Page 21 of The Mafia Bloodline
“And you’re sure?” I asked, my tone flat, sharp.
“Positive. One of our changeling contacts heard Caesar’s voice. Said he was talking about new shipments…human ones.”
I felt my fangs pierce my lip before I even realized it. “Traitorous son of a bitch.”
Roman had always said Caesar was poison in Dragic blood, self-serving, manipulative, the kind of man who’d sell family for power. But even I hadn’t thought he’d sink this low. Working with the Irish, with demons. Trading human lives, all this against his own kind.
“He’s baiting us,” I muttered, pacing. “He knows we’ll come for him.”
Viking leaned against the wall, his expression dark. “Maybe that’s what he wants.”
Draugr nodded once. “He’s not stupid. If he’s surfaced, it’s not to meet the Irish, it’s to draw us out.”
I rubbed the back of my neck, the tension simmering beneath my skin like acid. “Then we play smarter.”
“You think he’s after Roman?” Viking asked quietly.
I shook my head. “He’s after all of us. The name, the legacy, the bloodline. Everything our father built. He’s been waiting for the right time to strike.”
And now, he had it.
The silence that followed was heavy, thick enough that even the hum of the club’s sound system felt too loud.
Lucien leaned his elbows on the table, staring at his drink not really seeing it. “You know what’s different this time,” he muttered. “We’ve always had enemies. Always had bastards who wanted a piece of what we built. But now…” His mouth tightened. “Now we have something to lose.”
The words hit like a blade to the chest.
He was right. Before, it was war and blood and empire. If we fell, we fell together. The Dragic brothers against the world. But now, now we had mates. Women who carried our hearts, our strength, our reason.
And children. Tiny, fragile pieces of immortality that we’d die to protect.
Draugr’s gaze lifted, cold and unreadable. “Caesar knows that” he said quietly. “He’s not coming for our territory first. He’s coming for our family.”
The words cut deeper than I wanted to admit. Images of Runa flashed in my mind, her honey-gold hair tangled in the sheets, her laugh, the stubborn tilt of her chin. She was mine. And that meant she was a target.
My jaw clenched. “Then we make damn sure he never gets the chance.”
Viking exhaled through his nose, the sound more growl than breath. “We’ve gone soft, brothers. Mates make you stronger, but they also make you visible. Predictable. Easy to wound.”
“Soft?” Draugr’s tone was steel. “You think what they are now is soft? Look around you, Viking. We’ve built an empire on blood and loyalty. The difference is they finally have something worth fighting for instead of just fighting to survive.”
“Which makes us dangerous,” I finished. “Because they don’t understand what we’ll do to protect what’s ours.”
The brothers exchanged a look, one that said they understood all too well. We weren’t just kings of the underworld anymore. We were predators with hearts tied to mortal beats.
And anyone who tried to exploit that…
Would learn what it meant to wake the devil in us.
Draugr finally broke the silence. “Then we move fast. If Caesar’s using the Irish as cover, we root them out. If he’s tied to the demons, we sever the link.”
Viking’s grin returned, sharp and deadly. “And when we find him?”
I looked up, my voice low, final. “We end him. Dragic blood or not.”
The air between us shifted again, charged, absolute. We were brothers bound by war, but this was different. This was personal.
For too long, Caesar had hidden behind the family name. This time, he’d learn that blood didn’t make you untouchable.
