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Arkan made his move. That was so fast. How did he know?
“Will you come?” Christina asked.
An hour was tight, but it was enough time.
“I’ll be there,” I told her.
“Good. I am looking forward to our discussion.”
Chapter 11
“As your cousin-brother, I feel compelled to point out the utter fuckedupness of this situation,” Leon said as I took the turn onto the side road.
“I thought we agreed you wouldn’t use that term.”
“Fuckedupness?”
“Cousin-brother. Pick one, not both.”
The area around the Compound was still mostly rural, with the city encroaching like an urban octopus stretching its tentacles. Fields rolled on both sides of the road, with a farmhouse here and there and small businesses like car repair shops and veterinary clinics sprouting up by the road at random. The armored troop transport rocked as it rolled over haphazard bumps in the road. It was very well protected but far less comfortable than Rhino. I missed our tank-SUV.
Leon checked his SIG Sauer. Runa had heroically offered to go with me on this adventure, but she could barely stand. Besides, Leon had mentioned he “needed comfort” again, which in Leon speak meant he wanted to be useful.
“Is this fiancée even real?” he asked.
“Probably.”
“How?”
“I suspect that’s something his family arranged. He’s been getting phone calls.”
“What kind of phone calls?”
“The kind he takes in private. He speaks in Italian, and they make him irritated.”
The Sagredo family had been overextended for generations. They dragged a mountain of debt behind them, and they expected to sell Alessandro for a pretty penny. They had arranged three engagements for him, and Alessandro had torpedoed every one of them. Trying to sell him for a fourth time didn’t seem like much of a stretch.
Leon frowned. “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding this, but he’s been excised. They disowned him.”
“Yes.”
“So how could they be arranging marriages for him?”
“If something happens and you are excised, will you stop caring about your brother, or Arabella, or Nevada?”
He grimaced. “So it’s emotional blackmail.”
“Probably.”
Our childhood shaped us in deep, fundamental ways, and Alessandro’s childhood was all about taking his rightful place as the Head of the family, carrying on the Sagredo name, and marrying well to stave off creditors so House Sagredo could survive for one more generation. At heart, Alessandro was a protector. That part of him never disappeared; it only grew stronger, except now my family and I were the focus of that protective urge. Before he’d left with Konstantin, he’d kissed me and asked me to stay in the Compound until he returned. If he found out I left on this little expedition, he wouldn’t be happy.
Unfortunately, it couldn’t be helped. I needed to ascertain the scope of this threat.
“It’s a messed-up family,” I said. “His grandfather runs it, and neither Alessandro’s grandmother nor his mother can stand up to him. He wants him to marry an heiress.”
“He has a grandmother? And what, we’re not rich enough?”
“It’s not just a matter of money. It’s about generational guilt and lost noble titles which shouldn’t matter but still do. He wants Alessandro to get a rich wife, come back to Italy, and then sit on his hands for the rest of his life. Because that’s what he and Alessandro’s father did. It’s kind of a family tradition for the men in his family. If Alessandro goes out and decides to make his own money, it will invalidate his grandfather’s entire life. He doesn’t want him to be successful, Leon.”
“So it’s his version of ‘I suffered and lived in misery, so everyone else has to’?”
“Pretty much.”
“Never understood that,” Leon said. “If you suffered, wouldn’t you want your grandson to have an easier time?”
“You and I would because we are not assholes.” I made another turn. “The timing on this is fishy. We grab Arkan’s snitch, and suddenly Alessandro’s fiancée shows up.”
“I don’t like it,” Leon said.
“Neither do I.”
In the past six months, Alessandro and I had made arrangements to limit the potential damage his grandfather could do, but no preparations could account for all of the possibilities.
He didn’t talk to me about it.
“They can’t honestly think he will put his tail between his legs and crawl back to them,” Leon said.
“That’s exactly what they think.”
The field on the right side had ended. A new subdivision was going up, bordered by a stone wall, half-finished roofs peaking above it. Signs dotted the side of the road.
The Estates at Brushy Creek.
From the low $400s
NEW HOMES
First phase available
WELCOME HOME
Turn left
The entrance to the subdivision waited ahead, bordered by curved stone flowerbeds. I steered the transport into it. We rolled past the model houses doubling as sales offices.
Ahead the four-lane street split, flowing around an island of green lawn that offered a playground and a large covered pavilion with picnic tables and barbecue grills. The houses closest to the entrance had been mostly complete, but here the construction was still in full swing. Skeletons of future homes rose on both sides, as building crews carried lumber and sank nails into the wooden frames. A big blue taco truck had stopped on one side of the park, serving tacos and sandwiches to the construction workers.
