Mafia Heir

Chapter 42

Luca

"Thank you, Pablo." I said, shaking his hand. "It was a pleasure doing business with you."

A few feet away from us, the lifeless body of one of Silvano's soldiers laid in a pool of blood. After putting a bounty out on his head, Pablo hand-delivered him to me this morning after our meeting with Angelo. Pablo wasn't just a capo in the Salinas cartel, but he was a highly skilled hitman. One with wild and sophisticated ideas of torture, and when he offered to help me with the man who put the bomb on Charlotte's car, I happily accepted.

Violence was a part of this job, and when the person on the receiving end deserved it, it thrilled me. But when I had my hands on the bastard who endangered Charlotte and Marco that way, it was next level. I fucking loved it.

"The pleasure was all mine." He gave me an evil grin. "And our next shipment of guns will be..."

"It's all taken care of, Pablo. No charge."

He nodded. "What do you say we head back to the hotel and celebrate?"

Pablo and I made our way to resort. This evening, Charlotte and I would be having dinner with Pablo and his wife, and few other of my top clients. These things were usually just bunch of bullshit, but I found myself actually looking forward to it tonight. I couldn't wait to show Charlotte off, and I couldn't get to her fast enough.

I hated leaving her in New York, and begged her to come with me a few days ago, but in the end, she declined and stayed back as we originally planned. A part of me admired her even more for not wanting to let something like this control her life, but I knew how dangerous that could be. If she underestimated the amount of danger she could be in and went along business-as-usual, that would give Silvano the perfect opportunity to get to her.

Security was increased at the hotel and the club tenfold. I wasn't going to take any chances this weekend, although certainly Silvano wouldn't be ignorant enough to try something with all the attention. Almost all of my men would be at this event, including our closest allies and partners, and Silvano had to expect we would have Charlotte under lock and key after what he tried a few days ago.

I was hoping a few days away like this would help her settle and be just what we needed.

When we got back, Pablo went to his room, and I went to the boutique expecting to find Charlotte and Reggie. When they weren't there, I went up to the room, but found it empty as well. I was starting to feel a little panicked when my phone pinged with a text from Reggie.

Charlotte and I are at the deck bar. With Mrs. Salinas.

Damn it. How the fuck did that happen? The Salinas family wasn't one that you fraternized with without some sort of string attached to it, and Charlotte was galivanting around the resort with Esme. That, in and of itself, was dangerous. Esme was conniving, and I knew that well. On multiple occasions, she'd come on to me, despite being married to Pablo. She always had an ulterior motive.

I slammed my hand on the wall of the elevator as I headed back downstairs. Why was it so hard for her to follow my orders when it came to this kind of thing? She was nearly blown to bits two weeks ago. It was one thing to move forward, but it was another to be so careless.

When I got to the back deck, I could see Charlotte sitting with Esme at one of the fire pits. Long dark hair cascading down her back, and a glass of champagne pressed softly to her rosy lips. Esme threw her head back cackling, and poured both of them more champagne.

Jesus. I ran my fingers through my hair in frustration, looking for Reggie. He was standing at attention near the outside door, his head on a swivel watching for anything suspicious. At least he was doing making himself useful.