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One of Catalano’s soldiers keeps his hard gaze on me but the second falters.
I take another step right up to the one with the hard eyes. “I said step aside.”
“This is a private meeting, Mr. Sabbioni.”
My lips move into a sneer. Who the fuck does this idiot think he is?
“Is it?” I ask, gripping his machine gun with both hands. Before he or anyone can react, I tug backward and slam the gun into his forehead, sending him stumbling, catching him with the tether. “This is my warehouse.”
Footsteps from behind him have me stop as lights blink on. I count more men. Maybe half a dozen. All heavily armed.
“Stefan,” Francesco Catalano calls out. He’s flanked by two soldiers when he stops, looks at me, cocks his head to the side.
“Good you’re here. Saves us a trip to Palermo,” he says.
“Uncle.” Hate makes the word sound ugly. Without taking my eyes off my uncle, I draw the machine gun back once more and knock the soldier harder this time and when he stumbles to the floor, I let him drop.
“That was unnecessary,” Catalano says as the soldier scrambles back to his feet. “Hand over your weapons and come in.”
“Are you inviting me into my own warehouse?”
“Don’t make this ugly, Stefan.”
“Oh, I’m going to make this very ugly.”
“No weapons in the meeting. It was agreed upon.”
“I didn’t sanction a meeting. I agree to nothing.”
“Things have escalated beyond your control.” He gives a nod and more men step out of the shadows. We’re outnumbered, easily, and out-gunned by the size of their automatic weapons.
But I’ve never needed that much muscle to get my point across.
The man I just knocked over takes my arms, twists them behind my back, another begins to search me. They do the same to Lucas and machine guns are aimed on the rest of my men.
“Drop your weapons,” Catalano commands.
33
Gabriela
When Stefan leaves, the soldier takes my arm to walk me upstairs, but I yank it away.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t ever touch me!”
He steps backward and I look at the closed study door. Is Rafa still here? What did he tell Stefan?
I walk toward it, but the soldier approaches. He doesn’t expect me to stop, to turn to him.
“Mr. Sabbioni said you’re to pack,” he says.
“I will,” I tell him. “I need to see Rafa first.”
“I don’t think—”
I don’t wait for him to finish but open the study door and enter to find Rafa sitting on the couch, two soldiers standing nearby.
He looks at me when I enter and again, I see what I’ve glimpsed more than once in his eyes. A regret. A deep sadness.
“I’m sorry,” he says to me. “I don’t know what I was thinking touching you like that.” He runs his hands through his hair. “Fuck.”
“Leave us alone,” I tell the soldiers.
They look at me and I’m not sure if they don’t understand English so I repeat my command in Italian.
Rafa seems surprised by this, as do the two men, but a moment later, we’re alone.
I sit on the couch.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” he asks.
“No. I’m not. Not even a little.”
“He’s going to get himself killed.” He gets to his feet. “I need to go after him.”
“Where did he go? What did you tell him?”
He shakes his head, considers, then looks at me. “There’s a meeting. My father—Francesco Catalano—called it. They’re voting to remove Stefan from his position.”
I’m confused. Is that how this works?
When I don’t speak, Rafa continues, clarifying. “They’ll kill him, Gabriela.”
“And you let him go? Let him walk into that trap?”
“No. I came to warn him. I should have known he’d go himself, though. He’s just stubborn enough. You need to get out of here. They’ll come for you. For everyone in this house.”
“Does that include you?”
He looks up at the ceiling, shakes his head, then turns to me. “If I can get out of here, I can stop it.”
“Why are they doing this?”
“Power. Hate. You name it. Any ugliness you can think. I need to get to him, Gabriela. They’ll kill him. He doesn’t understand. Doesn’t know everything.”
“What doesn’t he understand? What doesn’t he know?”
He walks to the desk, opens a drawer, then another.
“What are you doing? You can’t go through Stefan’s desk.”
He finds what he’s looking for, a pistol, and, I assume, ammunition he pockets. “I need to go.” He looks at me, gets a strange look on his face as he approaches me. “I’m sorry, Gabriela,” he says, grabbing hold of me and whirling me around so my back is to his chest, the gun at my temple.
“Rafa!”
He opens the door and steps out, holding me as a shield as Stefan’s soldiers draw their weapons but stand impotently watching as Rafa cocks the gun.
“I’ll kill her. I’ll fucking kill her! And he’ll kill you if that happens.”
“Let me go!” I scream, scratching my nails into his forearm trying to pull him off as he drags me to the front door, and out of it, to the side of the house. More soldiers follow, drawing weapons, orders being yelled to halt, to not shoot as long as he has me.
