Page 39 of Sin City Obsession (De Salvo Empire #1)

Chapter nineteen

Edge of War

“I enjoyed negotiating with your father too much to have him cut down.” Viktor Sobol’s words, spoken with the subtlest of chuckles, echoed through Rocco’s memory like a needle stabbing into a nerve.

They were complete bullshit. And Rocco was furious with himself for having missed it.

Alessa pulled on his hand, tugging him to a stop just shy of the weathered door that separated them from the spy who’d set down roots in his backyard.

She pulled him around, gripping his hand tightly, and rested her other on his chest. “I can feel how angry you are,” she said quietly.

“And that’s okay. Anger is fine. But don’t let it cloud your mind.

The man in there might have orchestrated the attack last weekend, but he didn’t do it alone. You need something from him.”

Rocco blew out a breath and leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers.

“It would have taken me too long to find even this much if you hadn’t pushed for an internal investigation.

I’m as angry at myself as I am at anyone else.

” He tangled a hand in her hair, pulled her head back, and sealed his lips over hers in a wet, distracting kiss that helped to soften the raw edge of his anger even as it riled a different beast. Then he relaxed his grip on her hair and straightened, murmuring, “I appreciate you standing with me on this, my queen.”

The lighting in the hall was just enough for him to see the way her cheeks reddened, and the way her expression softened with her smile.

The men following behind them had the good sense to keep their eyes averted.

Rocco centered himself as best he could and continued toward the door.

He anticipated two or three men in the other room.

One he wholly believed to be a traitor—rather, a spy—one would be a complete unknown, and the other he sincerely hoped was as unaware as he had been only an hour earlier.

None would be restrained. All would be armed.

It was more dangerous, but it was the most guaranteed way to get them where he wanted them.

Alessa eased her hand from his grip and slid it up his arm, curling her fingers around his forearm just below the elbow. The repositioning gave her more of a flaunted-woman air and less of a valued-partner air. It also gave them both the sparsest bit more freedom of movement.

Ignazio and Marzio entered directly behind them and quietly shut the door, leaving the rest of their entourage to keep the hall secure.

The room wasn’t particularly large, but it held a moderately sized game table, good for casual poker games or shared drinks between friends.

There was space enough to walk around the table, a small shelving unit attached to the far wall with an assortment of seemingly random things, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a two-piece restroom to the left.

It was little more than a makeshift breakroom in the back of another business, but it sufficed.

As it would for this.

At the table, Capo Vin and the spy Lobos jumped to their feet like they hadn’t been expecting him. No one else awaited them in the room.

Vin stepped forward, but held himself outside of Rocco’s personal space. “Don Cavallo,” he said, “I admit I don’t know why you’ve asked to meet here. But whatever my men or I can do for you, it’s done.”

Rocco wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe that Vin was merely ignorant.

He could punish that with the swing of a fist and a harsh word, lessons learned on all sides.

First, though, he needed to confirm what Alessa’s information—and her gut—had revealed.

So he kept his expression unreadable and said, “The hit on my father came from within.”

Vin’s eyes widened .

Lobos’s head lifted a fraction, not enough to make eye-contact.

Rocco continued. “One of his security guards is the leak.” It was technically true.

He already had a theory on how that had come to be.

“And while I’m working on flushing out the rats ,” he said, letting a little of the venom briefly into his voice, “I need to know who I can count on. Because if I don’t believe I can trust you completely, we have a problem. ”

Vin drew a sharp breath through his nose, but to his credit, he stayed calm.

“I will prove myself to you however I must,” he said, tone firm.

A muscle in his jaw jumped. “But I must also ask, if only so I can also understand, do you not consider it suspect that this woman arrived in your life at the time when all of this began?”

Rocco envisioned planting his fist in Vin’s face. The nose breaking beneath his knuckles, the jaw cracking, Vin’s head snapping back and blood spurting everywhere. For a single moment, the vision was so strong, Rocco wasn’t sure he hadn’t made it reality.

It was Alessa’s voice that cleared the red haze from his mind. “The timing of my appearance turns out to have been very convenient , which of course makes it suspect to those who know so little.” She shifted her weight but did not release Rocco’s arm. “Isn’t that right … Sobol?”

