Wrong (A Bad Boy Romance)(65)

“Sarah… Set all the alarms, okay? Just in case.”

“Sure, Nick.”

Reluctantly I hang up the phone. Maybe I should have told her more. Maybe she’d be safer if she knew what was going on. But right now I think it’s best to keep everything limited to this room, at least as much as possible. She’ll find out soon enough.

#

I make my phone calls, and within a half hour, almost everyone in the organization has made it in. Except, of course, for Sal, and about half of Sal’s men. The others are here, apparently ready to accept whatever orders come out of this meeting. As long as they’re here, and as long as they’re willing to accept the new leadership, I won’t have a problem with them. It’s the others—the ones who haven’t shown up—who I expect to have to do something about.

Especially Sal. I know what it’s going to come down to with him, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it.

I’m going through Spada’s desk drawers, thinking about how to start taking over the organization, when there’s a knock at my door. I look up. One of Sal’s men is standing there, face white. He looks like he wants to turn tail and run as fast as he can away from me. I don’t blame him.

“Sir?” he says. “May I have a minute?”

“Of course.”

I try not to seem edgy as I watch him cross the room, but I’m not sure what to expect. He hesitantly takes a seat in the chair in front of the desk. I dig for a second for his name. It’s Victor.

“Look,” he starts, “I’ve got nothing but respect for you and this organization. That’s why I’m here. Because Sal’s lost his mind, and you need to know about it.”

“What’s going on?” This is exactly what I need to know. The more I can find out about where Sal’s head is and what he’s likely to do, the better off I’ll be. The safer Sarah will be.

But Victor seems hesitant. “Look, I had nothing to do with any of this. You got to believe me on that.”

“I get that, Vic. Now tell me what Sal’s up to. I need to know.”

“He’s got hits out on you, man. You and your wife.”

“How many?” The hair on the back of my neck is creeping up.

“Maybe three? Four? He wants you dead.”

My teeth clench. I’m not surprised at this news, but it makes me angry. And angry isn’t going to help anything right now. I need to stay calm. “What else?”

“He told us all he was head of the family now. You don’t have any claim. You—I don’t know—manipulated Spada or something, and that’s why you won the vote. Anybody who doesn’t fall in line, he’s going to rub out. He doesn’t care who it is.”

“So you decided to rat him out?” I’m glad he did, but I need to know why.

Vic looks at me with pleading in his eyes. “He’s crazy. I swear he’s lost his mind. I don’t think he cares who he needs to kill—he could wipe out the whole family and not blink.”

“He kills everybody, he’s not going to have any family left to lead.” I can’t get my head around Sal’s mindset right now. As far as I can tell, he’s hit some kind of psychotic break. Which makes him more dangerous than ever. Because the worst thing about crazy is that you can’t predict what it’ll do next.

“Where is he right now?”

“I don’t know. He dragged us all into a meeting really early this morning and he was ranting and raving… He told us he was going to take care of you and then he was going to put us in power. All of us. He told us to wait, and we’d know when he made his move. Then when I got back home I heard about Spada.”

“It was him? He did Spada?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.” He’s scrubbing his hands together, getting more and more agitated. “I don’t know where he went. But he’s after you, man. You and your wife. I’ve never seen him like this. Never.”

His agitation is starting to rub off on me. I’m suddenly worried about Sarah. But she’s safe. She’s at home behind my state-of-the-art alarm system. Nobody can get to her.

All my men are here, though. I don’t have anybody I can send to watch over her. And I can’t go—there’s still too much for me to take care of here.

She’ll be fine. You know she’ll be fine. You told her to stay put. And she will stay put, because she’s got the baby to think of.

Still, I can’t help thinking that I’m going to get her to an actual safe house as soon as I can. Because as long as De Luca is out there, Sarah’s in danger, and that’s not acceptable.