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“We’ve got a location.” Anton pokes his head in, jangling the keys in his hand. “Do you want me to take a few men to pick him up?”
I grin. “And miss out on all the fun?” I shake my head in amusement as I stand. “Not on your life.” Anton smiles and nods his head before backing out of the office. I leave my jacket, knowing that the afternoon sun in March can still be stifling, and head out of my office.
Anton is sitting idly in the black SUV at the front of the house. One of my men opens the passenger door for me before shutting it once I’m in and climbing in the back. I can feel how tense Anton is next to me, his left leg bouncing slightly giving away the anxiety that is coursing through him. He’s been my best friend for longer than I can remember. He’s the one who stood by my side when my father was murdered, gunned down in the streets like an animal.
I was thirteen.
Anton’s father helped me run the business for several years until I was old enough to take over. A few years later, he passed away from cancer. I was there for Anton every step of the way as he had been for me. We were brothers in every sense of the word, blood or not. I learned from a young age that family is what you make it and not what you are born into.
Which is how I know that something is bothering him.
“Theo Kalogeras is twenty-eight years old,” he recites the information from memory. “His mother, Mia Kalogeras is the sister of Stavros Spiridakos, Peter’s father.”
This is information we already know.
“What I want to know is why he thinks he can sell in my territory?” I growl. “Did the Spiridakos family suddenly grow some balls?”
Cassian, the man in the back, snorts.
“I don’t know about growing any balls, boss,” he says. “But whoever is backing them surely has a pair.”
I turn slightly in my seat to get a better look at him. “You don’t think the Spirdakoses are working alone?”
Cassian shakes his head. “They’ve never had the kind of money or power to push into our territory before,” he tells me. “Nor the manpower. They’ve always been a small family, even with merging their assets with the Castellanos family, they still wouldn’t be able to make this kind of push.”
“It would explain how they managed to get their hands on such premium product,” I muse. “But who could be backing them?”
“I’m guessing it’s whoever took out the Castellanoses,” Anton shrugs a shoulder.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I point out. “Why take out a potential ally? The two families were bonding through marriage. It would have meant more money and backing. A larger territory.”
“Unless they didn’t want to share.”
And there it is.
The cold hard simple truth.
Greed.
Vanya might be right in her assumption that Peter could have ordered the hit on her family. With the Castellanos family out of the way, there would be no need to share the wealth. They can just take it. There would be no one left alive to stop them.
Except that Vanya is still alive.
And why take the heads?
This is becoming more complicated by the moment and giving me a fucking headache I don’t need.
“The men are on standby,” Cassian tells me. “We’ve confirmed he’s on site.”
“Good.” I take a deep breath. “Time to get some answers.”
Anton parks the SUV a few houses down in the back alley so that Kalogeras doesn’t see us coming. Not that it matters much. The house is completely unprotected. No guards. No security measures. Nothing. Did he think he was untouchable? Or is it some kind of trap? I’m prepared for the latter if it is.
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
“Duck,” Cassian hollers from ahead of me. I curse when I hear a sudden pop and see his body jolt and fall to the ground. I can see his chest still rising and falling, and hear a small groan leave his lips. A knot in my chest eases. These men are mine. My family. My friends. Losing one of them is like losing a limb.
“Backup’s coming,” Anton assures me as we move in. It’s a slow approach and I listen for how many shots are going off. It’s just one man. One man trying to be Wyatt Earp by shooting off two guns at once.
