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“Roman,” I weep, barely able to hold myself together.
“We’ll get him back,” Roman promises, trying to soothe me, but the tone in his voice is so raw and agonizing, I’ve never heard it before.
Levi does something on the computer, and I can only assume he’s copying the footage and scrubbing it clean from the school’s system. Despite the police already being on their way, they won’t be involved in this. Agent Davidson will take over, covering our tracks the best he can.
A woman’s soft cries fill the room, and it takes me a moment to realize the school principal is still here. When Roman turns to face her, he simply clenches his jaw. “We will pay for the funeral of Mrs. Hutchins. Anything her family needs or requires will go through us,” he tells her. “As for the children, we’ll arrange for a grief counselor for the school to utilize for as long as they need.”
The principal nods, wiping her eyes on the back of her arms before letting out a heavy breath and trying to stand up tall. “Make them suffer,” she says to Roman, absolute fire burning in her eyes. It’s no secret who we are and what we do, and it’s certainly not the first time we’ve had an outsider request a job, but in this case, it’s unnecessary. The whole Dragoni family signed their death certificates the second they decided to go after my son. “Go get your boy back.”
Roman nods, and with that, we walk out of the school, ready for war.
5
Roman hits the gas and the momentum has me falling back against my seat as I press my phone to my ear, my heart racing so fucking fast I can hardly breathe. Levi clutches my hand in the back seat, his jaw clenched as his haunted stare remains locked on mine.
The phone rings in my ear, and with each passing second, I want to scream. “Shayne?” Agent Davidson says a moment later, his voice thick with concern. I rarely call him, but to be called twice in one day—he knows something big is going on. “What’s wrong?”
“My place. Ten minutes,” I tell him, a growl thick in my tone, daring him to question me. “Bring everything you have on the Dragoni family.”
“What’s going on, Shayne?” he demands through the phone, his voice filled with concern. “What happened?”
“Ten minutes,” I repeat, the authority in my tone a sharp demand he won’t be able to deny, despite not being one of my men. I end the call before he has a chance to respond, tossing my phone onto the seat beside me, knowing without a doubt that he’ll show up. He always does.
“What if they hurt him?” I whisper into the silence of the car, the only sound coming from the roaring engine being pushed to its absolute limits.
“If they know what’s good for them, they won’t,” Roman growls. “They’re trying to draw us out. Baiting us.”
“I know,” I respond, because honestly, why else would they be doing this? They want something from us, and they’re going to use Sebastian as leverage, but they underestimate us. Perhaps before they went after my son, they might have had a slight shot at negotiating for territory. They still would have lost, but they would have come out with their lives . . . maybe. But not now.
Now they die. Cold. Brutal. Lethal.
There’s simply no other way this will end. It’s fact. Already etched into the tomes of history.
“They’ve already come after our club, killed our dealers, and stolen our product,” I remind Roman. “These assholes . . . they don’t know what’s good for them. They’re trying to make some kind of power play, and if they brutally murdered Mrs. Hutchins, I don’t think they would hesitate to hurt Sebastian.”
Knowing just how right I am, Roman pushes the SUV even faster as I hear Marcus on his phone, putting in the calls to prepare our large integrated families for war. Every single one of our men would give their lives for Sebastian a thousand times over. He’s the light in all of our lives and the reason I wake up every morning. He’s our world, and the thought of anything happening to him tears me to shreds.
“We’re going to get him back,” Levi murmurs, and the way he says it isn’t like a question or pushing for hope. He says it as though it’s already happened, as though it’s a cold, hard fact, and fuck, I really hope it is because any other outcome simply isn’t good enough.
We’re home within minutes, and our security team has already gathered in front of our home in the midst of organizing our armies. The second Marcus is out of the car, he goes to them, giving what little update he has and barking orders on what weapons to prepare.
