following orders. Come with me, learn something.”

“I have work to do.” He gestures to his monitor.

“So do I. This is part of it. Come, it wasn’t a suggestion.”

He sighs, but pushes away from his desk. With a click of his fingers, Boston crawls from beneath the desk and stretches. She licks Leandro’s arm when she’s done, and while he makes a face, he ends up scratching her head anyway. I’m pretty sure she’s the only one he is genuinely affectionate with, and if I wasn’t sure it’d get me shot, I’d comment on how adorable it is.

Ignoring the urge to tease Leandro for showing some sign of being an actual person, I lead the way out of our office and head over to Roman’s.

When we enter, Roman looks at both of us with concern. “Is something wrong?” He stands from his chair and sets his palms flat on the desk.

“Yes and no.” I shut the door firmly behind Leandro. “I found out why we were betrayed by the Jamaicans.”

Leandro wheels himself over to the desk, stopping near the guest chairs, while Boston abandons her handler and makes her way over to her favorite person.

Roman keeps his attention on the dog, even as he says, “Let’s hear it.”

“Omar Campbell’s wife and sister were both arrested for trafficking about a month before the Bosses were taken,” I say, not bothering to hide the disdain in my voice.

Roman looks up, anger etched across his features. “What I want to know is,” he says carefully. “How far in advance was this all planned out?”

“Me too, and I promise, Amore, I will find out. In the meantime, let me tell you that this information wasn’t easy to come by. They tried their best to bury all of the records, but I was able to find them after some digging. It took more time than I wanted, but those bastards aren’t as clever as they think they are.

“Anyway. The two women were arrested for drug trafficking, and I managed to uncover a deal where they spilled the beans on one of their suppliers for a lower sentence.” I grimace and hand the tablet over. “Here’s where things get interesting. There’s no record anywhere that Campbell, or any of his people, gave our name up; which makes sense since they buy weapons from us. They wouldn’t want to alert the police to that part of their business.”

Roman scans the information I gathered. “No. Everyone knows not to give more than what they’re asking for.”

“So how did they end up making a deal to sabotage us?” Leandro asks.

“That I don’t know. It’s not anywhere on record, of course. That would give the whole plan away. Especially since what they’re doing to us and the Martellis isn’t exactly legal. Whatever case they’re trying to build is paper-thin at best, which is, of course, why they took Cristian and Il Padrone before they enacted any of the plan.”

“So what, two of their people get arrested, and whoever is after us somehow found out that they buy from us, and decided to turn the gang against us?” Roman tosses my tablet onto the desk, and I wince as the impact cracks the screen.

“That’s the assumption I’m working off of, yes.”

“I was going to give them the benefit of the doubt,” Roman says carefully. “After all, we know Campbell was in the loop since it’s his gang, and he hung around when Ten got arrested, along with a few of his most trusted. But surely not everyone was in on the setup. This,” he gestures to the tablet, “just signed everyone's death warrant. Campbell is Tennant’s, but everyone else? It’s open season.”

Before I can respond, an alarm starts blaring from the tablet, and both mine and Leandro’s phones.

Cursing, I snatch the tablet off the desk, and quickly read over the information. A sick, sour knot forms in my stomach, even as I race to the corner of the office where my computer is.

“What the fuck is that?” Roman barks.

I don’t answer, too busy pulling my phone out and calling Tennant, even as I pull up the feed I need. I’m distantly aware of Leandro calling Boston back to him as he spins his chair around and heads towards the office door.

When Ten answers the phone, I don’t give him time to say a word before I order, “Get to the De Luca house, now! I’m already calling reinforcements in.”

He curses. “What’s the situation?”

I swallow and glance at Roman, who’s looking at me with a mixture of confusion and fear. “Attack in progress. It’s…not good for us.”

“On my way.” Tennant hangs up, but the relief of knowing he’ll get the problem in hand doesn’t come.

“Carter?” Roman asks, his voice hard.

I shake my head, my hands flying over the keys as I bring up as many screens as I can with only one monitor. “For now, he’s safe. It looks like he was in Georgio’s office. But the enemy used two different entry points: the front door and through the kitchen. There are more of them than us.”

Roman curses and starts pacing. Pulling a drawer open, I fish around for one of the earpieces I left in there. No sooner have I connected it to my phone, do I get a call from Leandro.

