Page 67 of Savage King

"The fucking bookkeeper? You allowed the Venezuelans to take our bookkeeper?" Carlos’s voice is thick with undisguised glee, his chair creaking underneath his weight. He wants me dead. He’s wanted me dead just like he wanted my father to die.

"The real question should be, why did the Venezuelans take our bookkeeper? They know this means war," I counter, staring directly at Edoardo.

"I've already spoken to Matías. It was an unfortunate incident. There will be no war," Edoardo fills us in.

"No war?" Enrico splays his hands. "No war, he says. " He turns to the others, raising his eyebrows one at a time. "They snatch our bookkeeper… and no war?"

Nobody meets his eyes. Least of all Edoardo, who emphasizes, "No war."

Silence follows. Marcello catches my eye and imperceptibly shakes his head at me. Yeah. None of us believe that shit. But Edoardo is already looking away, reaching for his drink, signaling that this conversation is over as far as he’s concerned. And that? That tells me he wants it buried, for whatever reason. Interestingly enough, Marcello seems to already be on it.

"What information did they get?" Marcello asks the first meaningful question.

"The only one who can answer that question is Matías." Again, I stare at Edoardo.

"Some members of his gang went rogue. He's dealing with it." Edoardo says.

Enrico claps his hands. "Un-fucking-believable. You believe that shit?"

"Hold on, let's get back to Antonio." Carlos is as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. He knows he's living on borrowed time. Nothing would please him more than to see me dead. "Who did it is not that important right now?—"

Marcello interrupts him with a snort. Irritated, Carlos continues, "More important," he emphasizes, "is that vital information was stolen fromus, underhiswatch!" Inanely, he points his finger at me, wagging it.

"That's ridiculous, Toni couldn't—" Enrico rushes to my defense, probably getting kicked by his father under the table.

I interrupt him, "He's right," I agree, interrupting him and surprising the others in the room. "It did happen under my watch. Alfonso was my man. What happened is my fault."

"Hah!" Carlos crosses his arms over his chest, nodding both of his chins. "This wouldn't have happened under my watch in the LA territory."

"Antonio DeLuna was tasked with keeping vital information safe and failed," Edoardo declares in a slow, deliberate voice that sounds staged. "We all know the punishment for that."

I square my shoulders. I didn't expect anything less from Edoardo or Carlos, who sits on his chair, smiling. Enrico is tense,like a coiled spring, ready to jump. His father notices and places his hand on his shoulder to keep him down.

Silence stretches, and Carlos and Edoardo watch me, waiting for me to break. They'll be waiting a long fucking time.

"We don't even know what information they got," Enrico protests.

"You killed the bastards, right?" Marcello wants to know.

"They're dead," I confirm, "but they wouldn't tell me on whose orders they operated or what happened to the information."

"What failsafe had you put in place?" Stephano asks astutely.

"Alfonso never knew the names associated with the accounts. It was all encrypted. At the end of the year, a program would fill them in and send them to the IRS," I explain.

"On both businesses?" Dante, one of Enrico's brothers, asks for clarification, meaning the ones we report to the IRS, and the illegal side.

I nod. "He knew our names, of course, but they weren’t tied to the parts of the accounts he saw."

Stephano shrugs, "That's good enough for me."

"What do you mean?" Carlos rages, and his head turns beet red. If I cared, I'd worry he might have a heart attack.

"I mean," Stephano's voice turns sharp, "that we areallvulnerable, not just Antonio. We all have enemies who can pick whoever the fuck they want off the street. What if Nestor got snatched? Would you want to get a bullet to the head? I bet he would have a lot to sing about?" The last part he says with such derision that he leaves me impressed.

Carlos's eyes narrow at the insinuations. "Nestor would never talk." He stares at his second-in-command, who remains stoically leaning against the wall behind him.

Strangling hate wells up in my gut for the devil who dared touch Scarlet. It's only thanks to my rational mind, telling me that a bullet through the head is too quick for the stronzo, that I can stop myself from shooting him right then and there. When he is in my hands, I'll make him beg for a bullet, and it's only a matter of time until he will be at my mercy.

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