“Cantarelli is fucking dead,” I tell Lucky grimly.
“Our guy’s been taken out,” Lucky tells the guard he’s got on the line. “Someone shot him, and the guards on duty here aren’t answering. We don’t know if the shooter is still in the building, but we need backup. Keep your heads down.”
I shoot off a text to Saint, realizing not all the blood I’m spattered with is Cantarelli’s. Some of it’s mine too.
Cazzo, just what I need.
I’ve been nicked by a bullet. But even worse, the bastard responsible for killing Cantarelli before I could get the information I needed out of him is still on the loose.
“Let’s try to get the hell out of here,” I tell Lucky. “We’re sitting ducks in here as is.”
“If they wanted us dead, we’d be bleeding out right now,” Lucky says. “They were only after one thing.”
“Making sure Cantarelli didn’t rat,” I agree.
And I’m more certain than ever that I know exactly who is behind it and why.
Everything after that unfolds in a blur. We meet up with the crew Lucky called in for backup and case the building, but the shooter is long gone. Our guards stationed at the entrance to the warehouse are dead, their throats slit. It’s not the work of one man, but I recognize the calling card.
Dmitri Sidorov is better known as the Executioner for a good reason.
“You know what this means,” Lucky says to me as our guys drag off the bodies for disposal. “Don’t you?”
I scrub a hand over my jaw with my right hand, my left hanging at my side—the bleeding slowed, thank fuck, but now that the adrenaline is wearing off, the pain is starting to hit me.
“We’re about to have a fucking war on our hands.”
Katya
We areknee-deep in lemon drops and worry as midnight rolls around, ensconced in the movie theater in Priest and Luna’s basement. We’ve been watching a lackluster adaptation of a Jane Austen novel. Luna gave up on keeping the divine lasagna we made warm for the guys and long since conveyed it to the fridge for safekeeping. The Andriani brothers are nowhere to be found.
Until the phones ring.
Luna’s first, then Isla’s within seconds. Luna hits pause and listens intently. Isla does the same. And that’s when I realize,even through the haze of lemon drops infecting my brain, that notallthe phones rang.
Mine is notably silent.
It doesn’t matter. What did I expect, a loving and relieved call from my kidnapper turned reluctant husband? If so, I clearly need another lemon drop. With that thought in mind, I bring my martini glass to my lips, sipping as I study Luna and Isla, taking it all in.
From what I can glean, the word is the same. The men are on their way back. I watch my counterparts talking to their husband and boyfriend on the phone, noticing the way their expressions relax and their smiles return, and I know everyone is safe and all is well.
For now anyway.
Relief hits me, followed by irritation so extreme that I want to scream it aloud. He disappears on me the day after our wedding and can’t be bothered to call me and let me know he’s okay?
I feel like the feral cat he accused me of being, ready to show my claws and fangs, to take a bite if necessary.
“Love you too, baby,” Luna is saying softly into her phone.
“You promise?” Isla asks, smiling to herself as her eyes take on a faraway look. “Love you more.”
I finish my lemon drop, because clearly, I’m not drunk enough to deal with bullshit and not get furious. I try my hardest not to allow Lorenzo’s radio silence to bother me. It’s not like we’re in love. We aren’t Priest and Luna or Saint and Isla.
We were forced into this marriage and barely know each other. He doesn’t owe me a call. He doesn’t owe me false platitudes.
But I’m bothered.
Not gonna lie.
