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His gaze slides up and down me, in a way that feels far too personal for who he is, and who I am. “You wouldn’t be in danger of following in her footsteps.”
The words are low and threatening, and he smiles tightly down at me, his eyes still hard and cold. “Goodnight,princesa,” he murmurs. “Sweet dreams.”
I manage to stay upright until he shuts the door, harder than he needed to. I stumble backwards, feeling my pulse pounding in my throat as I sink down onto the edge of my bed, feeling that same terror that I’d felt earlier threatening to overwhelm me all over again.
Diego Gonzalez is coming for my family. Forme, just like he had my sister.
Isabella had Niall to save her.
Who is going to save me?
Chapter Two:Levin
“We owe them the men we promised.”
Liam is standing at the head of the table, next to Connor, and the tension in the room is palpable. It generally is, in times like these, when all the heads of the various members of the families are assembled for a crisis. The entire table of the Kings is present, including Jacob, Connor’s right hand who is now a member, same as Niall is for Liam. They sit on either side of the two men, the rest of the Kings flanking down, with seats left for Viktor and I, and Luca, who is short his right hand man for this meeting.
They’ve all been talking now for a long time, in circles as men like this are often wont to do when they don’t have an answer for the problem they’re trying to address. This time, the problem is the alliance with the Santiago cartel, and the deal that Niall had made in exchange for trade with them.
“We agreed that I’d rescue Isabella, and that we’d send men for backup,” Niall says sharply, his voice rising. “I accomplished the first part. The Santiago cartel has opened up trade with us. We’ve been doing good business. So now we need to do the rest of our part.”
“There won’t be any fuckin’ trade if the Gonzalez cartel decimates them,” one of the older Kings says, slapping his hand down on the table. “I say we wait and see what happens.”
“The entire point of sending men is to ensure that doesn’t happen,” Liam retorts. “We’re supposed to be men of our word. We’ve waited too long already.”
“We sent men. Half of them fuckin’ died–”
“We sent a handful. A few from the Romano mafia, a few from the Kings, a few from the Andreyev Bratva. Nothing close to what we agreed. It’s been too long–”
“Seems like a shit deal,” another of the Kings speaks up. “Niall made that deal because he wanted the woman. He got what he wanted, and the rest of our men get what? Sent to their fuckin’ deaths?”
“I made the deal to save her,” Niall says tightly. “I didn’t do it to make her mine. I wasn’t interested in that, then. But her father wanted her saved, and Liam and Connor wanted an alliance. So I made that happen. Now you want to renege on our word, like Liam is saying? Onmyword?”
I feel Viktor glance at me, and I know what he’s thinking–likely the same thing that I am. There’s not likely to be an easy resolution to this, and the only way that there will be one at all is if Connor puts his foot down as he so often does, and reminds the table that while his brother Liam might still prefer to run things as a democracy, he does not. He might not be the sort to favor men with money or family names to sit at the table over men who he feels have earned it, but he’s also not a man to have his voice overruled, if he decides he’s come to a decision.
“Look,” Liam says, his voice tight with an irritation that’s rarely there in my experience, and speaks to the fact that he’s also getting exhausted with the entire ordeal. “We have information that Diego Gonzalez is demanding Elena Santiago as payment. Her father is refusing. I don’t think there’s a man here who isn’t aware of what consequences that’s likely to have for the Santiago family.”
“And that’s our problem?” Another of the Kings speaks up sharply. “We’ve got our own families, too. If the Santiago cartel falls and the Gonzalez family takes more power, it’s better if we’re not on the losing side. What does that girl’s marriage have to do with us? That wasn’t part of the deal.”
“That girlis my sister-in-law,” Niall growls. “So I’d say at least someone at this table has a vested interest in what happens to her.”
“That sounds like a personal issue.”
“I don’t agree that it’s not our problem at all,” Luca speaks up, his smooth, cultured voice rising above the others. “But I’d agree that we do have to think about our own families in this–the consequences of war with the cartels. I have my children, Viktor has his. Isabella is pregnant again, as is Saoirse. Ana and Liam have their child. There’s hardly a man among us not married or with children of his own to think of, except Jacob and Levin, and a few others.”
Jacob snorts. “I’ll do what the McGregor tells me to, as I’m used to doing,” he says roughly, his accent thickening. “But I’m hardly of a mind to think that I should be riskin’ my neck for the girl just because I have no children of my own to come back to.”
“If we abandon the Santiago cartel,” Viktor says calmly, “we will have broken our word. That matters, gentlemen. Our word will be useless with the cartels going forward–and perhaps for others too, if they hear about it. Furthermore, if we do send the kind of force that was promised to back up the Santiago cartel, it’s entirely possible that they may be able to beat back Diego Gonzalez. We will benefit, in that case.”
“And what if the Gonzalez cartel is a more likely bet?” one of the Kings calls out, from further down the table.
“Diego Gonzalez is not the sort of man that I think most of us wish to ally with,” Luca says calmly. “Now, I understand the reservations. But as several of us have said, we gave our word. I will provide men to go, from my mafia, along with those that the rest of you are willing to offer up.”
“Elena needs to be removed from the situation,” Niall says sharply. “She can’t stay in the middle of what is effectively a war zone, when she’s the prize to be won. We need to get her out of there and to safety. Here, to Boston.”
“Is that you, or your lass speaking?”
Niall glares at the King across the table from him. “It’s me that’s fuckin speaking,” he snaps. “I’m not willing to leave the lass there. So we get her out, when we send the men. That’s my opinion.”
