Chapter 29

**| AURORA |**

*3 months later*

In all honesty, I never wanted it to come to this. I never wanted Viktor to find out that his youngest brother was involved with drugs.

But life in Chicago was fucked up as hell. You either choose this life, or this life chooses you. Unfortunately for Stef, it was both.

He did manage to effectively lie to us for months until a few weeks ago, he overdosed. And all hell broke loose. But, like every male Romano I know of, he was stubborn and a pain in the ass. And like I had already feared, he dug a hole too deep than he had realized.

When everything else in the book failed to drag him back, Viktor decided he was better off in rehab because the home was too close to his heart to bring a change. It must have been the toughest choice Viktor had made in the longest time, but it was needed.

It was needed to keep his brother alive.

But the cocktail of drugs wasn’t the only threat to Stefan’s life.

Viktor and his family have harbored enemies for a long time, and there was finally a weakness they could explore. A chance to get back to them through his little brother.

Even though Viktor was always two steps ahead when it came to his family’s security, the assassination attempt on Stefan was too close to home. He had escaped death by a hair’s breadth, not once but twice, and there was no safe haven than Romano mansion.

It took less than a few hours to find out about the men coming after Stefan’s life and even lesser to find out their boss. But he was simply an over-ambitious fucker and a hired gun. Viktor wanted to know the name of the motherfucker who’d dare mess with his family, and whatever Viktor Romano wanted, he got it.

Love him or hate him - he was a force to be reckoned with.

“You have the blade tucked in?” Marco asked, taking another sharp right turn as we drove deeper into the city. I swear the city looked a whole lot different in the day than at night. And to think I had survived the dark alleys and dangerous thugs was a whole lot satisfying.

But somehow, Marco was yet to come to terms.

I sighed. “Fifth time.”

“What?”

Leaning back into the seat, I turned my head slightly. “This is the fifth time you asked about my weapons ever since we got into the car. I got this, Marco. It isn’t my first rodeo. So, try and have a little faith in me.”

“Maybe it isn’t your first rodeo, but it’s still different,” he said. “Don’t underestimate these assholes.”

“I am not, but you breathing down my neck isn’t going to help me either,” I snapped. “I got this, okay?”

He didn’t reply, and it was nothing ‘okay’ of sorts. Marco and I were so similar in terms of temper that it always got the worst out of our character. We never hesitated running headfast into a problem, nor did we ever backed down.

“We are here,” Marco finally said, breaking the thick silence as he pulled in front of the club. Judging by the look of the place, I wondered how legit it was.

A guard stood a little afar—greasy hair, beefy structure, and smoking the last bit of his cigarette as he eyed our car and the one behind it.

Adjusting the earpiece, I threw one last look at Marco and stepped out. And the moment, the asshole eye-fucked me from head to toe. Sporting the tightest red bodycon dress and a pair of high heels can never go wrong with the druggies of Chicago.

Two of our men flanked by my side as I walked up to the guard. “I have a delivery for Maurice.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“Depends. Who’s asking?”

The idiot eyed the men with disdain as he turned back his attention on me. “Maurice ain’t meeting anyone until you have a name.”

The urgency to kick his balls was highly potent, but somehow, I had to play it right. “I don’t have a name; it’s the name,” I emphasized. “Donovan. You think your boss would wanna turn down the delivery now?”

Apparently, it worked. Before another word, he opened the door and led us inside the dimly lit club. “This way.”

A hurling stench of sweat and sex made me gag. It wasn’t a surprise that the rat Maurice chose to hide his sorry ass inside a cheap sex club, but it was also the blaring music that pissed me off. So, I ignored the place altogether and continued on my way, not bothering to make any eye contact with the lecherous men around the bar.

The guard led us far into the place, through a neon-illuminated corridor, and into another room. And there was my prey. Maurice, who was busying, groping a blonde stripper. He was so carried away, mauling her breasts with one hand and stroking himself with another that he didn’t bother to notice us.

The guard walked up to him and whispered something in his ear, causing his gaze to snap towards me. And the moment it did, I wanted to pop his eyes from the sockets for looking at me the wrong way.

He retracted his hands, sending away the blonde, and zipped himself up. “What the hell does your boss want now?” he asked, staring down my neck and then up.

