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He was on his way into hiding, the way he’d probably been taught since he was a kid. Your family draws the wrong sort of attention and gets attacked, and you do one thing. No, it’s not running right toward the trouble and trying to stop the attack, though that was what I’d always thought I would do. It was get to one of your escape routes and find a safe place to hunker down and hide until it’s safe to come out again.
Which was exactly what Michael and Joseph had wanted us to do.
I shook myself at the thought, realizing only now what a selfish fucking bitch I was being. The Massimos had been attacked and the Rossis were going to be in the crosshairs as the family most likely to have done the attacking. The Massimos didn’t really run in the mafia world anymore but that didn’t mean they didn’t have a way to get back in. It certainly didn’t mean they didn’t have weapons and men willing and able to use them.
And I’d come into what I thought might be Massimo territory with two of the jewels in the Rossi crown. Sloane and Penny were already targets—hell, they’d been kidnapped and followed and nearly killed in the last week—and I’d brought them right to the Massimo doorstep. All because I’d been worried about Anthony and had wanted to make sure he was okay.
Now I knew I couldn’t trust Anthony. And that meant my friends most definitely weren’t safe.
“Stupid,” I hissed to myself.
I whirled away from the bar without asking the bartender anything else and raced back toward the car where my two best friends in the world were sitting and waiting. They were still there and safe, thank God, and I threw open the passenger door and yanked Sloane out of it.
“You two are going home,” I told her firmly, towing her around to the driver’s side and shoving her into the seat. “Don’t slow down at the corners. Don’t stop at any red lights. Don’t pause until you get back to the right side of Brooklyn.”
Sloane tipped her head, looking half furious and half confused. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Is Anthony in there? Did something happen?”
I leaned down, planted a kiss on her forehead, and then grabbed her legs and turned her so she was sitting the right way in the seat. “What happened is that I realized how stupid it was of me to bring you two to this side of town. Get home and hunker down, the way the boys want you to. Stay safe.”
“And what about you? You don’t think you should also be going home, where it’s safe?”
I snorted. “Are you kidding? You two are the valuable ones, here. You’re the one the enemy keeps trying to take.”
Sloane’s eyes narrowed. “That’s only because they know if they take you, they’ll be sorry.”
I patted her gently on the cheek. “That’s right, Red. Which is why I know I’ll be just fine. But not if I have to watch over you two. Go home.”
She skipped right over the part where I called her ‘Red’—which she hated—and went to the most important question.
Typical Sloane.
“And where, may I ask, are you going?”
I looked back at the bar, considering, but there was no reason not to tell her. It wasn’t like she wouldn’t be able to guess. “I’m going to find Anthony Massimo. Because I’m guessing he has even more important information for me now than he did before.”
Like who had attacked his family. Who had lived and who had died. And whether the Massimos were planning retaliation against the Rossis and Brennans.
“Are you insane? You don’t even know where he is!”
I turned a cold, one might say evil smile on my best friend in the world. “Oh, I think I know exactly where he is. And I just happen to have a standing invitation to join him there tomorrow. Guess I’ll just be arriving early.”
I shut the door and brought my palm down on the top of the car. I didn’t want them spending any more time here than they had to. I had a job to do, and I wouldn’t be able to do it if I was worrying about Sloane and Penny.
When Sloane took off, the tires skidding and the car fishtailing down the street, I turned and went back toward the bar, my mind racing. I wanted to find Anthony and make sure he was okay, but I also wanted to know what the hell was going on and what the Massimos were going to do about it.
So I guessed finding Anthony was going to kill multiple birds. So to speak.
I just hoped it didn’t end up killing me.
11
ANTHONY
The gas tank was full, thank God, and I paused for long enough to send a prayer of thanks heavenward for that one. I almost never kept an eye on the amount of fuel in my tanks, and it was pure dumb luck that I had enough now to do anything more than start the ship.
I was going to have to do a whole lot more than that. I needed to not only start it but also get as far as I could safely go from shore. I’d blown through the market on my way here and had bags and bags full of food and water, the better to stock the place, and I’d arrived on my ship with one goal: Get out into the open water and hunker down until things got calm again.
Until my uncle had done whatever he was going to do in retaliation for what had just happened.