“So—” Vin’s eyes widened again and he twisted enough to bring the man who called himself Lobos into sight.

Lobos huffed, lifted his head, and a wild grin split his face.

He spoke, but it took Rocco a moment to realize the words were not in English.

He spoke in Russian. “We will rise from your corpses!” His arm snapped up as his words filled the air, the weak light from the overhead lamp glinting off the dark metal barrel of a gun.

Rocco moved for the gun holstered beneath his jacket.

Alessa released his arm.

Lobos’s gun went off as she dropped low, and for a split-second, Rocco feared the worst. His heart beat like a war drum in his ears, deafening him, blinding him. It wasn’t until Vin’s body hit the floor that his brain kicked back into gear and he understood.

Vin’s brain matter painted the walls and a portion of the ceiling just beyond where his corpse had fallen, blood still pouring from the back of his head.

Some trickled from the entry wound near his jaw, which had an unnatural and undisguisable hole in it.

Bastard probably had been loyal, then. And he was going to have to be appeased with a closed-casket.

Everything came back into focus as Ignazio and Marzio rushed forward, Lobos’s laughter ringing through the air. He swept his gun straight to Rocco. “You wanna die in front of your bitch?”

Alessa, on her knees, had her hand on the gun tucked beneath Rocco’s pantleg. If Lobos had processed her movement, he hadn’t shown it. He looked more like he’d dismissed her as anything more than a tool with which to taunt his enemy.

Rocco slowly raised his arms up, palms out. “You think you’ve won?”

“I think you want to know what I know,” Lobos said, “so you don’t wanna shoot me up just yet. But me? I would love to fill you full of holes. Even your bitch knows it. Just look at her cowerin’.” He chuckled, smug in his victory.

Rocco let his arms fall to his sides. “That’s two.”

“’Scuse me?”

“Two times you’ve insulted my woman. Two extra bullets I’m personally going to put in you. So, the real question is, why haven’t you shot me yet?”

Lobos lifted his gun marginally higher.

Ignazio flexed his grip over his own weapon, but continued to show restraint.

Lobos continued to ignore both of them, speaking to Rocco. “Viktor has a message for you: it’s nothing personal. You’re just in his wa—”

Two shots went off, the first straight between Lobos’s eyes and the second just beneath his collarbone, piercing his heart. Lobos reeled back, arms splaying wide and body crashing to the ground.

This time, the door behind them flew open, multiple voices shouting. Rocco processed one of his additional guards addressing him at the same time as another leveled a gun on Alessa’s head.

Rocco reacted on instinct. He shoved himself between Alessa and the semi-automatic and leveled a hard glare down the barrel, into the widening eyes of the fool that held it. “If you’re going to shoot,” he growled, “you had better be prepared to start with me.”

The soldier stepped back, offering no resistance when Ignazio ripped the weapon from his hands. “I-I didn’t— I would never!”

Alessa rested the tips of her fingers to the back of his shoulder.

Rocco exhaled and looked around at all the silent, watchful eyes awaiting his judgment. “I don’t want to have to repeat this again,” he said. He pulled Alessa up to his side properly. “ She is an extension of me . Treat her as such, or be punished accordingly. Spread the word.”

The idiot who’d pointed a gun at her went so pale, Rocco thought he might collapse.

So Rocco tasked him with making the calls to organize clean-up.

It was always more complicated when they had one of their own they needed to be able to bring home and provide a proper burial for.

Then he looped his arm around Alessa, started forward, and said, “Now, we rally. We know who started this war. I intend to win it.”

Alessa stayed quiet while they made their way back to the penthouse, but she was only partially listening to Rocco’s side of the calls he had to make.

She knew he called Ugo, and she knew he called his two surviving Capos.

She caught pieces enough to grasp that his rage hadn’t blinded him to the weight and layered difficulties that loomed ahead.

Sobol’s organization was weaker in many ways, but Rocco’s reign was newer.

And Rocco was suddenly down fifty percent of his streetside leadership.

There were too many men needing to be shuffled around.

They had in-house chaos to manage, there would be quieter problems to resolve, and all of that would have to happen simultaneously with preparing for war.

It wouldn’t be long before Viktor learned that his spy had been uncovered.

She knew all of that, more from her own life’s experience in the business, but mostly, her mind was reeling.