The click of Alessio's cigar cutters broke the pertinent silence of the penthouse. He was never this quiet, not unless he was thinking, not that he didn't do a lot of it, but it was almost eerie as he blew out the smoke and stared off the balcony over Monaco. Five guns and three knives resting nearby on a coffee table, and a mug of coffee steaming in the center of it all.
"Who do you think is behind this really Aria?" Alessio asks as he tapped the ash off the end of the cigar into a bronze grecian bowl and leaned in the doorway.
"Are you asking me as a Capo or a husband?" I reply pulling the jacket I wore tighter around me to hide from the cold air.
"A husband, needing advice from his wife," he says turning to face me and pull the doors behind him shut at the same time.
"I honestly don't know. I want to say Massimo Riggerio, but I think he's a pawn in someone else's game. You've bested him and the only thing stopping you from storming Crete is that you haven't considered the direct attack method," I say lifting a glass of pilot gris to my lips.
"The Capo of Monaco was also too easy, his loyalty was too easy to catch, and my only guess is he was the distraction, the tattoo also wasn't hidden, and I think we're being played for fools," Alessio adds taking another pull off of his cigar.
"It would have to be someone unsuspecting, like a low level trusted soldier, but all your soldiers are loyal, and you've replaced almost all the old guard, and even they're loyal to you. A wife perhaps, or girlfriend, a mother even. I'd recommend a woman if I wanted to look at people who are likely candidates for plotting a roundabout revenge plot," I say watching Alessio settle into the chair across from me and place a finger to his temple.
"That doesn't narrow it down much, and I need to have a new Capo by morning, perhaps that will help to put an end to whatever this is," he says looking to me while I also thought.
"Have the new Capo kill Adamo, and say nothing about it. Fear makes people do stupid things, we've both seen that," I say and Alessio eyes me likely replaying the many instances he's seen it, while I had my own recollections of the Bratva, and those who had used Alessio's engagement to me to try and offset him.
"It would send a clear message," Alessio says a blank but calculated look on his face, though a twinkle remained in his eyes as he considered me and without much hesitation lifted his phone and then brought it to his ear.
"Good evening... I require you at my penthouse, I'll send Lino to get you... please bring a gun... see you shortly Toto," and with that Alessio hung up and placed his phone back down onto the table next to him the pale light of the room highlighting exactly who I was looking at. He was all the things I'd heard about him in this moment and I couldn't deny it to myself any longer.
"Alessio," I breath imagining what would follow, what was surely to follow as my husband unwound the cotton covering our eyes, and revealed the truth to the primal reality that would surely mean death.
"Arianna," he says setting the cigar down and looking at me the shadows on his side of the ornate lounge we sat in darkening part of his face and making his tousled hair appear like vines of thorns.
"What if the real traitor is someone we know, what happens if it's family?" I ask a lot softer then I wanted. I didn't want to imagine it. What would be the result if it was one of my family members. Alessio's family wouldn't betray him, they all were to bound by their oath to one another, a promise inked into their skin as if it were the blood that bound them. Mine was uncertain, my father was a strong enough Don, but he would always bow to Alessio, Emmanuel was a wildcard and even with the mutual agreement of contentment it was rocky. Domenico was like Alessio in that he was a coldly efficient leader, and had no issue with resorting to death but he wasn't a killer not like the man I was bound too. My aunts and uncles were all vicious which was why they fell victim to the Tommaso's mistake in being greedy about power and ambition. I worried deep down my mother was the person behind all this especially given the history I knew about her.
YOU ARE READING
Bloody City: Deviants
Romance{Book #2 of The Bloody City Series} The Salvatorini Familia was feared for decades. Italy and the rest of the world had learned to cower before them. Especially Alessio Salvatorini, who had earned the respect of everyone who had watched his bloody r...
