Page 180 of Sinfully Savage Mafia

He really needs to work on his messaging skills because they’re complete shit.

Maybe he didn’t realize who he was dealing with.

Neither did his sister.

Maybe it’s time they both found out.

I press my fingertips to my temples, the blood now rushing between my ears as I look down at Enrico sleeping peacefully.

This could have gone a very different way tonight, a much more deadly one.

And I always take care of my own. Enrico may not be blood, but he’s done enough for me that I consider him family.

And you always take care of family.

“What do you think it means?” Bruno asks me in a low voice as he walks up behind me.

“It means that I underestimated our target,” I grumble, sweeping a hand through my hair.

“And you’re sure the target is Torres, right?” Bruno asks.

I furrow my brow. “Who the fuck else would it be? And don’t say Becerra. I only cut off Javier’s hand. It’s not enough to warrant an all-out assault!”

Bruno nods. “True. Okay, so how do we fight back against Torres? Do we go and shoot up the club? Do we pop him?”

I shake my head. All of that is messy. Very fucking messy. “I don’t know enough about his inner circle. If we go after him, we might be taking on a much stronger enemy. There’s no way he’s working alone. There’s someone behind the scenes feeding him cash and Christ only knows what else, I’m convinced of it.” I pull my eyes off of Enrico and push Bruno out the door, closing it behind us. The least I can do is give the guy some peace. “There’s no way they just deal in pussy. On the surface, that’s the big draw, but there has to be plenty going on behind the scenes. Drugs, guns…they must be funneling money through there constantly. Did you see those cars in the VIP lot? They weren’t there just to get their cocks sucked. I mean, yeah, that’s their sideshow, but not the main event.”

I walk over to where Matteo is sitting at the kitchen island with Heaven leaning against him. Heaven gives new meaning to the words ‘badass bitch.’ Months back, after her father married her off to Matteo as part of a deal, she executed a rival boss. Then she broke ties with her father and subsequently, her brothers, when she found out that the old man sold her out to protect his own ass. Yeah, my sister-in-law is pretty damn fierce, although marriage has mellowed her.

A little bit.

She and Matteo started out hating each other, but they’re pretty gaga over one another now. I guess that means she’s my saving grace and the reason why he doesn’t lash out at me with the same amount of ferocity as he used to before he was so pussy-whipped.

And now they’re out here to strengthen ties with the other families in our recently formed syndicate, the one that’s gonna take over the gambling industry in the United States, city by city. Hotels, restaurants, casinos — it’s our fledgling empire. And with the manpower of our crew, along with the brutal Russian Severinov family and equally vicious Marcone family, also out of Sicily, we’re unstoppable.

At least, I thought we were before that damn meeting with Torres went sideways.

We got a lot more than we bargained for when we tried to finger that damn-near lethal pussy.

But I’m not settling for a portion of the crown. I want the whole goddamn thing.

“Sergio,” Heaven says, a warning tone in her voice. “You can’t go back after Torres. If what you said is true, and he’s working with one of the cartels to run drugs through his places, it’s no wonder he won’t sell. He’s got too much to lose, and the cartels won’t be happy if we take an axe to their pipelines. And it’s also very possible the guys who tried to take you out are his partners. Cartel scumbags who wanted to scare you. Maybe Becerra?”

I shift my weight, stepping down hard on my injured foot as a sharp tinge of pain shoots up my calf. Dammit. Just when I thought I was free from the memory of Jaelyn Torres, it all comes rushing back, sucking me into her funnel cloud of chaos. I take in a sharp breath, the seductive-slash-sinister glare on Jaelyn’s face flooding my mind. In the past few hours since we escaped that ambush, I tried to forget her, to forget the sensations swirling through me when she’d fire that death glare in my direction, to forget the disdain in her voice and in her gaze. She probably meant to freeze me out, but her efforts had the exact opposite effect. I can still feel the heat of her body singeing my palms as I gripped her bare flesh, the warmth of her breath against my face, the speed of her heartbeat pressed against my chest.

She didn’t try to push me away.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

In that moment, she declared war on us…onme.

And I’m ready to go to battle.

“It was definitely Torres who wanted to send the message, Heaven. Becerra wouldn’t try to partner with us and then finger Torres. Besides, I didn’t outright tell Becerra that we wouldn’t work with him. And I didn’t kill anyone. I just sent a message to let him know that if he wants to work with us, he’d better show up at the bargaining table and leave his asshole soldiers home,” I say, gritting my teeth, my skin prickling as visions of Jaelyn lying spread-eagle on my bed in her fuck-me heels flood my mind. Oh Jesus. How the hell did she end upthere? How am I not able to think about anything other than her gliding her fingers along her wet slit, moaning as she flicks her thumb against her clit? Enrico was almost killed tonight. I have more fucking important things to worry about right now!

But my body is on an entirely different page than my brain. My pulse throbs against my neck, my chest growing tighter by the second. “Someone fucked with my car to run us off that road. And Torres made the threat!” I grip the granite countertop tight, my knuckles turning white against the black stone.

“Sergio, you can’t just declare war because of a hunch. You don’t know for sure that it was Torres behind the hit!” Matteo walks over to me, his eyes narrowed. “That’s not how this works. We take it to the families and discuss how we will handle it as a group!”

---