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What mattered to me most right then was getting Alessa free and having my family get out of there unscathed.
From the outside, Primo's business looked like any other of the old ones that had survived over the years. It was a four-story brick building with a ton of windows.
From what Ricco said, the lower floor was an open space where trucks got loaded off the back. The second floor had all the actual processing and packaging. The next floor was offices. And no one had any idea what the top level held since the windows had been tinted and had mirrored panels that didn't let you see inside.
Maybe where they kept the cash or weapons.
Or both.
Or neither.
We knew frustratingly little about the Esposito Family.
Just like we'd been told, the neighborhood seemed to be keeping their eyes on us as we pulled up in two cars. Costas in one, including Lorenzo, me, Brio, and Emilio. In the other was all of the Morelli brothers and their father.
"Yo, this way," someone called, moving out the front door to walk us around the back of the building.
Everyone's gazes moved around and up, looking for threats.
But no one made any moves as we were let into the building through the back, then up two flights of stairs to the office level.
We walked into a somewhat tame scene, all things said and done.
Seemingly as an act of good faith, despite being on his territory and surrounded by his people, Primo only had his brothers and Alessa present.
"Let her go," Ricco demanded immediately, body tense.
"Maybe," Primo said, waving toward the long conference table. "We will see about that," he said as he waited for all of us to sit before moving to do so as well.
My gaze sought Alessa's, finding hers already on me.
Avi? She mouthed to me, making my heart swell in my chest. Even when she found herself kidnapped and cuffed to a psychopath, surrounded by enemies, she was thinking about my kid.
I gave her a reassuring nod, watching as the relief washed over her face.
"Want a seat, baby?" Primo asked Alessa, motioning toward his lap as she stood at his side.
"Not if you were the last man on Earth, Primo," she said, getting a dark smile out of him. If I wasn't completely mistaken, he seemed to be getting a kick out of her attitude.
That worked in our favor, right?
But maybe not.
I couldn't imagine a soft spot for her would hold him back from hurting her if he felt like he needed to.
"Why the theatrics, Primo?" Lorenzo asked, waving toward Alessa. "If you wanted a sit-down, you could have just said so."
"On your terms," Primo shot back.
"Yeah, that's how this shit works," Lorenzo agreed. "You didn't want that, you shouldn't have gone through with your initiation."
"But obviously," I heard myself saying, holding up a hand to cut tensions, even though it was clearly not my place to do so, "we want all the Families to be able to get along amicably. We're stronger if everyone is satisfied."
Lorenzo didn't glance at me, because I knew he would see it as a stripping of his power to give me the hard look he would have wanted to at that moment.
Primo's gaze, though, slid in my direction, watching me for a long moment.
"That sounds like consigliere talk to me," he said, a brow arching up.
"It's calm and rational talk," I said, shrugging.
"Interesting that you can be calm and rational when I have your woman chained to my wrist," he said, trying to get a reaction out of me.
"She seems relatively unharmed to me," I said, jaw getting tight. "But I'll admit I'm not happy about that black eye."
"She's a fighter," Primo said, shrugging. It wasn't an apology by any stretch of the imagination. But it was probably naive to expect something like that from him.
"You didn't have to take Alessa," Lorenzo said. "And shoot my man in the process."
"Relax. Salvatore will live. And I did need to take Alessa if I wanted to smoke out Ricco," Primo said, gaze sliding toward the man who'd shot his brother.
"All the proper channels were gone through to order the hit on Due," Lorenzo said. "If I'm not mistaken, your father had gone through the same channels in his day to have a member of my Family hit."
"Don't compare me to my father," Primo demanded, voice a harsh whisper.
"I'm simply proving that this system works in favor of all the Families with legitimate concerns. Yours included. This wasn't done in a shady or unfair way."
"It was my brother, Lorenzo," Primo said, voice tight.
"And you know The Commission only approves the hit of men as high up in the hierarchy if there is just cause."
"What just cause could you have possibly had?" Primo asked.
"Ricco," Lorenzo said, nodding toward Alessa's brother who pulled a rolled-up folder out of his bulletproof vest, spreading it on the tabletop, and pulling individual pages out, then passing them across the table toward Primo.
