Page 35 of Sweetest Sin (Tempting Love #1)

Dominick

“Two shipments in less than a month,” Matteo says as we walk into the warehouse. “Someone is fucking with us.”

He’s right. If they had actually stolen the shipments, it would be one thing.

But the fact that they were only out to destroy them tells us that they were trying to send a message.

They got away with it the first time, burning thousands of dollars in drugs, but our guys were prepared this time and saved the weapons.

“Do you know who he is?” I ask.

“Nope. None of the men do. He’s not from these streets.”

My brother makes it a point to know everyone, so for him not to know this person means we have new players in town.

“Well, hello there,” I say to the man currently tied down to the metal chair.

He’s dressed in a holey black T-shirt and ripped jeans—the kind from years of wear, not purchased as a fashion trend—and his shoes are old and worn.

He’s sporting a myriad of shitty tattoos up and down his arms and on his neck, which look like they were probably done in jail or in someone’s basement.

I assume he’s broke, which means he was most likely paid to do this. He might not even know who hired him.

He glares up at me, and Matteo chuckles and then punches him in the face once, twice. The guy’s head snaps to the side and then lolls forward, his nose dripping blood like a crimson river down his face and into his mouth. He’d probably be choking on it if he wasn’t knocked out cold.

I give Matteo a look, and he shrugs.

“My bad. I haven’t gotten laid in a few weeks, and you know my fight is coming up.

The pent-up frustration is real.” He grins at me tauntingly, and I already know whatever he’s about to say is going to piss me off.

“I don’t know how you do it, bro. You got that sexy-as-sin woman with her curves for days, living in our house, just begging to be fucked, and I haven’t heard her calling out your name once. Your level of restraint is unmatched.”

“One,” I say to him, “don’t ever fucking refer to her as anything other than her name. She’s the mother of my child—your nephew. And, two, stop knocking out the guys we’re interrogating!”

Before he can come back with a smart-ass remark, the man starts to groan.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Matteo says, approaching him. He grips his chin and forces the guy to look at him. “Who are you working for?”

He spits out blood, and it hits the front of Matteo’s shirt.

“Wrong move,” Matteo deadpans.

He walks over to the corner and grabs a bucket to fill with water, and when the man sees what he’s doing, he starts talking.

“I don’t know shit,” he says. “I swear.”

Because he had no identification on him, we don’t know who he is. Our IT person, Eddy, is hacking into police records to run facial recognition on him, but that could take a while, and even when we know who he is, that might not explain who he’s working for.

Matteo walks around the chair and, with one hand, yanks the man’s head back. With the other, he starts to pour the water over his face, essentially drowning him.

The guy sputters at first, but when it becomes too much, he starts to choke.

“Stop,” he splutters, shaking his head back and forth.

Matteo continues to drown him for a few more seconds and nods toward me.

“You must know something,” I tell him. “You were caught trying to fuck up my shipment. And based on the footage, you’re the same one who did it last time.”

His eyes widen, like the dumbass is just now realizing we have security cameras.

“I-I don’t know who hired me,” he cries. “I was just given cash and told to fuck shit up. I thought it’d be easy money.”

“Boss,” Scotty says, walking in and dragging someone with him, “found him at the port with explosives.”

Matteo curses under his breath, but I simply nod, refusing to show any emotion. Someone is out to get us, and my guess is, when the first guy didn’t succeed, they knew we’d be busy, so they sent in another one to finish the job.

“Grab a chair,” I tell the second guy, who’s flailing about, despite being handcuffed and gagged. “Let’s get this party started.”

Scotty sets Guy Two in a chair and then goes about strapping him to it. But I’m not watching what he’s doing. I’m watching as the men glance at each other.

Matteo locks eyes with me, and I nod.

They know each other.

“Your friend was just going to go for a little swim,” Matteo says with a grin that would scare the piss out of little kids. “How about you join him?”

Without waiting, he pulls Guy Two’s head back and starts drowning him with water. He didn’t expect it, so he starts to choke, and when Matteo lets go, he throws up everywhere.

“Fuck!” Guy Two yells. “This isn’t what I signed up for.”

“Oh, really?” I say, stepping in front of him.

“What did you think was going to happen when you went to a port owned by the Antonovs and tried to fuck up our shit?” I kneel in front of him and smile.

“You’re going to die. But how we do it will depend on your cooperation.

Tell us who hired you, and we’ll make it quick. ”

He swallows thickly, but doesn’t speak, so I give Matteo a slight nod.

