Page 32 of Single Mom’s Mafia Daddies (The Forbidden Reverse Harem Collection #22)

ALESSIO

N o more. No more games. No more half-assing my way through the problems the Verduccis threw my way.

“Renzo, relay to your team. I want the rest of those bastards off my property.” I palmed my side where the bullet had slammed into my vest and thrown me against the wall.

I’d be bruised to hell and back, but I was alive.

They wouldn’t make that mistake again. I had to hit them first. “Hit them hard. Without remorse.”

Renzo barked out a series of commands in his updated code language, using the earpieces to communicate with his team.

“No sign of Vincenzo or Luca.” He gave me a searching look.

“This wasn’t an end-game assault. Most likely testing the boundaries.

Checking our responses. Nothing more than a detailed recon mission.

They’ll be back to finish the job when they think we’re at our weakest.”

I avoided Lila’s gaze. “Can you make sure Leo doesn’t hear us?”

“Are you trying to get rid of me?” She fisted her hands on her hips. When she reached for me earlier, I’d let her offer comfort. As much as I wanted to take her to my room and fuck through the rest of my adrenaline rush, the time for comfort had passed.

I rebuilt the walls around my heart. “I’d rather you didn’t hear that I’m planning on murdering several people.”

The rush of anger that had tightened her eyes relaxed. “Give them hell for me. For us.” She spun around and left all three of us standing with our mouths hanging open.

Renzo broke first, the sharp crackle of laughter burrowing through the room until we all grinned.

I found a rag beneath the sink and washed the blood from my neck and arm.

I’d landed on a pile of glass, and a shard had nearly sliced my jugular.

Death by glass. What a way to go in the middle of a gunfight.

I snorted at the ridiculousness. The mirror reflected my worn expression back at me, dirty face, grimace, and blood all mingled together in such a twisted manner that I saw my father staring out of the black frame.

Renzo and Matteo waited behind me, one over each shoulder. I had the best military strategist and tech guru at my disposal, and I still failed to outwit the Verduccis.

“We’re ending this. Now.” I threw the bloody rag into the sink and washed my face and neck, scrubbing soap through my matted hair and slicking it back with my hands.

“What’s the plan?” Renzo asked.

I rolled an idea around. The more I considered it, the more I understood how much they’d hate it. “We’re going to take them down from the inside.”

Matteo checked his tablet then showed it to Renzo, who muttered questions to his team. He watched me with the kind of careful precision that had driven me to hire him and had later made us friends. “Estate’s clear. Want my guys to follow them?”

“No.” I dragged a chair out from the kitchen table and sat. “No more chasing them. No more defense. We’re going on the offensive. Bring your men back. Have them prepare for an infiltration.”

“I want to hear about this plan first.” Renzo crossed his arms. “I don’t like the look in your eyes.”

“We’re going to split up.” I held up a hand to stave off the protests.

“You and your team will hit Vincenzo at his office. Not his home. He’ll expect that.

He’ll be waiting for retaliation. He thinks I won’t take out the office because I’ll be worried about the body count.

” A smile pulled at my cheeks. “I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about his employees.

They’re all as bad as him. Take them out. Make it count.”

“And what will you be doing?” Matteo asked.

“I’ll be going after Luca. It’s what he wants, what all this has been about.

He wants me so angry I lose sight of everything else.

They want me dead. They want to take everything from me.

Let’s see what happens when everything Luca wants is within reach.

” Luca and Vincenzo had very different ideas on how to run their operations.

“Let’s see if brother will turn on brother. ”

“I’m going with you.” Matteo sat across from me. “You’ll need me.”

“No, I need someone here.” I appreciated the offer, but Luca would smell a trap a mile away. My smile widened. “It’s me and Luca for this one. That bastard is so confident he can outthink everyone else.”

“And he thinks he’s immortal or some shit,” Renzo reminded me.

“That makes him arrogant and cocky. He’ll never see it coming.” I stood and stretched. “I’m going to change clothes. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

I needed more time to figure out how to bait Luca into my plan. He was smart, with a vicious cunning that I’d never matched. My father would’ve known how to deal with the Verducci syndicate. If he was alive, none of it would have reached this point. His savagery kept everyone in line.

Was that why Vincenzo and Luca challenged me? Did they think I was weak because I didn’t follow in my father’s bloody footprints?

“We’ll talk right fucking now.” Matteo stabbed his finger into the table. “You’re not going off half-cocked on some revenge mission, fully expecting us to follow along like sheep, just because you fucking say so. I want to know the plan.”

