Hunter - Blaire Drake Page 0,20
to God, if he looked at me like I was a piece of shit again, I was going to remind that silver-haired bastardo who I was.
“Papa, he didn't kill her,” Angelo pointed out, leaning forward and resting his forearms on the table.
Angelo, like Gaige, had dark hair and strong features, but he was always more put together. He was twenty-seven, three years older than his brother, and he'd taken to the life of crime far easier than he had. It was a burden to Gaige, and while I didn't think for a second Angelo particularly liked keeping the streets of Los Angeles in cocaine and meth, he sure as hell liked the payout he got at the end of it.
He liked the Colombian girls the cartels sent with the drugs, too.
“He tried,” Matias Rodriguez, Armo's consigliere, argued. The only Mexican in the made men of the Pontarelli family, he kept things running smoothly with the cartels. Mostly because Armo couldn't speak Spanish to save his life, and was too ignorant to learn it.
“But he didn't.” Angelo stared at Matias. He wasn't going to let that point go, and I didn't know if I was glad for it or not.
I was only here to make sure they didn't make any stupid decisions. In my experience, when left alone, men tended to fuck decisions up.
“He had the perfect chance,” Angelo continued, sitting back and holding his palms up. “He was alone and had the gun to her head. We've all pulled triggers. We know how quickly they go and how easy it is to end someone's life. All of us in this room with the exception of the lady herself has killed someone.”
Gaige's face darkened in the corner—if it were possible. He was already in the foulest mood, and he still had no idea who Hunter was to me. Him being reminded of the man his father forced him to kill for stealing money wasn't going to improve his mood.
“And if it came down to it,” Armo spoke before Gaige could, “I doubt the lady would kill someone.” He slid his eyes to me. “Isn't that right, princess?”
I held his dark gaze without blinking or wavering. “Keep talking and you'll find out.”
He sneered. “Your life or theirs. Would you shoot?”
“Yes.” It was a half lie, I supposed. If I had to, I would. And it also depended on the person.
This world wasn't as black and white as people thought.
Angelo shook his head. “Papa, we don't know if we can trust Carlo Rosso, but that doesn't mean we can't.”
“Guilty until proven innocent,” Armo snapped at his son. “This isn't a fuckin' democracy, figlio. It's a motherfuckin' dictatorship.”
And I own your ass. Ner-ner.
“Darien?” Matias asked, turning to him. “You've been quiet, amigo. What is your thought?”
Darien clapped his hands together and leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “I trained the boy. I know he could walk in here right now and put a bullet between all of our eyes before the last man standing has a chance to pull a gun on him.”
His words silenced the room for a moment.
“But I also know that beneath his hardened exterior, he does have a heart.” He glanced at me, briefly, and I looked down at my hands clasped in my lap. “I think he's buried it to be the person he's expected to be. Enzio Romano is a ruthless man, and he expects his family to be the same. It doesn't matter if you're a damn capo or merely an associate. He takes nothing less than unforgiving cruelty in all manners of his life.”
No shit. That's why I grew up in Calabasas, surrounded by rich, plastic, air-headed fucks.
“Enzio Romano is an asshole,” Gaige bit out.
“And he's a dangerous one,” Armo replied before Gaige could continue. “He is not a man for you to mess with, figlio. He would snap you in two before you could finish your sentence, but we are not discussing Enzio Romano. We are discussing Carlo Rosso, and I want to know how dangerous the assassino is before we make any choices. Darien?” He turned his attention back to Darien.
He looked disinterested, probably because he'd already told him how dangerous he is. “When Carlo was ten, he was hunting better than associates twice his age. When he was twelve, I watched him beat a sixteen year old boy from a rival family into tomato puree because he tried to take Adriana. Carlo had barely touched puberty, and that boy should have