over my shoulders and leans in close. “I can find you a girl who looks like the De La Cruz girl if that’s your—”
“I said fuck off.” I shove his arm off me.
“Getting laid might help you relax a little.”
I grunt.
“Hey.” Dante moves to stand in front of me. He adjusts the collar of my jacket then rests his hands on my shoulders. “You okay?”
Am I okay? No. I’m not okay. I don’t remember the last time I was okay. But I nod. “We should get this done.”
“You’re not doing it alone, you know. I’m right there beside you. We take it back together. We destroy the motherfuckers who tried to destroy us together.”
I study him, smile, mess up his hair. “Thanks for the pep talk but it’s all good. Let’s go.”
He smiles. I know he’s got my back and I’ve got his even if we don’t agree on everything.
We walk into the building. For as bright as it is outside, it’s dark inside. It’s a dinner club, not a breakfast club, with dark walls and curtains, tinted windows and elegance all around.
“Gentlemen,” I say, taking inventory.
Dante does the same, moving to stand at the opposite end of the room.
A single representative from each of the five families in Italy sits at the table. I haven’t seen them in ten years. I tell myself that’s why I don’t recognize them. Not because of my missing memory.
“Cristiano,” Matteo Gribaldi says, standing to shake my hand. I only know it’s Matteo because I studied the photos, the histories.
“Matteo.”
“It’s good to see you. We’d thought…well, we’d believed the worst.”
I smile but it’s just a stretching of my lips. I feel nothing.
He resumes his seat and each of the others greets me in turn. These men have been working with Rinaldi in the ten years I’ve been gone. They’ve participated in and gotten richer off the one thing that was forbidden to them. They’re greedy, all of them. But it’s not their greed that bothers me. It’s their duplicity and their weakness I despise. Because only after I attacked Rinaldi did they have a change of heart.
I take my seat at the head of the table, noting the soldiers standing around the room.
“You are here because you agreed many years ago, some when your fathers were in command, to the rules my father set. The one activity we will not deal in. The Rinaldi family is finished. The De La Cruz Cartel has been dealt with. And now that I’m back, I resume my place at the head of this table.” I pause. “My father made your fathers rich. My grandfather made your grandfathers rich. And we did it without trafficking in human flesh.”
“Cristiano, Marcus was the cancer that ate his family from the inside out. Without your family to unite us, we became divided. We agreed to things we should not have agreed to. But we are not all as honorable as your father,” one of the men says. It doesn’t matter who. They’ll parrot one another to save their lives.
“Honor killed my father,” I say, shifting my gaze around the room. “I will avenge my family. You’re here because you did not have a hand in the massacre. You’re here because I believe we can return to the original pact. Am I correct to believe this?”
“Cristiano,” one of the representatives, an older man with whom my family shares the most history starts. Lorenzo Ricci.
I raise my eyebrows.
“They killed my father, too, because he stood in their way.” He stands dramatically. “The Ricci family is with you.”
“Rinaldi is still alive. Both father and son,” one of the others says.
“I have rendered them powerless.”
“If the cartel chooses to work with Marcus—”
“They won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I’m sure.” I don’t mention Scarlett or Noah. The less they know the better.
His eyebrows rise up.
“Are you with us?” I ask. I could give a fuck about anything else.
He nods.
“You’ve risen from the dead, Cristiano,” another says. “I stand with you and your brother.”
All eyes fall on the final two. They look around the room and together, they nod.
I stand, button my jacket. “I’m glad to see we’re once again aligned. Gentlemen.” They remain seated as I turn to the door, Dante flanking me.
“They’ll turn on us in a heartbeat,” Dante says when we’re outside.
“I know. I don’t trust them, but I’ve already made the example. They will obey me because I am mightier than them.” Mightier than Rinaldi or any other family. The instant they see weakness,