. . .
Dante Valentino
What the fuck was bothering her?
My finger tapped against the steering wheel as I drove. Fabinao was sitting by me, and Giovanni was in the back, grumbling about being shoved there by Fabiano.
"What's wrong with you?" Fabiano asked.
"Nothing."
Giovanni struck his head between our seats, looking at me. "Something is definitely wrong."
"Wear the seatbelt," I said to Fabinao, ignoring Giovanni.
"I don't need to.'
"I'll tell Leyla."
"Motherfucker," he grumbled under his breath and wore the seat belt.
My hand tightened around the steering wheel and then I forced myself to loosen it. What was bothering her? She didn't really cry usually. She was a lot like me when it came to emotions. But I was perhaps a bit more stoic. Maybe she had a nightmare? She'd tell me if that were the case. This was either something embarrassing or something that she thought I'd have a negative reaction to.
"Is it your Blue?" Fabiano asked.
"Shut up."
"It is," Giovanni said. "Trouble in paradise?"
"Shut up."
"I can't imagine you having a fight with her," Giovanni continued. "She doesn't speak much, and neither do you. Do you just stare at each other till your anger gets out? Fucking boring. "
"Shut the fuck up."
I stopped the car in front of the restaurant and got out, throwing the keys at the valet. I surveyed the restaurant and then the surrounding buildings. I had gotten the parameter secured in advance. Bratva couldn't know about this. If they came to know about this, it would get a bit too problematic then I was willing to make it.
"No fighting," I said to Giovanni. "We need this to go as smoothly as it can."
"Do I need to remind you that you're the one who shot Michael?"
I stopped walking. "I don't give a fuck about that. But this concerns Blue. So you will not fight."
"Fine," he grumbled. "There they are."
There they were. Three men, getting out of their car. For a moment I thought about them in the cage with us. Ashton with a broken hand, Xerxes bleeding and Zavier passed out after he bad mouthed Ivan - again. Giovanni and Zavier didn't know when to shut up, so they were the one who got hurt a lot. Sometimes we'd volunteer on their behalf, and that made them shut up.
But, the three men in front of me now were not the broken boys I had befriended ages ago.
"I should have brought Leyla," Gio mumbled. He always said that wherever he went. I never really understood why, but now I did.
. . .
"Dimitri will join," I said, grabbing a glass of whiskey as Xerxes motioned the waitress to get more. "If Alexi retaliates - when Alexi retaliates."
"Well," Ashton muttered, removing his glasses and pinching the bridge of his nose in obvious irritation. "We always did plan to erase the Bratva."
"You want us to back down on our word," Xerxes said to us, particularly me. He was sitting right across from me, his brothers on either side of him. This was supposed to be dinner but I knew none of us were going to order anything but drinks. "Like you did with him."
"He is the one who tried to send his shit to our territory," Giovanni, who was sitting right beside me and nursing a too filled glass of whiskey, said. "He broke the word first, we merely replaced him with another blood-thirsty Russian. Apparently, there are plenty of them."
"And how trustworthy is this Dimitri," asked Zavier.
"Not a lot," I said. "We don't know him that much, and we don't know his numbers. But, we aren't messing with him, either so there is no need to put any trust in him. But, I do believe that he hates Alexi completely because of something Igor did. He wants to put an end to Bratva and grab all the territory Alexi has. That war is inevitable. When we kill Alisa, it will just add us to the war."
Everyone was silent for a while. The Creeds were contemplating. I knew there was a time when they wouldn't really have thought twice about eradicating Bratva from the face of the earth but now they had Olivia and their kids - they had a family which wasn't as strong as them. They had to think this through.
Just a few months ago their hesitation wouldn't have made sense to me. But now, having Blue, it did. If we ever have kids...
I frowned and then grabbed my whiskey glass, taking a giant sip. Kids? I was thinking about having Kids with her?
The idea did not seem as bad as it once did. It did not seem bad...at all.
"We'll kill Alisa," Ashton said at last, his brothers nodded in agreement. "But we will do it our way. Alexi cannot find out we did it. War at this time is not...agreeable." He leaned back in his seat. "Let's just figure out a way we will do it. Even if we aid Dimitri later on, it will be kept a secret. I will not have anyone target my wife and children."
That made enough sense.
. . .
"They're hiding something," Giovanni said as soon as we got back in the car. "How much you wanna fucking bet they're hiding something."
They definitely were.
I drove us back to the apartment where Giovanni and Fabiano were staying and then went to the penthouse. The Creeds were excellent liars, yes, but we knew all their tricks - because they were our tricks, too. They were hiding something.
I walked into the penthouse and looked around. "Blue?"
I walked to her bedroom. She wasn't there. I checked my phone. There was a text from Marco.
She asked us to take her to a bookstore. She is safe. This is the address if you want to check.
Instantly, I was ready to go. But then I decided to wait instead. Maybe she would be calm when she came back and finally tell me what the fuck was wrong. So I grabbed a glass of whiskey, sat in the living room, and waited.
. . .
