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I told her the address.
“I’ll be there soon,” she said before hanging up.
Now all there was to do was wait.
* * *
I was starting to doze off when I heard the sound of the floor creaking just outside the apartment door. I quickly scooped up the gun I’d had in my lap and pointed it at the door as the knob began to turn.
As the door opened slowly, the nose of a 9mm became visible before a hand, followed by a sleeve of a gray tailored suit that definitely didn’t belong to Brenna. I waited patiently, gun aimed, as my visitor was finally revealed.
The door swung open all of the way, revealing Dario Moretti, the don’s enforcer and right-hand man, and standing right behind him was Nicoli. Both took in the carnage one body at a time. Dario’s gun moved with his coffee-colored eyes until they both ended up fixed on me as he came further into the apartment. He didn’t lower his weapon. So I didn’t lower mine. I may have trusted Nicoli a tiny bit, but Dario, I did not.
Dario was a good-looking Italian man, with his dark brown hair that was short, spiky, and buzzed on the sides and back. He and Nicoli were about the same height, but Dario carried more muscle. His features were rugged compared to Nicoli’s refined looks. Tattoos covered his hands and peeked out from under his collar on his neck and chest. Pretty exteriors didn’t guarantee someone was pretty on in the inside, though. Dario was a killer known for strangling his enemies with a rosary he kept wrapped around his wrist.
Nicoli had his hands stuffed in his long coat’s pockets as he moved to stand next to Dario. Nicoli stared at Amelia’s body in the kitchen longer than the rest. When his attention finally landed on me, he took in the chains around my waist and the baby sleeping in my arms. He didn’t even acknowledge the gun I had pointed at them.
The corner of his mouth lifted, and he stepped over the lackey’s body, then Buck’s. He eyed the couch with a hint of disgust before sitting on it. He leaned forward slightly and rested his arms on his knees as he faced me.
I stared back at him with my gun still pointed at Dario, who still stood near the lackey’s body. I raised a brow and waited for an explanation.
Nicoli smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes as his gaze bounced all over me. “You look terrible.”
“Just what every girl loves to hear,” I said.
Nicoli’s smile turned genuine. “Don’t worry, princess, even beaten and bloody you’re still sexy as hell.”
Out of my peripheral, I caught Dario move slightly so his side wasn’t exposed to the hall that led to the rest of the apartment. My arm was beginning to weaken from pointing the gun at him. I narrowed my eyes at Nicoli. “Why are you here?”
“I was curious.” He glanced at Buck’s body. “And I thought you might need help.”
“I don’t need help,” I said.
Nicoli’s eyes dropped to the chain around my waist. “Are you sure about that?”
Again, out of my peripheral, I caught movement, but it wasn’t Dario who’d moved. “She’s sure,” said a sweet, feminine voice I knew belonged to my cousin.
At the same time, Nicoli and I looked toward Dario. Behind him, with a Beretta M9 pointed at the back of Dario’s head and another pointed at Nicoli, stood Brenna. Despite being seventeen, she looked fierce. She was wearing a double vertical shoulder holster over a black, long-sleeved bodysuit. Her jeans were ripped and tucked into laced-up black combat boots. She exuded the confidence of an experienced killer with her finger hovering over each trigger of her guns as she looked from Nicoli to me to the back of Dario’s head. “Were you going to shoot my cousin, Moretti?”
The corner of Dario’s mouth tugged up. “The future of the Quinn family has been chained up and left smack dab in the middle of our territory.” He shrugged. “I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”
Brenna stepped closer to him. “Did you not look around the room? She may be chained up, but there aren’t any Aryans left in our territory or yours.”
Dario turned his head slightly to grin at her over his shoulder. “Old feuds die hard, little Quinn.”
“Be that as it may, I wouldn’t have let him shoot her,” Nicoli said.
“Not if you wanted to collect that reward money, you wouldn’t,” I grumbled.
Nicoli smirked at me. “I thought that was off the table?”
I lowered my gun as I gave him a look that screamed I wasn’t a fool.
Nicoli relaxed back against the couch, threw an arm across the top, and rested an ankle over his knee. “I give you my word. I really just came here because I was curious. I had a feeling there would be carnage.” He eyed the bodies again. “And you did not disappoint.” He reached into his suit and pulled out a flask from the jacket’s inner pocket. He unscrewed the cap and took a sip. “However, this scene isn’t as brilliant as when you hung four of them on a bridge before blowing up your city.” He stood and came to me with the flask held out.
To free up my hand, I set my gun in my lap before taking the flask and sniffing at what was inside. I recognized the smell of whiskey right away. “What an honor it is to be the don’s entertainment,” I grumbled and took a sip.
That made him chuckle before he took a seat back on the couch. “Not just my entertainment. You wiped an entire gang off the game board. If there was anyone left who didn’t know that Stefan’s daughter had become a player in the crime world, they do now.”
