Page 92 of Vendetta

“I do need to do this alone.” If I couldn’t do this on my own, I probably shouldn’t be running a crime family, either. The idea of it sent a thrill down my spine. Fuck, I was really gonna do this.

He pulled out the nine millimeter he had holstered on his hip and slid it across the desk toward me. “All right, I trust you. Anything else?”

“Yeah, a couple more things.”

Chapter 59

Rosalina

After stocking up on weapons, I was almost ready. Just one more thing.

The cellar door was daunting. I didn’t want to go back down there, but I needed more proof before I left. The metallic scent of blood wafted up the steps, reminding me that this was time-sensitive. Before I had a chance to talk myself out of it, I pounded down the stairs, careful not to step in the many pools of blood. Ignoring the shouts from the alpha strapped to the table, I grabbed Lorenzo’s cell, but it was locked.

“Hey, my guy. What’s Lorenzo’s password?” I called to the alpha bucking against his restraints.

“Fuck off! I’ll never tell you.” He would if I had the time to torture him, but I was running short on that today.

I nudged Lorenzo’s cold, dead hand over and tried pressing the phone to his fingerprint. No dice. Grimacing, but knowing it had to be done, I grabbed his head by the hair and held it in front of the screen.

It opened.

Fucking, ew. Whatever it took at this point, though. I scanned through his texts. The newest was from “Big F” telling Lorenzo to ‘bring the girl’. Who else could Big F be if not Francisco? I swallowed a chuckle at the stupid nickname and kept reading. Lorenzo replied that he would be on his way shortly, but they might have a situation with a mate mark. Guess he didn’t count on me fighting back. I scrolled further down the text chain.

It was all there. The conversations with Francisco. Lorenzo telling him how to find me. Before that, details about my father’s affair with his wife. That she was pregnant, and then Francisco’s rage and denial followed. A few days later there was a reply from “Big F” saying he’d found proof, and it was all true, followed by an invitation to join his pack with me as their omega.

Excuse me? What in the fuckity fuck?

Francisco was going to take over Lorenzo’s pack, and they were going to force bond me. Normally I’d have to consent, but if everyone in the pack bit me in, all they needed was to force me to ingest blood from each member and the bond would snap into place whether I wanted it or not. Again… Ew.

Of course, they’d have to break the bond Nico initiated first. There were only a couple of ways to do that. Make me reject the bond, make Nico reject it, or kill one of us.

My head spun. Francisco wouldn’t resort to killing his son over this, would he? When faced with it, would Nico dissolve this thing that was growing between us? To save his own life, I hoped that he would. My chest stung at the thought. I didn’t want him to dissolve it. I should’ve completed the bond while I still had the chance. There was no life I could imagine without the three of them in it. But to save his life, I would let him go if that was the only option.

Lorenzo was dead now, so their old plan would surely change. I had the proof I needed. Now I just had to get it to Nico.

We could still salvage this.

Oh look, “Big F” had an address in the contacts, and it was only about an hour and a half away. I glanced at the decapitated head, then back at the phone. “Okay, big guy, you’re coming with me.”

I grabbed Lorenzo’s head by the hair and hurried up the stairs. Maria hardly spared me a second glance as I scurried past with the random body part and into the garage. My brother’s G-wagon—the one that’d been sitting in the back, covered in dust, like a monument to the dead—was pulled up front, shiny and new-looking, but defiled by the Vasco’s stench.

I looked down at Lorenzo’s head. “You didn’t suffer nearly enough.”

Plucking the Mercedes keys off the hook, I hopped into the white SUV. It smelled like dirty laundry already, so a little blood wouldn’t hurt it at this point. I set Lorenzo down on the seat and pulled the belt across his face, buckling him in. “Safety first.”

The car roared to life, and I hit the automatic garage door opener. Afternoon sun washed in as I eased my way out onto the driveway. Time to go for a ride.

I started typing the address listed in Lorenzo’s phone for Francisco into the nav. It popped up immediately as a frequently visited location. Why was I not surprised? I pressed the start button, and we were off.

With the windows down and warm, sultry air blowing through my hair, I sped along the highway. The rainforest flew by in a blur of green, and the soundtrack of some random top 40s pop station played at full blast. Nothing mattered but getting to Francisco before he could do anything to my pack.

That’s right, they were mine, whether they liked it or not. I’d gone through too much to go back. This was my life now.

A massive wrought-iron gate came into view as the navigation announced, “Your destination is on the right.”

I turned it off as I rolled to a stop in the driveway. There wasn’t a gatehouse or a number pad for a code. There was a camera, though. That couldn’t be right… In the texts there’d been a mention of having added Lorenzo to the gate system, but what? I looked at my passenger princess and then back at the camera. There was no way. You have to be kidding me. I grabbed him by the hair and lifted his head to approximately where it would be if he were driving, and sure the fuck enough, the tiny light by the camera went green, and the gate creaked open.

That had to be Oliver’s doing. He loved his fancy locks.