I didn’t want to put him in that position, but I also didn’t want Alexei to be stolen from me. I couldn’t ask him to betray his people, and I wouldn’t.
If it ever came to that, I’d run away. That was my last option. I still had some money, though not much. I could get to California, change my name, get a job, start a new life.
Maybe I should do that anyway.
What had once felt like a refuge from the terrors of my family was quickly starting to feel like another oppressive force. I was less and less welcome in the Barone family mansion with every passing day, and I knew it.
I needed to start making a plan, or else risk getting left behind.
30
Vince
I was half awake when Kaley showed up at my door talking about Jacque the crazy horse guy.
I hadn’t noticed before, but she was right. The atmosphere in the house for her was definitely getting more and more dangerous. I’d warned her that it would, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.
I got changed and checked my phone. I had a message from Lucas, which I quickly pulled up and listened to.
“Vince, Russians hit back already this morning. Lost a few guys down at the docks. Come to Arturo’s study when you get this.”
I cursed and checked the time. That message had come in an hour ago. I quickly left my room and headed toward Arturo’s study.
This probably explained why Kaley had felt a shift in the house. If the Russians had started killing back already, people were going to start blaming her for their deaths. If I had known about it, I would have warned her.
As it stood, I was more or less the only person who gave a shit about her. The other captains would use Kaley in their war faster than I could spit. Lucas and Natalie might be on my side, but only so far.
No, Kaley was my responsibility. I’d let her into the house knowing that it might be a bad idea, and so I had to protect her.
But I was torn between her and the mob. I couldn’t just lie to her and tell her that I’d do anything to keep her safe, because there were lines I wouldn’t cross.
I’d grown up in the mob. I didn’t have a family and had no clue how to handle that sort of responsibility. I didn’t know what it meant to be a father, let alone to have one. As far as I was concerned, the mob was my father and my mother.
I cursed again as I walked down the hallway and stopped outside Arturo’s office. I took a deep breath before knocking.
“Come,” he called out. I pushed open the door.
It was filled with cigar smoke inside. Arturo was puffing away, along with Alfonse and Gian. Lucas was sitting in a chair, his shirt half open, drinking what looked like whisky.
“Vince,” Arturo said. “Nice of you to join us.”
“I was sleeping,” I said.
“Russians hits us,” Lucas said.
“What happened?”
Lucas filled me in. Only a few hours after we hit them, a squad of Russians rolled into one of our pizza shops and shot up the place. They only killed the wise guys who worked in the back counting money. Two were dead and two more were wounded.
“Bastards,” Arturo said. “In fucking broad daylight, the fucking scum.”
“What’s the plan?” I asked him.
“We hit back.”
“We escalate,” Gian added. “We fucking kill them.”
“With those guns you got, we’ll win this, and fast,” Alfonse said.
“Have they said anything about it?” I asked Arturo.
“We got one message about the girl, but fuck them,” he said. “Fuck them up their disgusting Russian assholes.”
“Maybe we should revisit the girl now that he’s here,” Alfonse said.
“What about Kaley?” I asked.
“They’re thinking about giving her back,” Lucas said. “Without the kid though.”
I blinked. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Arturo shrugged. “Wars are expensive.”
“What happened to killing more Russians?”
He laughed. “We’ll give her back after we do that.”
“No,” I said.
Arturo raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“We have to keep the girl. That boy is my son.”
“We’ll keep the boy safe. Russians don’t want him anyway.”
“And the girl is his mother,” I said. “We keep her, too.”
“It’s a good move,” Gian said. “We’d save money.”
“Arturo,” I said, “listen to me. If we bend to the Russians now, what will people say?”
“True,” he said, nodding. “It wouldn’t look good.”
“No. It’d look awful. We get hit, what, twice? And we’re already giving the girl back?”