Page 66 of Vicious Heir

His body goes slack and he twitches once before his eyes go blank.

I lean back, breathing hard. The fucking Gray Wolf was in my office. They sent someone here to go through my things. The whole fire must’ve been a distraction from the start.

Someone knew about my stash.

I kick the corpse aside and stumble over to the false painting hanging on the wall. There’s a hidden latch beneath it, and when I press the button, it pops forward on springs. I have to enter a combination into the safe, but it beeps and swings aside.

Inside is a single hard drive containing hours and hours of carefully selected and edited footage secretly filmed during my famous orgies.

I shove it into my back pocket and pause to look at the dead man on the floor. The firefighters are going to find him, and there will be lots of annoying questions, but there’s nothing I can do about it now.

Instead, I hurry back into the hall. The smoke’s worse now, and I stumble through it, nearly falling down the stairs as I feel my way forward. I barely see the door as I run into the fresh air, staggering and slamming into the wall of the opposite alley.

“Adriano!” Luca’s at my side instantly. He pulls me away from the building as I hack up a lung. Goddamn smoke. Then Vittorio and Frank are there, both of them checking me for wounds.

“Where’s all this blood from?” Frank asks, shaking his head as I sit on the curb, catching my breath.

“Gray Wolf,” I tell him, meeting his gaze grimly. “They sent someone to find my private stash.”

Frank looks surprised. He stares from me to the club and back again. “But you got it?”

I clench my jaw. Then I nod.

“It’s time we prepare for a street fight,” I say, looking at my Capos.

Frank seems worried. But Vittorio gives me a big grin.

“Can’t wait,” he says as Velvet Echo burns behind us.

Firefighters and cops finally show up. The place is a circus. I tell an EMT that I tripped and cut myself, which wouldn’t really explain all the blood, but the place is chaos. They think I should head to the ER, but I’m not going to bother. Instead, I help organize everyone while the firefighters spray the building down, but there’s not much else I can do.

My favorite club is turning to ash.

I have other businesses. This isn’t exactly a death blow. If anything, it’s a minor inconvenience. But I built that place with my own hands. I took it from nothing and made it into an important part of the city’s nightlife, and now it’s all gone. Rage and sorrow war inside me. I’ve lost something important to me today, and I don’t know how I’m going to rebuild it.

But I do know I’m going to get revenge.

After a couple of hours, Luca drives me back to the mansion. I need to put the hard drive somewhere safe, and then I need to call a general meeting of the Famiglia. Gray Wolf isn’t going to back down, and now they’ve made our fight public.

We have to hit back twice as hard.

And I’ll make sure I take something precious from them.

They’ll suffer, and I’ll revel in their pain.

“You sure you’re okay?” Luca asks, sounding concerned. “Isn’t smoke inhalation something you’ve got to get treated for?”

“I’ll be fine,” I say, my voice raspy as I climb out of the car. “I’ll have the doctor make a house call.”

“You better. After this shit, we’re really going to need you.”

I pat the trunk as he drives off. Then I turn to the house and start toward the door, but I pull up short when I spot Lucy standing on the threshold.

She looks broken. Her eyes are red, and there are tears slicking her cheeks. I think she’s crying for me at first and I smile at her to let her know I’m okay.

But then Donatella appears next to her and I understand. She’s crying too, looking haggard and lost.

My smile fades as my wife approaches. “I’m so sorry,” Lucy says, her chest shaking as she fights back more tears. “I’m so, so sorry, Adriano. We tried to call. It just happened so fast.” She takes my hands. I can barely feel them. I’m numb all over and my ears are ringing.

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