Page 28 of Little Deer
“Have you met the women around here? All they do is talk! She’d have heard it eventually, probably from Gia herself, and then would have been pissed at me for lying.”
Nico curses under his breath. “Yeah, well, if the two of them break anything or cause any problems, it’s your ass on the line.” I roll my eyes at his threat. If he wasn’t a Don, I’d tell him he wasall bark and no bite, but I also don’t feel like having to deal with his cranky ass and no sense of humor.
“Okay, so we have two women that now think that we all just go around kidnapping women and marrying them,” Lazaro sighs. “Great. We all know how this is going to go, right? The two of them are going to try and convince our women that we’re holding them against their will and we’ve fucked with their heads to believe it’s okay. Which means if those two try and escape, they’ll all try and do it.”
We all stare at him. What the fuck is he talking about?
He rolls his eyes at us. “I’m big but I’m not fucking stupid. Those women all spend a lot of time together. You really don’t think Lucy and her sister aren’t going to spend time with them and now consider them as being brainwashed? As soon as the trouble is done, or they just up and try to leave, the first words out of their mouths is going to be to convince them to leave.”
“And you actually think they’d listen?” Alessio asks, his brow furrowing.
“It’s possible. I mean, all of them but Gia have lived normal lives that they probably want to get back to. Amara and I are fucking new, Sienna probably misses her parents, and Gia has never experienced the world. Perfect opportunity, right? And for Rori, she’s not going to just stay here. She has a life and job she’s going to go back to after all this is done. The only one who will stick around is Sofia.”
Unease settles in my belly, and I can see Alessio looks much the same. Nico looks downright murderous. We’ve already seen the way he reacted when his wife stowed away with us back to Sicily, if she actually left him, I don’t think anyone would be safe.
Fuck, no one would be safe from Alessio either. Lazaro looks worried, but I can’t get a read on how he’s feeling about it. Then again, he’s the one who brought it up, so maybe he has a plan on how to convince them not to leave.
“You’re all worrying about shit that doesn’t matter right now,” Dante states. We all turn on him. “None of those women are going to do shit with all this going on. You want to convince them to stay, do that when you’re alone, and when this shit is all over. Worrying about hypothetical problems is a waste of time.” He looks at Nico. “And Gia isn’t about to fucking leave you. So before you lose your shit, calm the fuck down.”
Silence.
“He’s got a point,” Alonzo finally grunts. “And I don’t want to sit here and talk about the women and what they will or won’t do. We have bigger shit to worry about. Namely, we need to figure out what the hell Leonardo, Marco, and Giovanni are currently planning, and these fucking chameleon people.”
“Dare I ask if you were able to get any more information out of Rori about them?” Alessio questions, arching a brow.
Alonzo’s face goes dark. “Nothing other than she already contacted them and told them what’s going on but they committed to nothing.”
“Fuck.” Now we have to worry about fucking assassins getting in here and causing problems.
This place is so fucking huge there’s no way we’ll be able to have eyes on all of it.
“I thought she was going to try and convince them to step away from this,” Nico snaps. “She can’t even fucking do that.”
“Fuck off, Nico,” Alonzo snaps furiously. “She didn’t have to fucking tell us about them in the first fucking place. You should be fucking thanking her. She owes us nothing. Her loyalty is to Sienna, not to us. She could have left, or snuck Sienna out, and left us to deal with it on our own. Those people, they don’t want loose ends, and she’s one. She’s fucking put her life on the line, so shut the fuck up.”
Alessio, Lazaro, and I all glance at each other. For as much as Alonzo and Rori fight, it’s clear that he’s also going to be the oneto defend her the most. It’s finally starting to click for me that Alonzo might seriously have strong feelings besides lust for Rori. I just hope like fuck he’s not going to get himself hurt.
We might not survive it.
“Fine,” Nico replies stiffly. “Then we need to talk to her and find out everything we can about it. She’s fucking pissed at you, so Alessio, it’s your turn.” He looks at Alessio with a cool stare.
Alessio arches a brow at him. “Me? What the fuck do you think I’m going to do?”
“You’re engaged to her fucking best friend.”
“Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Fuck,” we suddenly hear Papa say. We all turn to stare at him. He gives us a grim look. “My contacts said that they don’t know what the deal going on with Rori and the Belovs is. The only thing they know is that her father is one of the few cops on his force that works only for the Belovs. He rarely does the rest of his job, and instead spends all his time running interference for the Belovs so no one intercepts their shipments and operations. He’s gotten his sons roped in too.”
“You really think the Belovs are going to come because of her?” I ask.
“Hard to fucking say. I don’t know shit about the Russians here, but if they’re anything like the rest of the American crime families, then they’re not the most rational.” He gives Nico a droll look. Nico glares. “Either way, until we hear anything different, then we have to assume that they won’t come here. Sending men here would be stupid.”
“Not if Ivan sees it as a way of gaining more support and more allies to get his shit out of the city. And those Russians are crazy fuckers.”
“We’ve got another fucking problem,” Dante suddenly announces. “Just got a message from our informant. Marco staged a coup and eliminated a number of Seamus’s men,declaring himself the new leader of the territory since Seamus is currently missing. He apparently married Sinead and killed Declan Gallo, his wife, and their children. The other family members scattered. It’s a fucking mess over there.”
We all curse. This is the last thing we fucking need.