“When I know more, you’ll know more.” It was the kind of answer my father gave when he needed space and absolutely planned on going his own way no matter what anyone else thought. It had worked for him…until it got him killed.

“Don’t give me that bullshit.” Matteo smacked my hand away from his shoulder. I didn’t even remember putting it there. “You told Renzo to stop being a martyr.”

Renzo grunted his approval of Matteo’s anger.

“I’m not about to stand aside and let you take his place.” Matteo glared at me.

“You’re overreacting.” I turned away from the table. “And you’re not the one they want, so while I appreciate your input, your concern is invalid.”

Matteo’s continued cursing thinned behind me as I walked into my room and closed the door. The tight feeling in my chest squeezed so hard my lungs seized. I removed my shirt and the vest that had saved my life, revealing the discolorations spreading across my ribs. No wonder I couldn’t breathe.

The door opened and closed.

“Matteo, I’m really not in the mood for another lecture.”

“Too bad,” Lila said.

I turned to face her. One hand braced my ribs and covered the majority of the bruising. “How’s Leo?”

“Sleeping.” She walked toward me with a kind of prowling stride that I’d never seen in her before.

The sweet, loving girl I’d known had become a sweet, loving woman with a spine of steel and enough anger to spit nails.

“You are not going in there and getting yourself killed. It won’t solve anything.

” She punctuated each word with a stabbing finger in my direction.

I loved her passion. Her fervor for life was what had drawn me to her seven years ago, and it twisted me up inside to know I’d somehow been complacent enough to allow her light to be dimmed by my actions.

“I’m not going to die.” Not intentionally, anyway.

She stomped her foot. The action should seem childish, but coming from her it held a level of power I had no hope of matching. “Stop it, Alessio. Stop being careless with your life. You’re intentionally putting yourself in harm’s way.”

“I’m not arguing with you about this. It’s my decision.” I never pushed my will on her unless it was for her own survival, and this was the only solution that ensured that she and Leo live.

There was no other way.

She pinched the bridge of her nose and blew out a slow stream of air. When she looked at me again, her eyes shone with unshed tears.

“Don’t you look me in the eye and tell me that it’s your decision when it affects all of us.

” The distance between us shrank to almost nothing as she bared her soul.

“You’re trying to atone for your past, aren’t you?

You really think throwing yourself at the Verduccis, whoever the hell they are, is going to solve this?

You think dying will solve your problems?

News flash.” She spread her hands wide and waved them in front of my face.

“It won’t. It only makes things harder on the people left behind. ”

“You think I don’t know that?” I gripped her shoulders and gave her a small shake.

“You think I haven’t cursed my father for the last seven years because his death is what started this whole mess?

I know exactly how devastating it is to be left behind, to have to deal with the bullshit you never wanted.

I’ve lived that nightmare for seven years. It’s time to end it.”

“Not like this.” She ran her hands over the bruises, her touch so light I barely felt it. “Not if it means we lose you.”

“I’ll do anything, Lila.” My voice broke, and I didn’t try to hide it. I took her hands in mine and held them to my lips, kissing the knuckles. “I’ll do anything to protect you and Leo, even if it costs me everything.” Money, power, my life. “Nothing else matters.”

“Don’t do this to me. Don’t come back into my life, tempt me to fall in love with you again, then leave like it never mattered.

You say it matters. Prove it.” She stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across mine.

“Prove you’ll do anything and fight from here, with the people who can protect you.

Show me that what we had meant something. ”

I stared into her eyes and softened my voice.

“You were my everything then. You still are.” I lingered over the taste of the words and how her eyes lit up at my declaration.

I loved her. I always had. Why was it so hard to say it to her?

I rested my forehead against hers. “I’d give you the world, Lila.

Anything you ask for. But I don’t know if I can promise I’ll stay here when I know how to end this mess once and for all. ”

The first tear fell from her lashes and drifted down her cheek. “I can’t lose you.”

“Lila.” I kissed her tears, tasting the salt and bitter regret, and released her hands to embrace her.

Her hands slipped around my waist and locked together in the small of my back.

I’d put my blood and sweat into maintaining my father’s operation, maintaining his strict leadership even if it wasn’t the same bloodbath.

Nothing rocked me, and yet I was undone by Lila’s tears.

No one had ever cared for me the way she did.

She settled against my chest, her cheek brushing back and forth over my bare skin.

Nothing felt as good in my arms as her. Nothing made me want to change my mind except her.

She was the reason I breathed, and the reason I was willing to give my last breath to save her and Leo.

The quietness in the room wrapped us in a serene blanket, a cocoon that death and destruction didn’t dare invade.

I kissed the top of her head, then her lips when she tipped her face toward mine.