Page 23 of Accidental Alliance

I give him nothing.

Or try to, anyway.

Unfortunately, Alessio has never needed words from me to know when something is off. He reads what I do not say with infuriating ease.

I see it now in the way his shoulders roll back to press more firmly into the wall behind him, subtle enough that no one else in the room would take it as anything other than getting comfortable for a long day ahead.

I know he has seen enough in my eyes to understand that whatever pulled me away from the banquet and left me unaccounted for hours is not a detail to ignore.

It is a thread he will undoubtedly return to later to unravel when the audience around us is gone.

I move closer to the table before he can hold my gaze any longer.

The reports spread beside the map catch my attention immediately. Amos Russo’s entire life is spread out in excruciating detail—the things he owned, the things he controlled, the pieces of his empire men would kill to take now that he is gone.

All of it has been rendered down to simple lines on pieces of paper.

He had always been known for his quiet ruthlessness for as long as I can remember, patient in a way that made weaker men overplay their hands against him constantly.

He did not posture the way some Dons do.

He was always subtler than that, deadlier in his own way.

To find that a man like that was taken out with two clean shots to the back of the head so soon after appearing at a public event makes this all the more disturbing.

And perhaps what is worse beyond that is whoever pulled the trigger must have known Amos well enough to get that close.

Not to mention the fact that there has been no immediate claim of responsibility from any of our enemies.

That bothers me more than the manner of death.

A killing like this should already have ambitious rivals claiming responsibility as a means to sow fear into all of us, yet none have come forward.

A hit like this either screams of an inside job or a rival with deep pockets that none of us have been aware of up until now.

When I finally lift my eyes from the papers on the table, it’s to look across it. “Are you thinking this is internal or external?”

My father rubs a hand over his face. It is a rare gesture from him. “I’m not sure as of right now.”

While the answer is honest, it still unsettles me. Vittorio Conti does not voluntarily admit to feeling uncertainty unless he can no longer pretend to not feel cornered by it.

This city obeys his rule not because they believe he is invincible, but because he has spent decades making doubt look like something that happens to lesser men.

To hear even a trace of it now, however buried beneath that iron calm it remains, sends a shot of ice racing through my veins.

He continues, lowering his hand, his expression already settling back into stone. “Though, I would wager that whoever is responsible will wait to see what our next move is before striking again.”

My brow lifts. “You think it’s another syndicate?”

“I doubt his own would be stupid enough to do something like this,” he answers.

I let the words settle over me.

Someone outside our network would gain a great deal from taking out a prominent figure like the head of the Russo family.

The temporary chaos alone would be worth fortunes to the right people.

Sometimes, all a rival needs is to create disorder and stir up the very real fear that if one Don can be taken out and left outside his own compound without any witnesses, then no patriarch is untouchable.