Entice - Dyken Rachel Van - Страница 40

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Luca’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of truce?”

“The other four families stop going after the De Langes, and the De Langes promise not to go to the feds. In the meantime, I order the first real respectable hit of my career — and I go balls to the wall.” Mil’s face hardened. “Cementing the De Langes as a power force once more.”

Luca’s eyes lit up. Frank started clapping his hands. And I couldn’t have been more proud had the woman just declared world peace. I imagined it would only take five seconds for Chase to throw his wife against the wall and maul her… his gratitude and all that. By the looks of it, he was ready to do it now.

“Well…” I sighed. “I think we have a plan. Mil—” I tapped my fingers against the countertop and nodded. “Make the call.”

Luca stood. “No sleep tonight, ladies and gentleman. One person awake at all times. Keep your phones close.”

“So what happens next?” Trace asked. “She makes the call and then what?”

Frank winked. “We wait.”

Mil

“You don’t have to do this,” Chase whispered for the third time once we got back to our room.

I had my cell phone out and the number dialed. All I needed to do was press send. But my damn hands kept shaking.

“We’ll find another way.”

“There is no other way.” My body wouldn’t stop trembling. “This fixes everything? don’t you get it?” I stared at my phone. “The De Langes will trust me. Your family won’t take the blame. In the end it works.”

“Listen.” Chase grabbed the phone and threw it onto the bed, his hands cupping my face. “I. Can’t. Lose. You.”

“Chase.” My voice cracked. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His green eyes pooled with tears. He looked fierce, like he was ready to go into battle, sword raised. “Promise me something.”

“What?”

His mouth covered mine for a brief hot kiss.

“Promise me that when I tell you to get down, when I tell you to get out of the way, when I yell at you to move so I can take a bullet for you, promise me you’ll move.”

“Chase,” I forced a smile, “you’re not going to have to take a bullet for me.”

“Please,” he whispered, his lips touching mine again. “Please don’t choose that moment to be brave or stubborn. Please let me protect what’s mine. I didn’t protect you all those years ago when your dad beat you. I wasn’t there. I never got the chance to play the white knight.”

“So that’s what this is about? You want to be the white knight?”

Chase shook his head and swore. “Screw the white knight.” He gripped my chin in his hand. “I want to be your savior.”

“Oh.” I inhaled, choking on the air as his mouth collided with mine again. His tongue tasted like wine. It was a taste I was starting to crave. Everything about Chase’s kisses were possessive, warm, obsessive. My body crumbled beneath his touch. What had I done before Chase? I couldn’t remember, didn’t want to.

“Make the call, Mil.” Chase handed me the phone. “And when you’re done, I’m going to give you a new brand.”

“A new brand?” I asked, confused.

He touched the ridges of my scar. “I’m going to destroy that bastard, but before I destroy him, I’m going to love you.”

I didn’t trust myself to speak, so I nodded my head instead. Chase walked over to the bathroom, turned, and winked. “Good luck. I’ll just be taking another long shower while you have that conversation. I know you can do it, but you need to do it without me looking over your shoulder.”

“Okay.”

“Mil?”

My head snapped up. “Yes?”

“You’re a bad ass, just remember that. You’re a De Lange. You eat nails for breakfast, right?”

“Right.”

“Go get ‘em, tiger.”

He shut the door behind him, leaving me blanketed in silence. I looked at the green dial button and pressed it.

It was answered on the second ring.

“So, the boss finally calls? You going to tell us to stop dealing with the feds? Or were you going to offer up yourself and your new little family as a sacrifice?”

My uncle had always been a jackass, but at least he didn’t beat his children. I knew he was bitter because the De Langes, for the most part, had agreed to let me be the boss, though half of them hadn’t even been present for the meeting Luca had strung together. Most of them had been paid off because, yes, they were just that desperate for money.

“Joe,” I said dryly. “Always such a pleasure.”

He snorted. “Make it quick. I’m busy.”

I swallowed and looked at the bathroom door then closed my eyes. “I have a job for you.”

The phone went silent.

“Joe?”

He cleared his throat. “I’m listening.”

“I need someone taken care of.”

“Name.”

“Vito Campisi.”

“I’m sorry, could you repeat the name? It sounded a hell of a lot like you just asked me to kill the closest thing to a godfather the five families have seen in a hundred years.”

“I did,” I said firmly. “Twenty million for his body. I want him injured, but alive. He should be in Vegas. Oh, and Joe?”

“Twenty mil?” His ability to use the F-word in so many ways was quite impressive. “What’s the catch?”

“No catch.” I cleared my throat. “I need it to be clean. No tracing it back to us.”

“Where you getting the money?”

“Since when have you cared?”

“Since the feds have been breathing down our necks after Lonnie promised information on the rest of the families.”

“That’s just the thing, Joe. This is being funded by the Alferos.”

More cursing.

“The Nicolosis.”

He was going to go to hell for all that cursing.

“And the Abandonatos.”

“So let me get this straight.” His voice strained. “You mean to bring the head down on the five arms… to what gain?”

“To end what my father started,” I said in a low voice. “Campisi was the one, Joe.”

“The one?”

“He was the one who bid on me. He bid two million dollars for my virginity and for our family’s blood. My father was going to sell our family out to him. He’s been pulling the strings from the beginning, and I mean to end it right here, right now.”

“We’ll either die trying, or it will go down as the greatest kill in our family’s history,” Joe said, his voice softening.

“There are other assassins I can—”

“I’ll put out the contract.” He cleared his throat. “Does it need to be us or can it be—”

“Get the Russians. Get the Irish. Get the damn Mexican drug cartel. I want them all. Do you hear me, Joe? I want the man to be so damn terrified of his own shadow that he ends his own life. I want him to be so petrified of taking a piss in the dark that he carries his gun to the damn toilet. Are you understanding what I’m saying?”

“Yes,” Joe clipped. “Yes, boss. I do.”

“Get it done.”

“Consider it finished.”

The phone line went dead. I was grinning like an idiot because the pieces were finally falling into place, and it was my family helping me put them back together. If my brother were still alive, I think he’d be proud of me. I think he’d tell me I was insane, and he’d probably be doing a lot of yelling like Chase had. But he would have hugged me afterward and told me I was a bad ass, just like Chase had.

Phoenix’s memory would live on because I was going to finish what he’d started. I was going to redeem our family if it was the last thing I did, and I wasn’t going to be afraid anymore.

I rubbed my scar. The man didn’t own me. He may have branded me, but hell was coming for him in a blazing chariot of fire — and I was the effing driver.

Chase

The water dripped down my body, but I hardly felt it. In that moment, I wished for spider senses or super-hearing so I could see how Mil did. It wasn’t that I doubted her; I just knew that this was some scary shit. I also knew that if I had to do what she was about to, I’d have to take a couple of shots of whiskey and wave my gun around like I was some bad ass before I ordered a hit on one of the toughest sons-of-bitches I’d ever heard about.

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