Chapter 96: Chapter Forty-One

Andrei

I could feel her on my skin.

I tried not to grin in triumph as I walked with the rest of the Italians, taking large purposeful steps toward the back room.

Not the purple room.

No, this room was special.

It had cement floors, soundproof walls, and chains that hung from the top of the ceiling.

Both men were chained, standing on metal chairs, bloody and a bit beaten already.

Aldo spit out a tooth.

I sighed. “Really, Chase?”

He just shrugged. “He was talking too much.”

The other man eyed me and then looked away.

“Ivan.” I crossed my arms. “I see you’ve been playing well with others in the sandbox.”

He struggled against the chains but said nothing. His light hair had spots of blood in it and his eye was already turning black.

“This is what we’re going to do,” I said sternly. “We’re going to torture you, and then we’re going to kill you if you don’t give us the information we need.

“If you give us what we need and Sergio can prove that the locations to your cells are accurate, along with your contacts, then we’ll simply shoot you. Make your choice, gentlemen. I have a date.”

“Fuck you!” Aldo screamed. “How dare you think you can do that to my—”

I sucker-punched him in the gut.

He couldn’t say her name.

Or that she was his sister.

Regardless of the way he talked, he could still make out the name enough for the Italians to question me.

Phoenix cleared his throat behind me.

“Make your choices,” I demanded as the door shut, keeping us all in.

“You are weak.” Ivan gritted his teeth. “Your father would be ashamed of you!”

I grinned up at him. “Do you really think I live for a dead man’s approval? That would be a wrong assumption, considering I was recruited against him the day I turned eighteen.”

Ivan paled.

“Ah, now you understand, these men are more family than my father ever was. It would be wise to stop talking before I take another tongue.

Ivan stared straight ahead and whispered, “Death. I choose death.”

“And you, Aldo? What have you picked off the menu for the evening?”

Aldo glared. “I won’t tell you shit.”

I tsked. “Chase, did you want to do the honors?”

Chase grinned. “With pleasure.”

Aldo struggled as Chase punched him across the face and then kicked the chair away so Aldo hung by his bloody wrists. He screamed out in agony.

And I watched.

I enjoyed it.

Because I couldn’t protect her then.

But I could save her now.

I could get her revenge.

I could take his life.

And I would.

“We know it’s you. Elena was very informative.

Ivan opened his mouth. “We’re dead anyway.”

“Smart man.”

The Italians waited in silence.

It was my club after all.

My business.

My respect for them grew tenfold.

“Well?” I crossed my arms.

Ivan hung his head. “Viktor Stasevich is our contact, an old friend of your father’s. He keeps the girls until we make the pick-up. He and his team work with a—”

“Shut the hell up!” Aldo roared.

Ivan barked out a laugh. “We’re dead men! Do you know who these men are?

“We will not walk out of here alive, and I will not have my eyes lost to me when I am dead!” He was superstitious, interesting.

“He and his team worked with Alexander, the De Langes took your contract Andrei, and when they started making more contacts within the family…” His eyes flickered from Chase back to me.

“They?” Chase said with clenched teeth. “Or she?”

“Sh-she.” Ivan hung his head. “I gave it to her behind Andrei’s back and gave her Viktor’s number. The money the operation brought in was tens of millions.

“Mil,” I corrected.

Chase looked ready to kill every single man in that room.

“When Mil met with him, she was promised protection along with the money and the new contracts.”

I knew Mil had gotten in deep.

I didn’t know it was that deep.

And by the look on Chase’s face, neither did he.

“What else?”

Aldo barked out a laugh. “This is rich. You don’t know, do you? For being so powerful, you don’t know shit that went down in our family!”

“We’re about to.” I glared. “Ivan, continue…”

“Mil knew it was dangerous, and she didn’t want anyone finding out.

“She just wanted the money to funnel back into the De Langes, but it was too much money all at once…” His face was ashen, like he was afraid of what we would do if he said more.

The room went silent.

And I could feel the hate for every single De Lange in the bloodline build into a boiling point that even I knew I couldn’t control.

I needed to get Chase out of there before he did something like start blindly shooting.

As it was, his chest rose and fell, his eyes crazed.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Tex grab his gun. Nixon did the same and pointed it directly at the back of Chase’s head.

“Ivan,” My voice was hoarse. “One more question before I give you that bullet you’ve easily earned.”

“Yes.” He hung his head.

“This Viktor… who did he report to?”

Ivan’s lips trembled. “Mil De Lange.”

Phoenix swore under his breath. I knew this was hard for him; it was hard for every single one of the men who’d trusted her.

Warfare and blood seemed to consume that room. Past regrets, things left unsaid, situations we should have all dealt with differently.

I hung my head for a second as a few beats went by.

As the rage and hurt from the Italians twisted and fused into a furious bomb ready to go off.