“Did you find out who this is yet?” I ask, as I send coordinating texts to Tennant and the others en-route.

“Cursory glance at the message boards don’t point to any new threats,” he replies.

“Well, that’s something at least.”

“However, look who just walked in the front door.”

“Fuck!” Omar Campbell’s Second in Command strides through De Luca’s blown open door as if it’s just another day on the job, and this isn’t the second move they’ve made against us.

“We know who’s pulling the strings,” Leandro says.

My reply is lost in the midst of an explosion coming from the kitchen. I watch in horror as fire ignites the back half of the house.

On screen, I can see Carter reorienting himself in the hall just outside of De Luca’s office. I wish I could get him on the line and berate him for being a fucking idiot, but he doesn’t need the distraction right now. Especially as Roman moves behind me to watch the screens.

“Do you think the fucker has more on them than just getting the wife and sister off scot-free?” Leandro asks.

“Maybe,” I muse. I bring up more camera feeds on my tablet, leaning it against the bottom of my monitor, wishing I was in my office so I could have access to my full set up. But my first instinct when shit went down was to get in front of the nearest computer, so needs must. Thankfully, I have Leandro to help keep an eye on things.

Another explosion rocks the house, and we lose the camera feed to one wing entirely.

“What the fuck is he doing?” Roman cries out as we watch Carter lead the way into the foyer, with De Luca following, where a handful of our men are battling it out with Campbell’s.

“He’s an Amato,” I say absently. “None of you fuckers know how to stay behind when shit goes down.”

I fire off another message to Ten with an update, urging him and his reinforcements to exercise caution. I get a sarcastic reply, but refuse to apologize for being more cautious in this situation. Too much has happened recently for me to feel comfortable with Tennant and Jude being out in the field right now.

Especially since we know that the bastard who is after us has far more reach than we first assumed.

Roman cries out, bringing my attention back to the screen in time to see a bullet graze Carter. Before I can assure my lover that it’s fine, that a graze is better than a bullet to the head, Carter runs out of ammunition, and someone throws an explosive into the fray.

The last thing we see before the feed cuts out is Carter Amato collapsing.

“I’ve got this,” Leandro says in my ear. “I need to call Ten, you take care of Roman.”

I don’t bother responding. I rip the earpiece off and toss it, whether it lands on the desk or not, I don’t know or care.

What I do care about is catching Roman as he collapses to the floor. My chair hits the wall as I shove it away from me and go to my knees, catching the boy before he cracks his head on the hardwood flooring.

He clings to me, but doesn’t say anything, though I can feel his entire body shaking, and a keening sound escapes from his throat.

“Shhh,” I soothe. “It’ll be okay, Amore.” Shifting off my knees, I sit on the floor and gather Roman into my lap. “We don’t know what happened. I refuse to believe he’s dead.” I hold Roman tight enough to leave bruises. “All the shit he’s survived, this is not how it ends for him. Okay?”

My poor young love doesn’t say anything, he doesn’t even cry, but he trembles so hard I have to hold on tight so he doesn’t fall off my lap.

“They’re both going to come back to you, Roman,” I tell him.

“Y–you can’t promise that,” he says brokenly.

Grabbing the back of his head by the hair, I pull his face up to mine. “No,” I admit. “I can’t. But I can promise you that I’m here. We’re all here for you, Roman. Non sei solo. You don’t have to do this alone. We will end this. No matter what happens, we’ll take out those responsible.”

Dark green eyes meet mine, and the empty look in them is concerning, but what scares me most is that there’s not a single tear in them. Roman wears his heart on his sleeve, it’s part of what makes him such a good Boss. He brings a human aspect to the position. But this is far from the reaction I would have expected from him, after watching one of his fathers get injured with no immediate word on his well-being.

“Burn them to the ground,” he says. “I want their entire world to implode like mine just did. Leave nothing but ash behind.”

“We will.”

I press a hard kiss to his mouth, sealing my promise. Roman barely reciprocates, and my worry goes up a notch.

I need to get up, to check on what’s happening, to make sure Carter’s still alive, but the broken, still-vacant look in Roman’s eyes says he needs me more than anyone else right now.

More than that, he needs his dads. Anything less than getting them both back to him will break the boy beyond repair, of that, I have no doubt.