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My skin crawls.
“And eventually, he’ll honor his father in the best way possible—by taking Carmine’s place.”
The air in my lungs seizes.
He’ll what?!
Dante continues to speak, his eyes moving across the room, but not a single word registers. A lifetime of training tells me to keep my face neutral, relax my jaw, straighten my shoulders, and regulate my breathing, but all the while, my head is spinning.
Is he handing off the family to Paulie?
Trust his plan. What the fuck kind of plan is this?
Paulie wants to drive the greed deeper, not clean out the wound.
If Paulie takes the head of the family, it won’t be enough to just take down the worst of them—to destroy Paulie and Carmine and anyone who is too loyal to them—I’ll have to take them all down. I look around, seeing men I recognize from the club. Men I thought were bouncers or employees who must be soldiers. Men I like, men I laugh and joke with every goddamned day.
Men I know have wives, have children, and have people relying on them. Men who have become my friends.
This web is becoming so much more tangled than I ever anticipated.
For the first time ever, I question my plan to infiltrate this family, to create relationships and bonds with the men here.
Bonds I’ll have to break.
But then Dante’s eyes land on me, and the comfort, that electricity, that feeling of home accompanies it.
The waves of panic begin to recede.
His face doesn’t change, neither does his tone, but I can hear his words circling my mind.
Do you trust me?
Do I?
Do I trust this man who, in the past 24 hours, has been nothing but confusion and surprises? The past three months, really. This man who keeps me hidden away, who tells me it’s for my own good, that he’s keeping me safe? Who says he wants to help my mission? Who could potentially head the family I want to destroy?
“. . . and everything is going to plan,” he says at the end of a sentence, and the room laughs, but I don’t.
I watch his face, his face that doesn’t leave mine, and I know that those words were for me. That was off script.
The plan is going the way he wants it to, and he wants me to know it.
With those words, I have my answer. I trust him.
Turns out, I’ll need to for what happens next.
“And even more so when our Lilah fell into our laps.” Our Lilah. Ours? I’m theirs?
His, yes.
A Russo? Yes.
Theirs? The Carluccios’? The fuck I am.
“When Delilah fell into our laps, it wasn’t for the best reasons, but thankfully, we’re all beyond that now. Delilah Russo has been an asset to the family over the past three months, working with Paulie and me on the business and being a joy to be around.”
Russo.
