“Isabella is right, Leon.” Ida turns to address the room. Her voice is quieter than Leon’s angry shouts but holds no less authority. “There is no point attacking the Guild now that she’s been safely returned to us.”
Leon glowers at us both, clearly feeling somewhat outnumbered despite the fact the dozen or so other men in the room are quite literally at his beck and call.
Finally, his gaze lands on Ida. “Why did you tell her to go?”
Ida moves to the head of the table, her movements so graceful I could have sworn she was floating to Leon’s side.
“Whether you like it or not, the Guild has a chokehold on Brooklyn. The only reason they haven’t crossed the East River is because of our alliance with Giuliano Moretti.” She spells it out as if she’s speaking to a child.
This seems to infuriate Leon more. “I know, but?—”
“It is in our best interest not to go to war, Leon,” she snaps over his interruption, “because, quite frankly, I’m not sure you’d be able to win.”
This clear display of defiance immediately increases the tension in the room tenfold.
“You underestimate me, Mother,” Leon replies through his teeth.
“I appreciate you perfectly. If you want to take down the Guild, fine. But you need to be smarter than,” she gestures with an unimpressed look at the plan to set seemingly the entirety of Brooklyn on fire, “this. Besides, your sister can handle herself.”
Ida is right, of course. But her dressing down only seems to aggravate the issue. I note the way several of the men exchange glances.
It’s not an ideal situation. My father’s death had been rather abrupt and Leon’s ascension to don hadn’t exactly been a smooth transition. And, with my mother perched on Leon’s shoulder, the seeds of dissent will quickly spread.
They’d tolerated it with my father, but it seems the Prince’s Hand wasn’t keen to have their don puppeteered by Ida Natali again. It’s inherently sexist, really. But I’ve seen organizations crumble under lesser circumstances.
That’s why I find myself playing peacekeeper so often.
“Why are you here, Mamma?” I say firmly enough to snatch everyone’s attention. “If you knew I’d be fine, you shouldn’t have left the safe house.”
Ida smirked. “Your brother was considering handing over information about me. I needed to talk him out of it.”
“A phone call would have sufficed,” Leon grumbles, despite us all knowing that was most certainly not enough to stop him when he got angry like this.
I nod, taking an empty chair at the opposite end of the table, suddenly feeling entirely exhausted. “Well, at least we know what Teo is after. He had both Leon and I in his grasp, but didn’t take the opportunity to kill us.”
“I think I’d prefer death over whatever he did to you,” Leon declares, also taking a seat.
I pointedly ignored him. “He’s afteryou,Mamma.This means that he’ll be tracking all of us and attempting to infiltrate oursystems to get your location. You need to leave New York as soon as possible and triple your security.”
Ida sighs. “I hate having to hide away all the time.”
“As long as he can’t find you, we have an advantage.” I turn to look at my brother. “You want to smoke Teo out and take your revenge? All you need to do is bait him.”
Leon nods. “Could you make a trail to one of our locations?”
I shrug, my skills with a computer are well known at this point. Feeding Teo information would be childsplay.
“If we can get him to cross into our territory, then he’s fair game,” Leon adds.
“To do what?” Ida interrupts. “Beat him to a pulp?”
“What I have planned is far more excruciating.”
I feel an odd sensation come over me, something akin to dread, perhaps. The thought of Teo and Leon fighting is…unsettling, to say the least.
I tell myself it’s because I’m not sure who would win.
“Teo is still the don of the Guild,” I point out. “If anything happens to him, they will seek retribution.”
