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“I’m sorry, princess,” I tell her as my eyes pop open to the deserted alley I’m still standing in the middle of, a streetlight shining over a dumpster is the only things illuminating the darkness.
“Not your fault, Dad. It was set in motion before I met him.” Her tone is filled with sorrow and hatred and maybe resolve. It makes me wish Domenico hadn’t ended that scumbag’s life so that I could be the one to do it. No one hurts the ones I love and gets away with it. That’s why I’m here tonight, dead set on unleashing eighteen plus years of pain and anger.
Rafe’s death wasn’t going to be quick, but now, after learning that he’s been planning Sienna’s death for God knows how long . . .
I should have seen this shit coming.
I should have taken him out years ago.
He isn’t a good man—never was. I’ve known this my entire life, yet I haven’t done a damn thing about it. I thought taking his title and power from him was enough. I was fucking blind. That’s the only conclusion I can come to.
“We’re going to have a talk tomorrow, Si. Until then, I have a score to settle, baby girl.” I end the call before she says goodbye; not because I mean to be rude but because my control has snapped. The need for blood is too great.
After I’m finished, Rafe Caputo will be unrecognizable. I very well may join him in Hell one of these days, but it won’t be tonight.
Pocketing my cell phone, I jog to catch up to Giovanni. By the time I find him, he’s waiting for me against the brick of the brownstone around the side of the townhouses on Rafe’s block. My father lives on a corner lot with a fenced-off garden that offers privacy, which makes it more spacious and also the perfect place to enter undetected, since the living room area is on the front end of the building and the master suite is on the second level. The garden patio has an exit off the kitchen, and being as late as it is, he’ll either be asleep or watching television. If I had to guess, I’d pick the latter with him being a night owl.
“Let’s do this,” I mutter, about to stalk past Giovanni when he catches my arm, halting my advance. “No more stalling, G. I’m doing this tonight.”
“I’m not stalling. I’m with you all the way, Tony, but I noticed a car out front with a Louisiana license plate and it got me to thinking,” he says.
“Santo,” I whisper, my lip curling on its own accord at the mere thought of the New Orleans boss being in my territory without my knowledge. Salvatore Santo and I have never seen eye to eye. In fact, at one time he was on my list of bosses I’d planned on taking out, but after I killed the fourth boss, my grief over losing Ariana took over and I had three kids that needed me more. Sal wasn’t a threat—or so I thought—so I placed him and the rest of the remaining bosses on a back burner, which is where they’ve remained for eighteen years.
My gut churns, and now I wonder if that was a mistake.
What possible reason could he have for being here?
“My thoughts too,” Giovanni chimes in. “Or it could be his number two, or even both.”
Marcel Santo is not only Sal’s underboss but also his only son and heir to his Southern empire. From his reputation, he’s as sadistic as his father, but the two have stayed out of my way so I’ve done the same, knowing we’d eventually cross paths and I’d end their reign and steal their territory as my own.
Perhaps tonight that time has come. If that’s the case, and one or both of them are inside my father’s home, then my children will be hit with more news than they may be able to process. They were too young to understand what all I had to do to gain control over such a large area, and Domenico and I have never spoken of that time. I thought I had years to prepare him for this, to prepare all three of them for what I may very well set in motion tonight.
I wanted the three of them to be married and settled before I went this route, but maybe this is better. Maybe this is what Lorenzo needs to wake his ass up. Maybe this needs to happen before anymore marriages or babies begin to come forth. I already have one small person to worry about and from the look on Domenico’s face tonight, I have a good idea of what he and Krishna left to handle.
“You packing enough heat to handle what we’re about to walk into?” I question Giovanni, even though I know him well enough to know since the day he walked out of prison he’s never without multiple weapons, even when he’s sleeping.
“No one in that house will walk out alive except the two of us, T.”
“Fair enough,” I say, and then I pass him, knowing he’ll stay on my heel every step of the way.
I disable Rafe’s security system from an application on my phone as I enter the brownstone next to his and make my way to the rear patio as quickly as my sneaker-covered feet will get me there. I’m still dressed in the suit I wore to both fights tonight but before Dom left in Giovanni’s SUV, we both changed into shoes that would make the least noise walking in.
This isn’t the first time I’ve snuck into Rafe’s home undetected, but it is the first time I’m doing it knowing he’s home. I acquired the home next to his within three days of my daughter remembering what happened the night Ari was killed. I didn’t even have to coerce the owners to sell to me. They hadn’t placed it on the market when I inquired but they had been planning to do it that very week. I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. The only thing they had to do was sign over the property and leave everything inside like it hadn’t been sold. They were behind on their mortgage and in a lot of debt, so it wasn’t a hard sell.
Since then, I’ve removed part of the fence on their side, and being as my father’s side has vines covering his side of the fence, you can’t tell what I’ve done. Easy access. But all the times I’ve searched his place, I never found anything useful. It’s not that I didn’t believe Sienna’s recollection, because I did, but if he went as far as he did, then I thought there must be more. What else was Rafe hiding, planning?
Squeezing my frame through the missing two wooden slates, I stalk through the small yard and up the three steps. For someone as paranoid as my father is, he either assumes the sliding glass door is locked or he’s never considered the possibility of someone getting into his house from the back since it’s not accessible from the street.
Pulling the handle slowly, I listen for the dinging sound that would typically play had I not shut it down, and like it shouldn’t, the sound never comes, so I step over the threshold.
The kitchen is dark, but the house isn’t silent. The faint sound of a conversation can be heard from my spot as I wait for Giovanni to close the door behind us.
The hallway from the kitchen leads you to the front where the living room and stairs to the other floors are located. Before I take another step, I pull the Beretta M9A3 out from one side of my suit jacket and the suppressor from the other side. Screwing it into the threaded barrel, I aim the weapon in front of me, knowing there is already a round in the chamber should anyone step in my line of sight.
Giovanni taps me on the shoulder, but I shake my head. He wants to step in front of me to take the lead to make sure he takes any fire that is shot our way. That’s what would be expected of him from any other boss, but he knows I’m not like the rest. This is my fight, and I will be the one to take the first motherfucker out should it come to that, and we both know it will.
Stepping forward slowly and quietly, I listen to their conversation and keep watch for any movement other than Giovanni’s and my advancement.
