Page 80 of The Chameleon

Matteo sat there trying to make sense of what the man was saying. Were these just the ramblings of a desperate man hoping to create dissent and confusion by telling lies and providing misdirection? Or was there truth to the things he was saying?

“I’ll take your silence as confirmation to proceed. As it turned out, when the Zitti family found out about your parents’ deal with Ares, they put a hit out on your parents. Ares was supposed to die in that plane explosion as well, but the lucky bastard decided not to leave Italy at the last moment, which ended up saving his life.”

Matteo felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He couldn’t breathe. His parents had beenmurdered?And Ares had known the truth about their deaths this whole time?

Glaring up at the little asshole playing gangster, Matteo wanted to beat the prick’s face in with his bare hands.

“So, that’s why you needed the Zittis? Couldn’t catch me on your own?” Matteo gave the little bitch a verbal smackdown.

Edwin didn’t like that. He drew back his arm and punched Matteo in the face once again.

Blood leaked from Matteo’s split lip. He didn’t care. The copper taste in his mouth only added to the pleasure he felt digging into Edwin’s incompetence. Once again, a child trying to play with the big boys.

“We decided to kill two birds with one stone, as the saying goes. Use you as bait.”

“Bait? For what?”

“Mr. Zitti was kind enough to offer me a buttload of cash if I helped him capture Ares. Apparently, he’s been trying to murder the man for years but can’t seem to get close to the slippery snake.”

Matteo’s stomach dropped. This wasn’t about him at all.

“Knowing that Ares is crazy, stupidly in love with you, I figured he would do anything if he knew that you had been kidnapped. Originally, I was going to take you to Spain and lure Ares out into the open, but apparently, that plan went to shit. Who knew that the little perve was stalking you himself.” Edwin shrugged like it was old news.

“Anyway, now that you are finally here, we figured we would continue with the original plan and let the old man come to us.” Edwin said, taking a step back and revealing a dark figure standing behind him.

Massimo Zitti.

“Right now, an associate of Mr. Zitti’s is letting the news slip of your location. It will only be a matter of time before Ares hears and comes running to save you. At which point, Mr. Zitti and his crew will take out the competition and take over everything that belongs to Ares. And me? I’ll be a rich fucker, kicking it back on a beach somewhere. See? Creativity.”

“That’s never going to work.”

“Why not? It’s worked before. Ares is too stupid to know when he’s being played. One little phone call and he was rushing your parents on his plane and sending them off to their deaths. He never stopped to think about where that information had come from.”

Matteo had no idea what Edwin was talking about, and at this point, he really didn’t care. He was only worried about Ares coming to his rescue, guns ablazing.

“It’s never going to work,” Matteo repeated, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.

Massimo stood in the shadows, looking like a hyena about to move in on its prey. The question was which of them was actually his prey—Matteo or Edwin? It wasn’t very often that crime families left witnesses, especially ones who knew too many of their secrets.

Matteo’s eyes drifted back to the smiling idiot. He wondered if Edwin realized that his days were numbered.

28

ARES

“You know it’s a trap, right?” Patrick asked, leaning back in his chair. His feet were resting on the table as he balanced himself on the back two legs.

Secretly, Ares wished the legs would break off the chair, and the pretty little psychopath would fall flat on his rock-solid ass. No, Ares was not jealous of the man’s eight-pack, youthful good looks, or the bulge currently filling out the man’s jeans.

Fuck, when did he get so old?

Now, Ares had a one-pack, the sexual stamina of a man in his mid-forties, and aches in his body whenever he stood up too fast. On the plus side, he still had a big dick. At least, that was one thing that could never be taken away from him.

Ares began to pace the tiny apartment he and Elijah used as a safe house in Toulouse, located in the southern part of France.

It was always helpful to have a few of these safehouses scattered across the globe in case he or any of his crew members ever needed a place to lie low or conduct their business. Today, they were conducting business—gathering intelligence and making rescue and murder plans.

“Of course I know it’s a fuckin’ trap. No kidnapper ever makes it this easy to find someone. They may as well have just shot a beam up into the night sky that said, ‘Hey! He’s over here!’” Ares gave the cocky Irish prick a dirty look. He had been dealing with criminals since Paddy could barely walk.

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