Demand - Lisa Renee Jones Page 0,4
More truth: I am a part of that honor circle. Without hesitation, if the mobs or the cartels disrespect me, I will not hesitate to kill any one of the criminal asses reporting to them, leaving the world a better place. And if I don’t act that decisively, and they don’t fear me, I can no longer protect anyone.”
“You’re testing me, to see if I can handle this world, can handle this life. I told you: yes. But do not lie to me, directly or indirectly.”
“You held a gun on me, Ella,” he says, the anger he had not shown in the shower now front and center.
“But I didn’t shoot you,” I say, repeating his words.
“And that means what?”
“It means that you shook my trust, but you didn’t destroy it.”
He snags my hip and pulls me to him. “I did not lie to you.”
Like lightning, my anger shifts. “Tell me later,” I say, my throat thickening. “After you cancel this meeting.”
“You just said you can handle this, as long as you have the truth. So here is the absolute truth. There will be times I walk out of the door that are high risk. Saving Enzo was high risk. Meeting Raul Martinez is not. He wants something from me. If I’m dead, I can’t give it to him.”
“When it’s high risk, will you say it’s high risk?”
“Will you accept that it is, without doing what you’re doing right now?”
“Yes. I will. Unless it’s on a night I tried to stop one of your men from bleeding to death.”
“Fair enough. Then I will tell you.”
“Swear to me.”
“I do.”
“How is a cartel even in Italy?”
“They’re the mafia’s source of drug distribution.”
“Niccolo’s source of drug distribution,” I say of the mob boss, and the man we both think I know far too intimately. “He owns this city.”
“But he doesn’t own us. The Underground is far more powerful than you understand right now.”
“You mean you are.”
“Yes. And I didn’t get that way by being stupid or nice.”
“Is Adriel going with you?”
“Yes.”
“You know that once he’s back in The Underground, he’s not getting out.”
“His father and Enzo’s were best friends. I can’t keep him out of this.”
“I’m not suggesting that you do. I’m just making sure that beyond the moment, this is what you want.”
He says something that’s swallowed by a sudden series of fast, loud beeps. “What was that?”
“A warning that someone breached the fence,” Kayden says, stepping around me and starting down the stairs.
I follow him, discovering that Adriel is now at the bottom of the stairs and a thirty-something man with long dark hair tied at his nape has joined him. “Were you followed inside the gates?” Kayden asks, stopping in front of the stranger.
“This is me you’re talking to,” the man says as I step to Kayden’s side. “In five years, when have I ever been careless?”
“It’s Gallo,” Matteo calls out from the top of the stairs, diving frustrated fingers through his wavy brown hair on his way to us. “And he’s making a beeline for the porch.”
“There’s no way he followed me in,” the stranger reiterates.
“He’s right,” Matteo confirms, joining us and placing Kayden and Adriel in profile. “I was watching the security feed when Carlo and his team entered,” he said, clearly naming the stranger. “No one slipped in with them,” he adds.
“Then how the hell did he get in?” Kayden asks.
“We’re secure,” Matteo insists.
“Are we in the same fucking universe here?” the man I now know as Carlo asks. “Because in mine, Gallo is in the gate, and we are not fucking secure.”
“Do you ever get tired of being a little bitch?” Matteo surprises me by snapping. “He’d need a passcode for the gate, and since Gallo doesn’t even play video games, he’d have to have hired someone to hack the system.”
“I’m confused,” I dare to interject. “Isn’t there a way for visitors to enter the property? Otherwise, how did Gallo get to the door the night Giada was drunk and on the front porch?”
Kayden glances down at me. “She claims he must have snuck in behind her.” He eyes Adriel. “And to Ella’s point, if I find out she let Gallo in—”
A sudden incessant ringing of the doorbell begins and Gallo shouts, “Kayden, open up!”
“Fuck me,” Kayden curses, scrubbing his jaw.
“He’s the little bitch,” Carlo says. Proving that his five years of service has come with intimate knowledge of Kayden’s relationships, he asks, “Can you call his boss?”
“Kayden!” Gallo shouts again, abandoning the doorbell to pound on