“I’ll need your cell phone.” I walked over to him and pulled a cell from his pocket, then tossed it to Sergio. “Does Viktor have control of the rest of the rings along with distribution of the girls?”

“Yes.”

“Does Viktor have protection?”

Another gulp. “Yes.”

“The De Langes?”

He looked to Aldo. “Yes.”

“You understand this means you are hereby charged with turning against your own family, your own Russian blood?”

“Yes.”

“And with that understanding, do you ask for forgiveness?”

“Yes, Boss. Please forgive me for turning my back on Russia, on you, for forging an alliance with the De Langes.”

“Got his number and address.” Sergio held up the phone. “Aw, how cute he had find a friend turned on…”

A few of them chuckled. I imagined Phoenix and Chase were both standing still, hatred dripping from their stares.

I pulled out my gun and pressed it against Ivan’s chest. I fired one shot.

“You’re forgiven.” Two more shots rang out, and then I pointed the gun up and shot him beneath the chin as blood rained down over his body and mine. “May you rot in Hell.”

I turned to Aldo. “Anything you feel like adding?”

He grinned over at Chase. “Yeah, I do.”

Shit.

“Your wife spread her legs for the Russians, she spread her legs for me!”

Chase didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. His eyes blazed with unchecked fury.

Aldo burst out laughing. “You think you were so special? You think you gave her what she needed? What she needed was power!” He was hysterical. He was a dead man. “She needed her family!

“Not a rich Abandonato with everything handed to him! You think you’re so untouchable and you don’t even know what’s been planted in your own family!”

I froze and glared at Aldo, willing him to stop talking.

“That’s right, kill me and you’ll never know.” He smiled. “You’ll never know a damn thing.”

“He’s lying.” I bit out. “Desperate.”

“Says the man who’s been—”

I pulled out my gun and shot him between the eyes before he could expose her, expose us. “Sorry, he was pissing me off.”

Chase narrowed his eyes at me. “Was he?

“Because I would have liked to do the honors, no, I would have liked to rip his tongue from his throat and watch his eyes bulge out of his head while I drove my knife directly into his heart, but instead, you fucking shoot him?

“I made a call. My club. My rules. We’re done here.” I shoved my gun back into my pants. “Let me know what results you get, Sergio.”

I bypassed Nixon and Tex, both of them oddly silent as they stared me down.

Shit, shit, shit.

Chase seemed relatively calm despite what I’d said, what I’d done.

So why was I panicking?

Phoenix gave me a funny look when I walked by Frank, and then Dante was standing just outside the door. “A word.”

“Kinda busy running a club and playing both sides, brother.” I tried to move past him, but he shoved his hand against my chest and slammed me into the wall.

Phoenix appeared behind him.

“I know who she is,” Dante said in a lethal tone. “And I also know what just went down in there. You tell him, soon, otherwise none of us can protect you from his wrath.”

“And who would protect him from mine?” I sneered. “You?”

Dante glared and shoved me away from him. “I mean it, Andrei, don’t play this game. Just tell him so it’s not a surprise later on, all right?”

“I’m not ready.”

“I guess it doesn’t really matter anyway,” Phoenix sauntered forward. “It never has.”

“What?” I snapped. “What doesn’t matter?”

Phoenix crossed his arms. “I made a call you may not like.”

“Phoenix.” I gritted my teeth. “What the hell did you do?”

“You’re a Sinacore, though I think deep down you knew that and were trying to deflect. Maybe you didn’t know just how important your role was or you just didn’t want any of us to ask questions.

Dante let out a string of curses.

“They’re coming,” Phoenix said slowly. “Here.”

“Why the hell would you invite that family here? They’re narcissistic Italian scum who think they’re fucking royalty!”

Phoenix stared me down. “Actually, they’ve been waiting for their prodigal son to return for close to twenty-two years now. Then again, they weren’t made aware that you had no clue until now.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring with an Eagle holding a fish in its hands.

“I’m Russian. I’m a Petrov.”

“Your father was a Petrov. Your mother was the daughter of Heraldo Emmanuel, from the house of Savoy—the last living royal family of Italy.” He tossed the ring in the air.

I didn’t make any move to catch it.

It bounced on the ground, once, twice, and then Dante reached down and picked it up, resolutely placing it in the palm of my hand.

Phoenix’s next words were damning, as they drove a knife straight into my heart. “If you don’t love her, don’t put her through this war, Andrei. The Sinacore Family does not mix bloodlines.”

“I’m mixed.” But even as I said it, I knew. I knew all about the Sinacore Family, I’d saved Renee from a similar fate. I had killed in order to keep her hidden here.

I’d double crossed my own family.

I didn’t acknowledge it at the time. All I knew was that I didn’t care.

“Phoenix.” I leaned against the wall, clutching the ring in my palm. “How many are coming?”

“All of them.” The words were a blow to my soul. “And they will finish the job we started. The De Langes are exorcised—and the new arm of the five families will rise up under their new leader.