I didn’t know how Claudius got down here within ten minutes.
But he did.
Sadly, the guys were gone.
Ariel said they took the wine, slapped down five hundred dollars on the table, and left.
Claudius took hold of me the minute he saw me and pulled me away from the floor into the little corridor by the toilets so he could check to see if I was okay.
He looked freaked out.
“I’m okay,” I told him when he cupped my face.
“I didn’t get here quick enough.” His voice held the fear that reflected in his eyes.
“I’m okay. They didn’t do anything to me,” I assured him.
“But they were here to send a message.”
My skin prickled from the cold edge of his voice. “Yes. But why?”
He winced and moved away from me. It was a stupid question that I already knew the answer to.
“They know I’m yours, and they wanted you to know that,” I said, speaking like it was nothing, even though inside, my stomach squeezed.
“What did they look like?” His eyes turned a dark, deadly shade I’d never seen before.
“What’s going on, Claudius? This sounds a little more than about a shipping company.” That’s what he’d told me a few weeks back.
I’d pushed my luck for asking, but I wanted to know. I felt some entitlement to know.
“I can’t talk about it. I don’t know what’s going on, and whatever it is, I can’t tell you.”
I folded my arms under my breasts. “Why the hell not?”
“The less you know, the better.”
“So, there’s something you know that you aren’t saying?” This man held my heart, but he made me crazy at the same time with that damn mystery about him that had driven me to him in the first place.
“No. Doll, you have to come with me.”
I clenched my jaw, whirled around, and walked down the path. In the opposite direction. Away from him. Ahead was the other door that led back to the wine cellar.
It was fine. If he was going to be like this, then I would leave him to it.
Of course, he followed after me like I knew he would, catching my arm and pulling me to him.
“Let go of me,” I scoffed.
“No, you have no idea what this could be. I have no idea what this could be. Until I know what’s going on, you’re staying with me.”
“I have stock to count, thank you very much. Next time those goons come here, if there is a next time, I’ll throw them out and tell them to take their cryptic shit elsewhere.” It was fear and anger rolled into one talking because realistically, if I had the balls it took to throw those guys out, I wouldn’t have called Claudius. I would have indeed kicked them out myself.
He looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Maybe I had. I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything right now.
Actually, that was a lie. I did know one thing. One thing I never wanted to admit.
It was him. This was happening to me because of him. The people who knew him were dangerous, and what kind of fool was I to jump right back into the flames of hell after being burned once?
And for what? What was it we had?
“I love you.” His voice…
His words cut straight into me, snapping off the source of the myriad of thoughts that flowed through my mind.
I had to wonder if he’d actually said what I thought he said. He’d never told me that before. Not in the whole time we’d been together. I’d known he loved me, I had hoped he did, but those three words had never been words spoken between us.
I’d never seen him blush before. In fact, it looked strange to see it, and it disappeared as soon as it appeared. Like it never happened. Like he was immune to emotions that could show any softness to him.
He shifted his weight from one foot to the other and made a fist with his left hand.
“I told you that before, except it wasn’t… you. It wasn’t you. It was her. I know whatever is between us has this weight of uncertainty, but you need to know that. You need to know that I love you, and I can’t let them take you. Again.” He shook his head.
He released me, but I moved closer to him.
It was this…
This was what we had.
“I love you too.” As I spoke, it felt like a release of something that had been resting heavily on my mind, on my heart. And… it explained it all. It was just like weeks ago when I knew all I wanted was him. That’s how I felt now. “I’ll just grab my bag.”
I was tempted to insist on staying here a little longer, because I really was pressed for time with everything I needed to do here, but I didn’t want to spoil the moment.
“Come here.” He reached for me again, and I leaned into him while he circled me with the warmth of his protective arms. Protected.
I felt it and how important I was to him.
Like everything, I felt it all with this man. But… a dark thought entered my mind.
I felt it all with him, and I couldn’t have loved him more than I did, than I always had. I just wasn’t sure if it was enough.
In the end, whenever that was, love would never be enough.
Claudius I could have breathed fire.
It took everything out of me to calm myself down in front of Ava. I wanted to hit something, destroy something. Find those guys, whoever they were. I got her back to my place, then arranged to get her CCTV recording.
