For once, Rocco made no attempt to turn their bathing time into a sexual event as he helped her rid herself of the symbolic blood. He’d gotten very little on his own skin, thankfully, but both of them had opted to simply trash the clothes they’d been wearing.
As she pulled on a fresh outfit for the day, her skin still a bit tingly from the scrubbing and her body overheated and achy from having Rocco’s hands on her, his voice drifted out from the closet. “You really are going to have to let me take you shopping soon. I owe you a whole outfit now.”
Alessa rolled her eyes. “You don’t owe me a whole outfit.” Shewassad to lose the way he’d looked at her in that dress, though.
“Saturday,” he said, stepping out as he finished rolling up his sleeves. “We’ll go on Saturday.”
She opened her mouth to tell him how impossible he was, but her phone beeped with an incoming message. So she made a show of rolling her eyes his way, crossed to the nightstand, and scooped up the device to inspect the text. Her amusement fled when she saw it was from Berto, essentially Mikey De Salvo’s right-hand. He would only be reaching out to get back to her about the favor she’d asked for.
She hurried to open the message.
Berto: Finished up that quick cross-reference you wanted. None of the names hit, but I did find something interesting. Could be nothing, but I’m forwarding the info in case you wanna give it a closer look.
Two more texts came in as she read. The first of those was a secure link file download, surely containing the information promised. She tapped that to get the download started, then read the next.
Berto: Hell of a way to spend your vacation, btw.
He didn’t add an emoji, but she was completely sure he was rolling his eyes and saying it with the usual sharp snark.
Rocco settled beside her. “Everything okay, beautiful?”
“Maybe.” She sent off a quick thank you, then opened the information Berto had supplied. There were a couple of security camera photos she wasn’t going to ask how they’d acquired—she wouldn’t understand the jargon in the answer, anyway—and some written information below those. In the photos were two men, neither of whom she recognized off-hand. One was distinctly lighter in complexion than the other, shorter, and overall stockier.
Rocco leaned closer, reading over her shoulder. “Do I need to talk to those two? I don’t even recognize that one—Lobos? Doesn’t sound familiar. Must be someone’s street runner.”
One of the men in the photo was a name that had come up on the list Emanuele had provided for her. Berto’s notesaid nothing had technically come back as suspicious on him, except for this connection. A point of contact with another man, for all intents and purposes also family, named Lobos. Lower ranked. Lobos had not been on Emanuele’s list, so he didn’t have the clearance to have pulled off the hit.
Alessa ran the name over in her head again. Something was there, just at the tip of her tongue.
She gasped as the answer slammed into her, so obvious it felt stupid.
“Alessa?”
“Yes,” she said, twisting to face Rocco. “You definitely need to talk to them. Both of them. Lobos is probably an alias.” She drew a breath and held his steady gaze. “It’s just ‘Sobol’ spelled backwards. He’s Russian.”
Chapter nineteen
Edge of War
“I enjoyed negotiating withyour father too much to have him cut down.”Viktor Sobol’s words, spoken with the subtlest of chuckles, echoed through Rocco’s memory like a needle stabbing into a nerve.
They were complete bullshit. And Rocco was furious with himself for having missed it.
Alessa pulled on his hand, tugging him to a stop just shy of the weathered door that separated them from the spy who’d set down roots in his backyard. She pulledhim around, gripping his hand tightly, and rested her other on his chest. “I can feel how angry you are,” she said quietly. “And that’s okay. Anger is fine. But don’t let it cloud your mind. The man in there might have orchestrated the attack last weekend, but he didn’t do it alone. You need something from him.”
Rocco blew out a breath and leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. “It would have taken me too long to find even this much if you hadn’t pushed for an internal investigation. I’m as angry at myself as I am at anyone else.” He tangled a hand in her hair, pulled her head back, and sealed his lips over hers in a wet, distracting kiss that helped to soften the raw edge of his anger even as it riled a different beast. Then he relaxed his grip on her hair and straightened, murmuring, “I appreciate you standing with me on this, my queen.”
The lighting in the hall was just enough for him to see the way her cheeks reddened, and the way her expression softened with her smile.
The men following behind them had the good sense to keep their eyes averted.
Rocco centered himself as best he could and continued toward the door. He anticipated two or three men in the other room. One he wholly believed to be a traitor—rather, a spy—one would be a complete unknown, and the other he sincerely hoped was as unaware as he had been only an hour earlier. None would be restrained. All would be armed. It was more dangerous, but it was the most guaranteed way to get them where he wanted them.
Alessa eased her hand from his grip and slid it up his arm, curling her fingers around his forearm just belowthe elbow. The repositioning gave her more of a flaunted-woman air and less of a valued-partner air. It also gave them both the sparsest bit more freedom of movement.
Ignazio and Marzio entered directly behind them and quietly shut the door, leaving the rest of their entourage to keep the hall secure.
The room wasn’t particularly large, but it held a moderately sized game table, good for casual poker games or shared drinks between friends. There was space enough to walk around the table, a small shelving unit attached to the far wall with an assortment of seemingly random things, a mini-fridge, a microwave, and a two-piece restroom to the left. It was little more than a makeshift breakroom in the back of another business, but it sufficed.
