Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118965 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 595(@200wpm)___ 476(@250wpm)___ 397(@300wpm)
“Fine,” he says again as if he has a choice. “I was going to come to you anyway. You and I, we can help each other. You need a man like me. I can get you any inside info you need.”
“Go on,” I drawl, letting him hope.
“Here’s the spiel.” He pushes away his bowl and leans his elbows on the table. “Your uncle paid me to say your wife made a deal.”
Cold rage unfurls in my gut, but on the surface, I keep my cool. “You never befriended Lavigne.”
“Never met the man in my life.”
I tighten my grip on the shaft. “Why?”
“We cut our own deal, your uncle and me. He said your wife was a traitor who needed to be flushed out. Said she made you weak. He said you weren’t the man your father used to be. So the plan was to pin her as a snitch, let you get rid of her, and then, when you were distracted with the nasty affair of dissolving her in acid or letting the vultures pick the meat off her bones or whatever the fuck you do with the bodies, he was going to take you out.”
“Take me out,” I say with a chuckle.
“He was going to make it look like a police raid.”
“With your help of course.”
He shivers in the stifling heat of the room. “He’d take over the business, and I’d get a promotion for nailing you.”
“Let me guess. Then, as a high-ranking officer, you let him run his business in Marseille in peace, and in exchange for smoothing his way, you get your cut.”
“Ten percent,” he says, bouncing his leg and glancing at the gun in the holster of the man who stands on his left. “For you, I’ll settle for five. Considering that the intel is priceless, that’s quite an offer.”
The only information I’m interested in hearing from his double-crossing, untrustworthy mouth is, “Which uncle?”
I already know the answer, but I steel myself.
“Nico.”
I nod, letting that settle and taking a moment to digest the bitter taste of betrayal. It’s the one line our kind never crosses. We never stab family in the back. No matter what. Blood is sacred. It’s a law my father lived by like believers adhere to the ten commandments. It’s a value he drilled into me. It’s the foundation on which he raised me. It’s the glue that makes us stand together and keeps us strong.
Yet my uncle disregarded that law. In a single act, he eradicated every value we ever stood for.
It doesn’t hit as hard as it should. I suppose, deep inside, I already knew even though I didn’t want to believe it. I only came here for confirmation.
My quiet voice gives no sign of the violence churning underneath a façade of calm. “Did Enzo know?”
“What do you think?” The bastard is cocky now, mistakenly believing I’m as fickle as my uncles, as easily tempted to choose money and power over loyalty. “They’re your family. You should know those two are inseparable. Whatever they do, they do together.”
I digest that information with the same cold anger. That can only mean Toma and Gianni are in on the deal. They all plotted against me. They conspired to stab me in the back even as they bent the knee and kissed my hand.
Do my uncles honestly think they can replace me? Do they believe my weak cousins make better candidates for running the business my father built, a business I took over at the age of twenty and turned into an empire in the span of three years?
Fucking idiots.
Traitors.
Hugo leans back and throws an arm over the back of his chair. “Thank me now and pay me later.”
I take in his toothy grin and the certainty of victory that burns with a feverish light in the nondescript blue of his eyes. Presumption is a grave mistake. His error is thinking that because I’m heading the biggest crime syndicate in my country, he and I are the same. They never get it. It’s not about the money or the power. Those commodities are only the means to an end, the currency that buys the real product.
It’s about survival.
It’s about being the strongest or dying.
He’s the weakest of the weak, the lowliest on the bottom of the pile.
“Payment is now,” I say as I push the gun between his legs and pull the trigger.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Sabella
* * *
I’m about to switch off the lights downstairs and turn in for the night when a car arrives. I watch through the window. The man who gets out under the path lights makes the hair on my nape stand on end. It’s Angelo’s uncle, but I can’t tell which one. They look too much alike, and I only met them once. I can’t make the distinction between them.
He doesn’t knock. Before I can run upstairs and grab the phone, he unlocks the door and walks into the house as if he owns it. His gaze falls on me where I’m standing at the far end of the lounge, close enough to the door to run to the kitchen if I have to.