I watched it, saw the goons, but I didn’t recognize any of them.
Never seen them before. Not even one of them.
I had Dante and Gio with me. Alex and Jude were on the streets again gathering intel, and the secret force was working on things from their end.
Luc’s men: Saul, Louis, and Donny were on their way. They would stay here and watch the place.
Ava was upstairs. When we got here, The Four were already inside waiting for us. I sent Ava straight to my room. There she stayed. That was hours ago, and she hadn’t come down.
She’d looked freaked out by the guys. She was freaked out from the situation.
I definitely couldn’t blame her. Not in the absolute least. I couldn’t even relish in the fact that she’d told me she loved me. It was something to be savored, but I didn’t have the luxury of time.
Shit got real today. Obviously because of last night.
I could only imagine what must have happened when Corey gave his report on what went down at the club.
So, they were playing the old card of coming at me through my girl.
The extension of that message those guys sent was not just knowing Ava was mine. They were also saying that they’d come at me through her if I messed with them. If I asked too many questions. If I dug too deep to discover whatever secret it was I wasn’t supposed to know about.
Fucking hell.
“I feel like a sitting duck, boss,” Gio said, leaning against the edge of the table.
“The feeling is mutual.” I had to agree. All the work we’d done so far was basically for nothing, and I wasn’t sure what we were waiting for.
I was hoping the secret squad would come back to me with something by now, but I hadn’t heard from them. That meant they didn’t have much to work with either.
We were in my office. It was quite unlike the office in town because I kept some spare weights in here, and it wasn’t as organized, but this was where I kept paperwork and other shit that was business related.
With a curious look on his face, Dante went to the TV and switched on the DVD player, getting ready to watch the footage again.
We’d watched it ten times already, and nothing stood out. I didn’t know what he thought he might gather from watching the eleventh time.
“Hey, bro, what are you thinking?” I asked, moving closer to him.
“I don’t know, boss. I think… just let me play around with this a little.”
The footage started playing. I watched Ariel, the redhead at the restaurant, show the three guys to their table. They said something to her, and she went to get Ava. Ava went to them and …
Dante froze the screen and stared at it. Other than the repulsive sight of the fat fucker who was talking to Ava, I didn’t know what he was looking at.
“What is it, Dante?” The suspense was killing me.
“I’m not sure. Not yet.” He zoomed in and hovered over the lapel pin on the fucker’s jacket.
“Jesus,” Dante hissed then rushed to the laptop.
Gio and I exchanged curious glances and both moved to join Dante at the same time.
Dante’s fingers fired across the keyboard and brought up an image of some old gentlemen’s club.
“There.” Dante pointed at the insignia for the Crowthorne Society. It was a country club on the east side, about a mile or two from the property Ava was building the new restaurant. “And it’s actually an Antonella place. Means those guys were with Barabbas.”
He gave me a tentative look.
“Fuck,” I cursed.
Fuck. Antonellas giving my girl a message was next level bad, and it made bile rise in my throat. Jesus Christ, what now?
“How’d you know about a place like this?” Gio chuckled. “Doesn’t seem like your kind of hangout.”
Darkness filled Dante’s eyes. “It’s not. I found my sister there once.”
Enough said. That silenced us. Dante’s sister had been murdered. He didn’t know by whom. Same as Gio. His best friend was murdered too. He didn’t know who killed him.
Dante cleared his throat. “She wasn’t involved with the Antonellas, but someone she knew was. Boss, this could turn ugly. Antonella giving a warning like that means stay the fuck away.”
“Means don’t get involved,” Gio chimed in and bit the inside of his lip.
“We’re already fucking involved. We weren’t supposed to be, but we are.” I’d figured it out. Before today, things had been a mess in my head, but I’d figured it out. “The shipping company. We were just supposed to be dealing with that, but they slipped up. Had Luc not seen the Manello grunt, we wouldn’t have any cause to see past what might be going on. I wouldn’t have looked any further than business with David. We wouldn’t have been suspicious.”
On Pa’s advice I would have still turned the proposal down, but what made it suspicious was everything else that was going on. The people who’d mysteriously popped up.
“What if the two aren’t linked?” Dante held up his hands and lowered his brows. “What if the two aren’t linked, and we do something stupid?”
