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Allegra was behind me, staying out in the hallway while her father’s men and I tried to take care of things. “So you really were going to betray your father?” I asked, walking into the room, sliding past the guards, who had their guns trained on Ricardo.
Ricardo blinked but didn’t lower the gun. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he asked.
“I brought Allegra home,” I said.
“And disobeyed me?” Rocco growled.
I scoffed. “I work for Enzo, not you.”
“That’s not what you said when you took the job.”
“I took it to protect Allegra,” I said, and then Allegra burst into the room, brushing past the two men. One of them was the bodyguard I’d been jealous of, but I couldn’t worry about that right now.
Ricardo glanced at me, and then Allegra, but kept the gun trained on Romeo, who sat quietly behind the desk. I was sure he had a weapon under there, if we could just get Ricardo’s attention. “Are you fucking her?” he asked.
“That’s none of your business,” Allegra snapped. “None of this is any of your business, Ricardo. We’re not uniting the families.”
“Looks to me like you don’t have much of a choice,” he drawled, a twisted grin playing at the corner of his mouth.
I stepped forward, putting myself between Ricardo and Romeo, and Allegra gasped, grabbing at my arm. “You don’t want to do this, Ricardo. Your father won’t back you, and then where will you be? You think Romeo’s men won’t come after you?”
“I’ve got plenty of places to hide,” Ricardo insisted. “Now all you need to do is give me the girl, and I’ll go.”
“What, you think I’ll grow to love you?” Allegra said, disgust evident in her tone.
“Who cares about love?” Ricardo snarled. “That’s not what this is about. She has knowledge I need.” He looked her up and down. “And the body I want.”
I gritted my teeth. I wanted to rush at him, wanted to hit him even if he did shoot me, just for talking to Allegra like that. Instead, though, I took in a deep breath through my nostrils. “You can’t force a relationship like marriage. You think she’s going to sign legal documents? Do what you want?”
“She will once I have the kid,” Ricardo said, and Allegra made a terrified noise in the back of her throat.
“Don’t you even think about it,” I said, and then Ricardo grinned and terror fell over me like a storm cloud. He knew about Matteo. That was his big ticket out of here.
“My men would have already picked him up. Third door on the left, right?” Ricardo looked straight at the man who had been Allegra’s bodyguard, Alberto. Alberto turned and shot the other guard. The bullet was silent since the gun had a silencer on the end, but I saw it tear into the other guard’s throat. Allegra screamed, the sound thin and reedy. He clutched at the wound which sprayed blood all over Alberto. Alberto didn’t flinch, just looking back at Ricardo for instruction.
“Take Allegra,” Ricardo said, and Alberto grabbed at her. Ricardo turned to look at him and Romeo took a gun out from behind the desk. Ricardo pointed the gun at him again. “Ah, ah,” he said in a teasing tone. “You don’t want to do that. I’ve left instructions for my men to kill your grandson if I don’t make it back.”Shit. I was terrified for Matteo’s life. We had been sostupid, not putting a guard outside his door, and clearly the Rossi family had been betrayed by Alberto. I didn’t know what Ricardo had over him, but the bodyguard seemed singularly determined to take Allegra.
Allegra fought him, stamping down hard on his instep, but Alberto didn’t move a muscle. “I’m bringing his mother along with him,” Ricardo said. “Because I’m just so nice.”
“Because you want her for yourself,” I snarled, my muscles twitching to hit him, to go after him.
“You’re making a very powerful enemy, Ricardo,” Romeo said slowly, and then lowered his gun.
“Now I’m getting out of here, nice and slow,” Ricardo said, lowering his gun as Alberto took out Allegra, kicking and screaming. Her screams echoed in my head, and all I could think about was my little boy. I’d spent all day with him, learning about what he liked and sharing some with him. We both enjoyed dark chocolate, for example, and I would have let him have five of the expensive chocolates that Romeo kept in his cabinet, but his nanny had stopped me. I’d just begun to get to know my son, and now he’d been kidnapped. All Romeo and I could do was watch as Ricardo took Allegra, having already taken Matteo out of the house.
Romeo cursed as soon as the front door shut and I sat down hard in the chair, not knowing what to do. “What happens now?” I asked, feeling desperate and hopeless.
“We go to Enzo,” Romeo said quickly, grabbing his suit jacket up off the chair. “Right fucking now.”
I blinked at him, surprised at how he snapped into action but grateful. I’d been feeling like everything was hopeless, that we’d never get them back, but clearly Romeo had the beginnings of a plan, and he filled me in on the details. “We’re going to link up with Enzo, tell him what happened,” he said, driving quickly through the city streets to get to Enzo’s secluded mansion. “Ricardo won’t be hiding out there. He’ll use a safehouse, probably one of Enzo’s. He says he has connections but what he really means is that he has money.” He cursed. “That’s where you come in. You have to convince Enzo that his son is truly off the rails. We need to get the go-ahead to kill him.”
“I don’t know if he’ll give it,” I said honestly. Enzo knew who his son was, knew his shortcomings, but I didn’t know if he’d actually give us the okay to kill him. He loved Ricardo despite how far he’d strayed from the Gallo family ideals.
“Doesn’t matter,” Romeo snapped. “It’s happening. There’s no way he’s living through this.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” I said tightly. Enzo was a wonderful man who’d done a lot for me, but his son had taken everything I cared about, and I wasn’t going to let him get away with it.
Romeo drove like a madman through the city streets until we reached the backroads to Enzo’s mansion. Then he kicked it into a higher gear andflewdown the bumpy roads. I clutched onto the side of the doorhandle, my head spinning. I kept telling myself that this was my fault, that I should have done things differently. I should have insisted that Matteo be protected, but even if I had, it could have been Alberto, who had turned on the Gallo family. “Alberto has been with the Gallos for fifteen years,” Romeo said incredulously, and I guessed I had said it out loud. I felt almost out of it, disconnected from myself. Romeo was obviously also shocked by the man’s betrayal.
