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“From my knowledge, Valentin is throwing another party soon. Carlos will be attending this one. I want to see if I can…maybe have Carlos think that Valentin isn’t as loyal to him as he thinks.”
Alessio’s eyebrows furled together. “How would you do that?”
“He knows that I killed Diego.”
His eyes widened and he sat forward, his legs falling back to the floor. I nodded in confirmation. “I was attacked a few weeks ago, and it was his men. I figured he knows that I’m the one who killed Diego. But then, I also killed Igor. Valentin doesn’t seem to have caught on to that. The confusing part is, if Carlos knows I killed Diego and he possibly knows I also killed Igor, why has he not told Valentin yet?”
“Wait. Back up. What does Valentin think of Igor’s death?”
I shrugged. “First, I tried to plant suspicion in Valentin’s ears to make him think it was Carlos who ordered the death of Igor. And vice versa. That was the plan. To pit them against each other. From what I gathered, they met once. And they decided that Igor and Diego got in a fight and killed each other. Carlos and Valentin both successfully convinced each other that they had no hands in the deaths of their men.”
I watched as Alessio played with the cigar in his hand. He wasn’t smoking it, but it appeared that he was trying to keep his hands busy. His face was scrunched up in frustration, and his lips were thinned in a straight line. He wasn’t happy with this new information.
“Their loyalty runs so deep that they refused to accept one betrayed the other,” Alessio muttered thoughtfully. “But the question is…if Carlos knows the truth, why didn’t he tell Valentin? That you are the one behind it all?”
Bingo.
“That is exactly what I fucking want to know too.” Placing the glass down with a harsh clunk, I took the bottle in my hand and drank straight from it. “It’s pissing me off.”
Alessio and I stared at each other. Games were being played. And it appeared we were not the only master players.
We conversed in silent words, both understanding what this could mean. A new threat. A new game. A whole new fucking ploy.
The war is just beginning.
“I don’t care what you have to do, you need to convince Carlos that Valentin is somehow betraying him. Once there is a crack in their partnership, it will be easier to strike Solonik,” Alessio said, crushing the cigar in the palm of his hand. “I want him dead, Viktor.”
I placed my now useless cigarette end in the ashtray before my eyes went back to Alessio.
On that we both agreed. Valentin was going to bleed, and he was going to beg for mercy.
But the word mercy was not found in our vocabulary.
Moving my head from left to right, I felt the corded, tensed muscle pinch and then loosen.
There was something else I needed to tell Alessio, but maybe now was not the right time. If he knew about the human trafficking rings, the truth of what I found…
Chaos. It would be simply chaos.
Maybe tomorrow. When everyone was present. After all, I needed the mafia daddies there too.
“If we’re done here, then I’m going to crash,” I announced.
Alessio nodded, and I started to get off my seat. His next words caused me to freeze, though. My heart hammered and all the warmth left my body. My blood ran cold, and I squeezed my fists, watching my knuckles go white under the pressure.
The King knew exactly when to strike.
“What about Valerie?”
My heart plummeted to the pit of my stomach, and my mouth went dry. Alessio’s face was unreadable, his posture nonchalant. The way he leaned back into his chair, crossing his left ankle over his right knee, his arms resting leisurely on the arm rests, one would think he was discussing the news or something less important.
“Who?” I pushed out through my suddenly parched lips.
“Valerie.” Her name on his lips sounded bitter. I hated it.
I used to be in control, yet now I had no discipline of my emotions. I was an emotional fool who had fallen down the rabbit hole.
“Yes? What about her?” I tried to sound uninterested, and I wondered if Alessio could see through my façade. I tried to mask my emotions, tried to make my expression impassive.
“She is a beautiful woman. Caught my eye, you know,” he said. My fists clenched at my side, and I breathed in. I tried to ignore to the cramps in my stomach, tried to ignore the feeling of hollowness.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.
“Pass me the drink, will you?” Alessio motioned for the bottle. My jaw clenched, and my teeth gritted together as I poured him a drink and handed it over.
He took a sip and then tsked. “What’s the look on your face, Viktor?”