He goes to a cabinet and grabs gloves and pliers, and one of the guys whimpers.

With gloves on his hands, he opens Guy Two’s mouth and rips one of his teeth out. A bloodcurdling scream fills the room, and a dark spot blooms on the front of his pants. He pissed himself.

“Please,” Guy One whimpers. “Just kill me! I don’t know the man, but he has blond hair and a tattoo.

” He peers up at me with a look of desperation, hoping, by some miracle, I’ll take pity on him and save his life.

“A tattoo of a snake on his forearm,” he continues.

“He gave us the money and told us if we succeeded, we could come back, and he’d pay us to do it again. ”

“Anthony,” Matteo says, not bothering to hide what we say from the two men.

They’ll be killed shortly, and dead people can’t share information.

“Anthony doesn’t have money,” I point out. And then it hits me. “The mayor. He vouched for him at the auction. He could easily be bankrolling whatever it is Anthony’s up to.”

Matteo clenches his jaw. “Looks like we’ll be paying Mr. Mayor a visit.”

“Gentlemen,” Eric Vanderbilt says an hour later.

He’s sitting at the bar at North Harbor Point Country Club, having a drink with a couple of his friends.

Once they’ve mingled with everyone, they’ll move into a private room, where they’ll play poker and be served by half-naked women while they ogle and grope them.

He’ll then pick one of them to fuck and then go home to his delusional wife, who will pretend he didn’t just rail a woman half his age.

I know this because when Andrey was alive, I had the misfortune of attending a poker game with him.

He wanted me to get acquainted with Eric Vanderbilt, who, at the time, was the city manager.

I played my part, and I continue to do so now that he’s the mayor and up for reelection soon.

But I wouldn’t trust the man as far as I could throw him.

“Eric, how are you?” I ask, sitting next to him.

Matteo glares at the guy to his left, and he gets up, freeing the stool for him.

“Was that necessary?” Eric asks, taking a sip of his scotch.

“About as necessary as you working with Anthony Rothschild,” I say, watching for a reaction that will prove our theory.

But he doesn’t react. He rolls his eyes and sets his drink down, looking over at me. “I already told you, his father and I went way back. He came to me, asking for support to start over, and I offered to back him up for the auction. You made sure he couldn’t bid. End of discussion.”

“When’s the last time you saw Anthony?” Matteo asks, making Eric look at him.

“Not since that day.” He lifts his glass to take a drink, and if I wasn’t looking so closely, I would have missed the way his hand shakes.

He’s nervous … acting guilty.

He downs his drink and stands. “Look, I’m not trying to get in the middle of whatever thug rivalry you guys have going on.” He buttons his jacket, and the thing damn near pops open, thanks to his beer belly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a poker game to get to.”

He walks away, and Matteo’s about to follow, but I shake my head, wanting to see what he does once he’s out of our sight. Mr. Mayor doesn’t know it, but I have men watching him from every angle of the club.

I’m waiting for my guys to send me what they see when a text comes through from Daniil. It’s a picture of Brielle, clearly dressed to go out, and with her is …

“Holy shit.” Matteo whistles, obviously having gotten the same text as me since he’s to be kept abreast of our sister’s whereabouts. “Goddamn, I knew that woman had curves, but?—”

“Not another fucking word,” I bark, staring at the photo of Peyton, dressed in the same damn black dress she wore on our night together.

I would recognize that dress anywhere. Hell, it’s front and center, along with her, every time I get myself off. But it looks slightly different in this picture. Because her body has changed from her pregnancy, it hugs every damn curve on her, and her breasts … fuck, they’re spilling out.

Daniil: Heading to Kings Point. VIP area booked. Meeting Brielle’s friends there.

Me: And my son?

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Matteo laughs, making me realize I replied in the group chat. “You need to be worried about who is going to be seeing Peyton in that tiny fucking dress.”

Daniil: Martha is watching him.

“Let’s go,” I tell Matteo, stalking out of the country club.

“Where are we going?” he asks, amusement laced in his tone.

My phone goes off, and I expect it to be another text from Daniil, but it’s a zoomed-in photo of the mayor texting someone.

Sure enough, it reads, They’re getting suspicious. I’d be careful if I were you.

“He has to be texting Anthony,” Matteo says as we get into my vehicle since I drove us here.

“Anthony isn’t smart enough to pull all this off by himself,” I tell him, starting the car and taking off toward the club. “And he doesn’t have the resources to pay people to do his dirty work. He’s the puppet. But the question is, who is pulling his strings?”