As it would for this.
At the table, Capo Vin and the spy Lobos jumped to their feet like they hadn’t been expecting him. No one else awaited them in the room.
Vin stepped forward, but held himself outside of Rocco’s personal space. “Don Cavallo,” he said, “I admit I don’t know why you’ve asked to meet here. But whatever my men or I can do for you, it’s done.”
Rocco wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe that Vin was merely ignorant. He could punish that with the swing of a fist and a harsh word, lessons learned on all sides. First, though, he needed to confirm what Alessa’s information—and her gut—had revealed. So he kept his expression unreadable and said, “The hit on my father came from within.”
Vin’s eyes widened.
Lobos’s head lifted a fraction, not enough to make eye-contact.
Rocco continued. “One of his security guards is the leak.” It was technically true. He already had a theory on how that had come to be. “And while I’m working on flushing out therats,” he said, letting a little of the venom briefly into his voice, “I need to know who I can count on. Because if I don’t believe I can trust you completely, we have a problem.”
Vin drew a sharp breath through his nose, but to his credit, he stayed calm. “I will prove myself to you however I must,” he said, tone firm. A muscle in his jaw jumped. “But I must also ask, if only so I can also understand, do you not consider it suspect that this woman arrived in your life at the time when all of this began?”
Rocco envisioned planting his fist in Vin’s face. The nose breaking beneath his knuckles, the jaw cracking, Vin’s head snapping back and blood spurting everywhere. For a single moment, the vision was so strong, Rocco wasn’t sure he hadn’t made it reality.
It was Alessa’s voice that cleared the red haze from his mind. “The timing of my appearance turns out to have been veryconvenient, which of course makes it suspect to those who know so little.” She shifted her weight but did not release Rocco’s arm. “Isn’t that right … Sobol?”
“So—” Vin’s eyes widened again and he twisted enough to bring the man who called himself Lobos into sight.
Lobos huffed, lifted his head, and a wild grin split his face. He spoke, but it took Rocco a moment to realize the words were not in English. He spoke in Russian. “We willrise from your corpses!” His arm snapped up as his words filled the air, the weak light from the overhead lamp glinting off the dark metal barrel of a gun.
Rocco moved for the gun holstered beneath his jacket.
Alessa released his arm.
Lobos’s gun went off as she dropped low, and for a split-second, Rocco feared the worst. His heart beat like a war drum in his ears, deafening him, blinding him. It wasn’t until Vin’s body hit the floor that his brain kicked back into gear and he understood.
Vin’s brain matter painted the walls and a portion of the ceiling just beyond where his corpse had fallen, blood still pouring from the back of his head. Some trickled from the entry wound near his jaw, which had an unnatural and undisguisable hole in it. Bastard probably had been loyal, then. And he was going to have to be appeased with a closed-casket.
Everything came back into focus as Ignazio and Marzio rushed forward, Lobos’s laughter ringing through the air. He swept his gun straight to Rocco. “You wanna die in front of your bitch?”
Alessa, on her knees, had her hand on the gun tucked beneath Rocco’s pantleg. If Lobos had processed her movement, he hadn’t shown it. He looked more like he’d dismissed her as anything more than a tool with which to taunt his enemy.
Rocco slowly raised his arms up, palms out. “You think you’ve won?”
“I think you want to know what I know,” Lobos said, “so you don’t wanna shoot me up just yet. But me? I would loveto fill you full of holes. Even your bitch knows it. Just look at her cowerin’.” He chuckled, smug in his victory.
Rocco let his arms fall to his sides. “That’s two.”
“’Scuse me?”
“Two times you’ve insulted my woman. Two extra bullets I’m personally going to put in you. So, the real question is, why haven’t you shot me yet?”
Lobos lifted his gun marginally higher.
Ignazio flexed his grip over his own weapon, but continued to show restraint.
Lobos continued to ignore both of them, speaking to Rocco. “Viktor has a message for you: it’s nothing personal. You’re just in his wa—”
Two shots went off, the first straight between Lobos’s eyes and the second just beneath his collarbone, piercing his heart. Lobos reeled back, arms splaying wide and body crashing to the ground.
This time, the door behind them flew open, multiple voices shouting. Rocco processed one of his additional guards addressing him at the same time as another leveled a gun on Alessa’s head.
Rocco reacted on instinct. He shoved himself between Alessa and the semi-automatic and leveled a hard glare down the barrel, into the widening eyes of the fool that held it. “If you’re going to shoot,” he growled, “you had better be prepared to start with me.”
The soldier stepped back, offering no resistance when Ignazio ripped the weapon from his hands. “I-I didn’t— Iwould never!”
