Page 35 of Fall Before Her Throne

I didn’t respond. Just stared at Max, and the way he looked up at me. My fingers curled around his chin. His breath hitched in his throat.

“We’re going,” I said, loud enough to silence the rest of my men. “But I meant what I said before. If you’re here, you’re with us. We go as a team; we leave as a team. Understood?”

He gulped. “You won’t turn me over?”

I shook my head slowly, watching the way his throat bobbed as my fingers brushed over the skin of his bruised cheek. “You protect me. I protect you. It’s only fair.”

He seemed dumbfounded and confused before he finally breathed, “Okay.”

I gave him one last look before I turned around to face the displeasure written across five faces. The men I loved, once again pissed off at me because I put myself at risk.

They should be used to it by now.

I braced my hands on my hips. Obi had a plan for defeating the Camorra, but now it was my turn. I was stubborn enough to take Greco’s bait, but I was smart enough to show up prepared.

“Cas, call Rossi again,” I said. “Make sure we’re going into that meeting on the same page about our partnership. I need to know whether he’ll side with us or with Greco. Ryuji, call Makarov. Tell him to provide backup from a few blocks away. We’re walking into that meeting, but we need escape routes secured and allies to call on if we’re attacked.”

They both agreed.

The Camorra wanted our subservience, but I wasn’t willing to give up that easily. We’d worked too fucking hard to make this city better, to carve out a place for our future. All we could do right now was follow Obi’s plan, bolster our defenses, and get ready for whatever lay ahead.

Cas dragged his hands down his face. Ryu glowered in my general direction, though I suspected it was toward Max sitting behind me. Ciel and Wynn exchanged a look between them before Ciel nodded.

I faced Obi head-on. He cupped my cheeks.

I waited for the disagreements, for their arguments that I should stay here, hidden away and protected. For their fears of losing me, and mine of losing them. I waited for them to promise we could defeat the Camorra without going to this meeting, and that we needed to be smarter about exposing ourselves to danger.

But they never came.

“You are strong, and so are we.” His deep voice reverberated through my bones, filling me with heat and pride. “Greco’s greatest weakness is that he will underestimate you. If we go to this meeting, we can see by how much. That said, if there’s any risk to your safety, we will abort. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” I answered.

He ducked his head to kiss me firmly. My hands clutched his elbows while he deepened the kiss and sent heat rocketing through my nerves. When he broke the kiss, the fight seemed to have drained out of the rest of the guys.

Ciel stood and came to give me a quick kiss. “All right, ángel.”

“Fine,” Ryu said as he pulled his phone from his pocket and tucked away the knife he’d been playing with. “Let’s see if Kostya wants to come to play.”

Wynn pulled me into a tight hug, winding his hands through my hair. I squeezed him back. “I’ve got your back, darling.”

Then Cas pressed a kiss to my temple. “You stress me out, princess, but I love you to death because of it.”

I grinned. Obi was right. Piero Greco wouldn’t have invited us to this meeting if he thought we were a threat. We could use that to our advantage.

11

LEONA

Greco’s meeting location was at a restaurant on the border of Harlem and the Upper East Side. As soon as we pulled up in our armored SUV, I felt the weight of the occasion.

Greco hadn’t chosen a high-end, super secure location. This was a place that the mafia frequented since the seventies and eighties. Choosing it signaled a few things: Greco had done his research, he felt at home in our spaces, and he wanted us to know it.

It pissed me the fuck off.

“I wasn’t expecting a place like this,” Ryu said as Obi pulled the SUV into the parking lot around the back. We crammed into one car this time, and it was full from front to back. Obi and Ryu were in the front seat. Me, Ciel, and Wynn were in the second row. Cas and Max were in the back.

Something seemed to have shifted between those two. Cas didn’t have his normal tightness in his shoulders. He wasn’t watching Max out of the corner of his eye at every turn. I needed to talk to him later and figure out what had changed.