Page 3 of Surprise Twins for the Mafia Prince
“Hell of a mess. You throw a rager last night?”
Anger pulses through me, hot and urgent, as I look around at the destruction. I tore this place apart, desperate to find what that bitch took from me.
“I lost the flash drive.”
His spine snaps straight and his eyes widen. “Is that a joke?”
I glare at him, the look itself a threat.
He knows damn well I’m not the type to joke around in the best of circumstances, but I’m especially not in the mood now.
Luca grimaces, running his hand through his own dark hair in a move so similar to what I just did that it nearly distracts me. The two of us have always been in sync like that. Same blood, same tell.
“Is that why the room looks like this? You misplaced the thing?” he asks. “How the fuck could this happen?”
“It’s worse than that,” I admit, letting out a long sigh that feels like it’s taking pieces of my pride with it.
The weight constantly on my shoulders is a little heavier right now, and it’s putting me on edge. No, it’s pushing me right to the fucking precipice.
As the future Don of the Andretti crime family, I always have something to prove. The soldiers in our organization need to respect and fear me. The Capos need to trust me. My father, the current Don, needs to be able to rely on me.
And now, I’ve fucked up.
“I think the woman I fucked last night took it.”
Luca doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I get the feeling that he’s carefully considering his words, which is more than I would do in his position. The raw silence stretches between us, charged and dangerous.
“So...you left the drive out where some random chick could take it?”
“Of course not.” My voice comes out like a whip crack. “I had it hidden. I put it in one of those cups with a fake bottom.”
“Wait—like the stash in Lenny’s fake Coke can? Man, that guy got suspendedfivetimes and still graduated before I did.”
Despite my frustration, I almost smile at the memory of my stoner friend from high school. I haven’t seen the guy in nearly ten years, but I remember well the creative ways he found to sneak marijuana into school because he couldn’t stand to go a full eight hours without it.
Now that Luca’s mentioned him, I wonder if that’s where I got the idea without realizing it.
“Yeah,” I say gruffly. “Like that. But it’s a real cup. You can use it for water or whatever. The bottom unscrews and there’s a small storage space inside.”
Luca blinks at me, his expression a mix of disbelief and dismay. “Why would you put it in there?”
“I had to sneak the drive out of Kozlov’s corporate office,” I snap, my patience thin. “They have security at the entrance and you don’t just walk through a metal detector to get into the building, you go through one toleave. I had to get creative to get the thing out of the building.”
My hands tighten into fists again as I remember the cold sweat trickling down my back when I passed through security.
“Do you know how fucking risky that was? If I got caught with sensitive information about the Bratva, I’d probably be hanging from the ceiling in some warehouse with my blood soaking into the concrete floor.”
A muscle ticks in Luca’s jaw. “Okay, point taken. Did you find what you were looking for then?”
I nod, starting to pace again, unable to contain the energy surging through me.
I can’t believe I lost the damn flash drive after taking such a risk to get the information I need.
It was a pain in the ass, too. I had to create a fake identity and join the nighttime cleaning crew for the office building. It took a lot of patience, not something that I have in spades.
“It’s as we suspected. The Bratva is bribing and blackmailing the members of the gaming commission. If we don’t stop them, they’ll push through approval of their new casino.”
“Dad won’t like that.”