I shook my head. “They’re linked, Dante. My gut tells me all this is no coincidence.”
Dante sighed. “So, what now?”
“I’m not playing into their game. Today signaled war. I don’t care who they are. They won’t get away with threatening my girl like that.” Of course, my heart told me to run away with my tail between my legs and heed the warning to protect Ava, but I knew these people. The fact that Barabbas sent his men highlighted the seriousness of the situation, and if I was involved, I at least had a right to know what I was involved in. That was the mistake I’d made before.
Seven years ago, I’d never found out exactly what it was I was doing on that job for Joe. Had I done so, I would have bailed out. I absolutely fucking well would have.
Besides, there was something much more at work here.
Something to do with one of my guys. It was all too convenient. It was like the other side knew our next moves … a little too well.
I was being played, being used as a puppet, but I was going to get to the bottom of it all. I’d flush out the rat one way or another.
“What’s the next move, then?” Gio asked.
“Bring me David Shipel.” That had to be the next move. If I couldn’t get to Joe or whoever was running this show, then I’d have to settle with whom I’d been dealing with. “It’s been weeks. Time to give Mr. Shipel my answer. Get him to me tonight. We’ll meet on the roof of the office.”
Dante narrowed his eyes at me. “Maybe you should stay here. I think Ava needs you. We got this.”
“No. I’ll get someone to watch her.”
“Who? If it’s not you watching her, it should be one of us,” he offered up.
I clenched my fists, and he saw.
“Claudius.” Dante quirked a brow. He alternated between calling me boss and by my name. I knew when he called me by name, he was talking to me as a friend. “This whole thing just took a turn we couldn’t have seen coming.”
“It sure has.”
“The person who followed you weeks ago…” Dante added, holding me in place with the intensity of his stare. “It started then. It isn’t just a repercussion from last night at the club.”
“I know.” Of course, I knew that.
“So, if you take it back to weeks ago, the people we’re looking for shouldn’t have had one iota that we were looking for them.” He glanced at Gio, who gave me a pensive stare. “And your doll, someone could only know she’s yours if they were following you and knew where to look in the first place.”
I tensed seeing the direction this conversation was going.
Clearly, he’d smelled the rat amongst us too and had caught on to my mistrust of the men I should trust with my life.
“What are you saying, Dante?” I feigned mock innocence.
He looked reluctant to continue but did. “I’m saying it’s suspicious as shit since the only people who knew what we were doing at that time were us guys, your Pa, and Luc.”
“Be careful… of what you’re saying.” I spoke in that equally cool manner.
Recognition formed in his eyes. “You know what I speak, don’t you?”
“That one of my guys is working with them?” I offered. “Yeah, I know.”
“You don’t trust any of us, do you?” Dante actually looked hurt.
Emotions like hurt was another luxury I couldn’t regard. Experience had taught me that everyone had a price. And sometimes people were just objects walking around with a different mask for a different lie, on different days. They made you see what they wanted you to see.
Sometimes it was truth, sometimes it was lies.
“No,” I answered. My voice cold and expressionless.
“It’s not me.” Dante stared me down. “The same rat was one of the only people too who knew the safe house where you took Marissa.”
I blinked several times, thrown that he’d mention that, but if I was being honest, I knew it was obvious that someone I knew must have given her location away. Someone gave her location away and told Goliath about Ava too.
That crazy son of a bitch must have had a field day planning his retaliation on me. Grab the twins and see which one I could get to first. Actually though… it was set up so I wouldn’t have gotten to Marissa at all, and if I’d had another minute or two to reach her, we would have both gotten blown up.
“It’s not me either.” Gio clenched his jaw. “And I fucking doubt that it’s your Pa or Luc.”
I tilted my head to the side and regarded them both. “Like I said, be careful of what you’re saying. Now, link up with Alex and Jude and get me David Shipel.”
I would say no more. They were convincing, very convincing.
It was distressing that I couldn’t trust two of my best friends.
That was how it had to be though.
I wouldn’t put Ava’s life in danger again, and I wouldn’t succumb to emotion.
If I was trying to betray someone, the first thing I’d do was get them to trust me.
That was the danger here.