Page 73 of The Queen's Vow (Ruthless Games 2)

FIFTY-ONE

GIANCARLO

My brother?

What the fuck.

I recognized the gait immediately. I got to my feet, ready to run and hug him, only... Mistrust took me over. It’d been a harrowing six months since he’d gone missing. I wasn’t sure who or what to trust anymore.

All of those firewalls I couldn’t breach, he could have built them. He could either be the real hitman, or the one who put the contract out on Becca.

But why?

The answer stared me in the face and scared the hell out of me.

So he could rule. Fulfill my mother’s wishes. Achieve their goals to put a Bianco back on the throne. The throne that was taken away from my mother when she married my father instead of Julian’s.

“Why are you here?” I picked up the gun that Becca kicked out of my hand.

“Gian—” Becca’s voice clipped.

“Shush. Let him speak.”

My brother approached me and the way he’d bulked up in the Navy and then as a SEAL made him look so damn formidable. I’d be afraid of him if I didn’t share his blood and DNA.

“Giancarlo,” he said my name with humor in his voice. “Do you think I’m here to hurt you?”

“No. I think you’re here to hurt her?” I pointed to Becca. “Get her out of here,” I said to Anthony, who held her.

“Yeah, Salvatore, you need to start talking,” Bastien said, taking up position next to me. “We were just unloading our heat into a small army. Now here you are.”

“Giancarlo, he found me in the crawl space.” Becca tried to get to me, but Anthony held her back. “He said the hitman and his team of killers would break through your line of fire and then tear the house apart to find me. He was protecting me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “My mother wanted him on the throne. It’s too convenient.”

“The throne?” My brother looked around. “You think I want Old Man Domenico’s stinking throne?”

“Hey,” Becca snapped.

“No offense, Becky.”

“Becca,” I corrected him.

“Rebecca, if you don’t mind,” Bastien added.

“Your highness is my preference,” Anthony said.

“Let him speak,” Becca said softly.

I listened to my brother tell me about going rogue in Afghanistan. And how a commander should have told my parents on a backchannel he was alive. It made me wonder if they’d been told and had been faking heartbreak around me to cover for him.

“I am guilty of one thing,” Salvatore said, coming up to me. “I tipped those guys off about the house. I monitored your computers. You were getting close and I was getting impatient. I beefed up Becca’s tracker signal. I’d honed in on it by accident honestly, it was so weak. Considered remotely killing it, but felt it was better to use it as chum to feed the killers knowing they’d chomp first and think second. All six cars barreling down the driveway at once? No backup? No flanks?”

“All that based on a tracker that could have been given to a decoy?” I shook my head. “Fen Cole fell for something so obvious?”

“It wasn’t Fen Cole. Fen Cole died last year of some weird virus. His second-in-command has been masquerading as him to get jobs.”

“How do you know all this?” I asked.

My brother stared at Becca. “I’m a hitman now too. I’m wanted by the military for going AWOL. I can’t resume my old life and start working for Dad. Let alone sit on a throne and go to parties.”

He didn’t sound too broken up about it. We were all killers in a way, but I needed time to process my brother made a career out of it.

“Salvatore, you said you also knew who hired Fen. Or Fake Fen,” Becca said to him in a kind voice and I had to wonder how cozy he’d gotten with her.

“I do. I need a minute, though.”

“For what?” I snapped.

“To get everyone in position.”

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