I strode up to Maurice, deliberately clacking my heels to make my ass sway prominently. “He needs more product. Same quality and he is willing to pay upfront this time.”

“More product, eh?” A nasty grin appeared before as he scratched his jaw thoughtfully and nodded at one of his minions. “That can be arranged. But how did Donovan run out of the supply so soon?”

“That’s his business.”

His filthy hand reached out and yanked my wrist, dragging me closer to him. “And what business you have with him?” His fat palm slithered up my spine, and it took every ounce of restraint in my veins not to strangle him right in front of his men.

Make it quick. Marco growled into my earpiece.

Thankfully, one of Maurice’s minions arrived with two bricks in each hand, and I could finally break away from the contact. “I need to check,” I said, grabbing the product.

“Thirty,” he announced as I rubbed the cocaine between my fingers, making me look up from the task.

“What? It was twenty last time.”

“I don’t give a fuck what it was the last time. Thirty or nothing,” the fucker spat. “Your boss won’t get this kind of shit anywhere in Chicago.”

Yeah, asshole, because it our fucking smack.

I shook my head, playing along with his little game. “My boss made the deal. We are paying far more the market value anyway.”

Despite my reluctance, his hand snaked around my waist once again as his smelling breath brushed against my skin. “Fine, a new deal then,” he whispered lasciviously. “One fuck, and I will make it twenty-five.”

Oh, he was going to be fucked anyway…

I smiled. “Deal.”

“Let’s go.”

I stole a glance with the men who had walked in with me and simply followed Maurice, navigating to another floor. He took me to another one of those dimly lit rooms with a lingering stench of sex that almost gagged me.

Heavy curtains, probably one window, and a separate floor…perfect. Makes it so much easier for me… 

Maurice shut the door loud enough to have my attention and turned to face me.

“I was really hoping you would do that,” I said and stomped towards him. And before he could lay his eyes on the shiny knuckle duster I had slipped on, the solid punch I landed on his stomach knocked the air off his lungs.

One punch is all you need. You aim it right and hit it hard—one of Marco’s many lessons.

I forgot the number of times he had bruised my ribs because I failed my target. But in the end, I learned. And I remembered.

Maurice folded over as I twisted his arm and dislocated his shoulder. “Unnn…fucking bitch!”

“Nope, I am a whole lot worse than that.”

Next, I rammed the blade into his injured shoulder and shoved a dirty rag against his mouth. “Ugh!” came the muffled cry.

“You need not worry, though, Maurice. I have plans, but I will make them quick.”

It wasn’t just this asshole alone who pissed me off. “Will you please just fucking shut up? I know what I am doing,” I yelled into the receiver.

“You.” I yanked Maurice by the hair and twisted the blade further into his shoulder when he tried to scamper away. “I am running a little out of time, so I will make it short. Why the fuck did you sent your dogs after Stefan Romano?”

His bloodshot eyes glared through the pain and spat the dirty rag at my feet.

Sighing, I slowly nodded. “I was nice, you know. But this is the problem with the world, Maurice. No one ever listens to a woman until we do something dramatic. And they call us hormonal. How unfortunate.”

I pulled out the gun quickly before he could move and kneecapped both his legs. Then, storming over, I rammed the pointy end of the heels into his bleeding legs.

“I am going to ask you one last time. Who the fuck sent you after Stefan?”

A throbbing cry croaked out of him. “The Mexicans…want him dead,” he answered between gasps. “The Romanos took all their businesses in Chicago, and they wanted to get even.”

“How fucking moronic,” I hissed. “And you thought you could pick a fight with the King of the jungle and win? Have you lost your motherfucking mind?”

“Please…I will just…”

I found a vase nearby and took it to his face. “That’s for pissing Viktor off.”

“I can pay you…” the fucker coughed blood. “Whatever Viktor’s paying, I will double it.”

“You will pay me with your balls,” I said, aiming between his legs.

“Fuck!”

And before I could have the last laugh, the door slammed open. A bullet shot through Maurice’s head, splashing blood onto my dress. Goddammit!

“Really?” I glared at him. “You have no patience at all.”

Marco tucked the gun behind his back and moved the corpse away from him. “What did I teach you about wasting time?”

Rolling my eyes, I took off the knuckle duster and threw at him only to watch him catch that with one-hand swag. “I had plenty of time had you not interrupted.”