Page 88 of Wicked Intentions (Wicked Games 3)
“That might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, cowboy. Thank you. And please, please don’t take this as an insult, or a lack of faith in your abilities, but the possibility of you getting close enough to kill him is very small.”
When I start to protest, she presses a finger against my lips.
I love it when a woman does that. It silences me instantly.
“He travels everywhere with six assassins. He’s never in a public setting where he could be trapped, surrounded, or caught in a sniper’s crosshairs. No one outside of
the assassins—all Sicilians, unimpeachably loyal—knows where he lives.”
She looks at Tabby for confirmation. When Tabby nods regretfully, Mariana turns her attention back to me.
“He’s avoided many different attempts on his life, simply because he’s always expecting the next one. He lives prepared to die. When they invented the term criminal mastermind, they were talking about him. The smartest, most straightforward way to catch him is with bait he already knows and trusts.”
She drops her finger from my lips and speaks with quiet vehemence. “And in my mind, it wouldn’t count as avenging my sister’s death if I had nothing to do with Capo’s demise. I can’t be a spectator, letting everyone else do the work. To use your words from earlier, how would you feel if the situation was reversed?”
I want to answer that the situation is totally different because she’s mine and it’s my job to protect her in any way and every way, but the words are curdling like spoiled milk in my mouth.
Because the truth is that if someone did to one of my sisters what Vincent Moreno did to Mariana’s, to all those nameless girls who were someone’s sisters and daughters and best friends, there’d be no force in heaven or hell that could stop me from getting my revenge.
I swallow hard and think for a long moment, wrestling with my conscience, my ego, and every male instinct in my body.
It might be the hardest battle I’ve ever fought.
Finally, after an eternity of silent debate, the scales tip to one side and I take a deep breath.
“All right.”
I have to force the words past my teeth with an enormous effort of will.
“But if I even get a whiff that things are going sideways, I’m pulling you out and going in myself, guns blazing.” I look at Connor, letting him see the kamikaze warrior in my eyes. “And this plan better be air-fuckin’-tight or I’m not signin’ off on it. You hear me?”
“I hear you, brother,” he says quietly.
I stand, pace around the room a few times, breathing in another few deep breaths as I try to get myself under better control. Everyone watches me, silently waiting.
Eventually I trust myself to talk without blowing up.
“First things first. We need to decide on a place for the meet. It can’t be public, not only because Moreno wouldn’t agree to it, but also because we want to mitigate as much collateral damage as we can if things go south and the guns come out. But it also has to have enough cover for the FBI spooks to hide, and multiple ingress and egress points for them to come in and for us to get out. Somewhere neutral enough that it won’t arouse his suspicions, yet ideally close enough to an airport that he can be moved quickly before his men can regroup and form a counterassault to get him back.”
Mariana’s lips curve into a small, unnerving smile.
“How about an inferno?”
Twenty-Three
Mariana
For the next hour, we talk logistics. Or Connor, Tabby, and I do, while Ryan paces the floor like a caged tiger and tries not to break anything.
His protectiveness shouldn’t surprise me. He’s a soldier, after all. Generally they have no problem putting their lives on the line to protect what they hold dear. He’s trained to think of others first, to focus on the mission first, to focus on goals and outcomes rather than dwelling on feelings and the why.
But his reaction to my story does surprise me. Both his immediate and heartfelt offer to kill Capo for me, and his willingness to swallow his protective urges—and his pride—to allow me to take part in a plan he so obviously doesn’t want me to have anything to do with.
In other words, he’s respecting my wishes. Against his better judgment and what must be a considerable onslaught of testosterone pounding against the inside of his skull. It must be demanding that he lock me in a closet to keep me safe, but he’s going along with what I want. And by the looks of it, it’s killing him to do so.
If I wasn’t already so infatuated with him, that alone would do the trick.
I’ve never met an alpha male who could be described as liberated.
