Page 92 of Unruly

Gone.

His entire life.

Gone.

Katya climbed out of the passenger side with tears already forming in her eyes. “Zeke.”

“It’s all right,” Zeke mumbled. “It’s fine. It’s all right.”

Yeah.

It wasn’t.

It definitely wasn’t.

Around the restaurant table sat men that had been important figures in Cross’s life over the years. Each of them had, in one way or another, set him on a path worth following. They gave him the tools he needed to sit where he did, or helped him in some other way.

Perhaps that was why he gathered them together now.

He needed to hear them speak. Men who had gone through their own situations with Cosa Nostra, and came out better for it. Men who had once stood in his position, and made these same choices.

“Katya has to be a priority,” Zeke said at Cross’s left.

“She is,” Rick replied from Cross’s right.

“She has to keep being one.”

“Why are you even questioning that at all?” Cross asked. “She’ll be kept safe.”

“You have the option of just going in on the Russians,” Wolf put in.

“That draws attention,” Dante pointed out.

Calisto leaned back in his seat across from his son. “Anything that draws a lot of attention from officials should be a last resort. We all know this.”

“Was it their last resort when they burned down my fucking house a couple of nights ago?”

“Zeke,” Dante started to say.

“Did they care that police would be all over my shit for God knows how long?”

“Exactly,” Calisto jumped in, “and now they know you can’t retaliate at this moment without drawing more attention to yourself. Officials will be watching.”

“They have been quiet the last couple of days,” Rick said. “And the streets, too.”

As an underboss, Rick often got word of issues on the streets with their men and guys from other families. He would know if any of the already thick tensions were growing because of problems. If he said nothing was going on, then nothing was happening. It was that damn simple.

“Cross,” Calisto said.

He looked to his father. “Yeah?”

“What are your thoughts right now about all of this?”

“I don’t like waiting to see what they’re going to do next,” Cross admitted.

“No one does, son.”

“But I have to consider that we’ve always done business in a clean and quiet manner, too.”