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Unease wormed through me, and I settled into the chair by the window. “Outfit?”
He shrugged. “No idea.”
The Irish didn’t know where our warehouses were here unless Andreas and thus Sergio had shared that information. If the mob was coming for revenge, then they’d be going for a damn sight more than a warehouse that didn’t even have any product in it. I wasn’t stupid enough to bring what little product the Pérez brothers were supplying me into any known locations.
No, this had Sergio’s name all over it. The Outfit was testing the waters, shooting blind on vague information.
“What are you going to do?” Jackson asked, resting his elbows on his spread knees.
I scrubbed a hand over my chin. Chicago was one thing, but the second they set one foot in New York, my response had to be swift and decisive.
The Outfit was in disarray—soldiers dead, capos scattered, their leader in hiding, and yet they were somehow still making moves. Because Sergio might have been gone, but they did have a leader. Luca Donato. He was enacting Sergio’s orders, and I would assume he was one of the few, if not the only person, who knew where Sergio was.
Luca was a man I wanted as a friend—if only for Emilia’s sake—but who was currently a foe. That left me with limited options.
My own selfishness was the only thing that stopped me from broaching him and making a deal immediately. It was the smart thing to do, the obvious choice to call a halt to the violence. But if he said no, Emilia would say no at that altar.
There was a time when I had wanted her to want me, to choose me of her own free will, but that was unrealistic. With every touch, every harsh word, I found I no longer cared how I had Emilia, only that I did. I would do anything, including putting my own interests at risk and leveraging her brother against her. She was my obsession.
If we could marry tomorrow, I would shove her into a white dress and march her down that aisle, but the marriage license took two weeks to obtain. I could not allow The Outfit to keep wreaking havoc for the next ten days.
“Find Luca Donato and extract him from Chicago. I’ll see if we can come to terms. If not, perhaps ten days as our guest might persuade him to choose his loyalties more wisely.”
“Wait.” Tommy held a hand up. “If he denies you, you’re just going to take him hostage?”
“Yes.”
“Why? Surely if he doesn’t agree, you’re going to have to kill him anyway…”
Jackson laughed. “But if he kills him, The Outfit princess won’t marry him. He wants her first.” He folded his thick arms over his chest, disapproval pouring from him. “Isn’t that right, Gio?”
I pushed to my feet, refusing to explain myself, not even to my best friends. “Just get him. Call me when you have him.”
I stalked to the door, unable to handle the judgment because, truthfully, I was judging myself. Emilia should not have come before the mafia, the business, my family, but I’d long since given up trying to find anything rational in the way I felt about her.
I had wanted her from the very first time she had slapped me. The thought of having my ring on her finger made my dick hard. She might have hated me right now, but she still came for me so sweetly, sucked my dick like her lips were made for it… The more I thought about it, the less moral I became.
Donato would ally. Emilia would be my wife. She would learn to love me. I could and would have it all.
I pulled into the alleyway beside Vice and made my way inside the abandoned nightclub. It was the middle of the day, and the place was always eerie without the music and patrons.
Jackson sat at the bar in silence, sipping on a whiskey. Beside him was none other than Luca Donato.
A few of Jackson’s men clung to the shadows of the room, and that told me all I needed to know. My enforcer considered the eldest Donato son a threat.
“Jackson.” I stepped behind the bar, pouring myself a drink as I took in the two of them, both battered and bruised.
Jackson had a split in his bottom lip. Donato had a busted cheekbone and bloody eyebrow, and judging by the way he was hunching over, a cracked rib. Both their clothes were bloody and torn, and it was clear they’d had one hell of a fight. But while Luca glared at me, Jackson grinned. He loved it when someone gave him a decent scrap.
The bruises that marred Luca’s face made it difficult to find the similarities between him and Emilia, but it was there in the wariness of his gaze, the steely set of his shoulders despite being in pain.
