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I was glad I hadn’t, too, because his next line would have made me look like a fucking idiot. He wanted to drive a wedge between them. Separate them and weaken them, the better to destroy them.
And how was he going to do that, you ask?
By courting the Rossis and pretending to be their friend, of course. Then feeding them full of lies about what the Brennans were doing behind their backs. He wanted to get in with the Rossis with the right hand while using the left hand to destroy the Brennans. Then go after the Rossis once the Brennans—and the Rossi backup mechanism—were out of the picture.
And why did this meeting include me? What did they think I could do; play Pied Piper and dance the Rossis away while the rest of the family went after the Brennans?
In a word, yes.
“You’re the best-placed to get in with the Rossis,” he’d said, turning his cold, dead eyes on me. “You’re the same age as the boys and I know you’ve run in similar circles to them. If you go to them and say you know that your family wants to come down on their side in whatever war is brewing...” He lifted his eyebrows, counting on me to see where he was going with it.
I didn’t. Or at least I pretended not to.
“I don’t know the Rossis,” I snapped.”I’ve never even talked to Joseph or Michael. What makes you think they’re suddenly going to lay down the red carpet for me?”
He reached out and grabbed my wrist, yanking me across the table toward him. “They’ll do more than that if they’re smart,” he hissed. “Because you’ll tell them you’re a friend of that Brooks bitch. You’ll use her as your in. We all know they’ve got a soft spot for her.”
My entire body had gone cold and I’d felt the floor drop out from under me at his words. But I’d remembered what my father had once told me, when I got old enough for my uncle to start noticing me and thinking I should help him with things. “Don’t ever let them see what you’re thinking,” he’d said. “And never, ever let them know you’re scared. If they think you’re scared they’ll walk all over you. Keep your feelings secret, or they’ll tear you apart.”
A few months later, my father was dead. And I’d started teaching myself how to push my feelings to the side and deal with them after my uncle was gone.
“And if I don’t want to use her as an excuse?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice level.
My uncle’s mouth twisted in a truly ugly smile. “Then I’ll bring her in and use her myself. And I guarantee you’ll like that a whole lot less.”
I groaned now and knocked my head back against the door. I hated the mob. I hated all the veiled threats and conspiracies and casual ways my uncle had of hurting other people. I’d never been a schemer or a liar, and here I was surrounded by them.
But below that, below the disgust that always came from dealing with my uncle, something else was raising its head. Anger. Pure, unadulterated fury at what he was trying to force me to do. Invite Brooks out. Get her to introduce me to Joseph Rossi. Get Joseph Rossi on my team, at least for the time being.
And do it successfully. Or my uncle would take Brooks himself.
I opened my eyes and glared into the sunlight, letting the fury build and rage through my body. I didn’t want to be involved in this, and I certainly didn’t want Brooks in my uncle’s crosshairs. I still didn’t know what she’d been doing coming around my bar or what she wanted, but I knew one thing: She didn’t deserve to get caught up in my uncle’s machinations.
She didn’t deserve to pay for her curiosity or our friendship with her life.
And I wasn’t going to let it happen. My uncle might think I was harmless, just a musician who didn’t know anything about anything, but he was wrong. I’d been born into this family and had watched how he operated for years.
I knew how to get around him. I didn’t think that part would be difficult.
Getting Brooks to agree to the plan, though?
That was going to be... tricky.
5
BROOKS
I pulled slowly around the corner, my gaze flicking from right to left across the water and the piers leading out into it as I slowed and let my bike come to a stop. Everything looked safe. Normal. Calm.
But I’d been around long enough to know that looks and reality could be very different things. Especially when someone you hadn’t spoken to in years and had just rediscovered called and invited you out onto his boat with what looked like the flimsiest excuse ever created.
“I just want to get to know you again,” I scoffed to myself, getting off my bike and adjusting my jacket.
Then feeling for the two guns I had holstered underneath it.
Hey, don’t judge. I’d come all the way to the harbor to meet Anthony Massimo—who, I’ll remind you, I hadn’t talked to in years, and who belonged the family we suspected of being behind the attacks against the Rossis and Brennans. I’d ‘happened upon him’ at the bar last night and had a drink with him, sharing nothing more than gossip about when we were kids and a little bit about what we were up to now.
Sure, there’d been some sexual tension between us. Okay, a lot of it. But not enough that I would have expected him to immediately call me and invite me on a lunch date. On his fucking ship.
