Obsessed with His Bride

by Hamel, B. B.

“Aida,” I said and stepped toward her.

  She turned and tilted her head. “It’s fine, Dante. Go do what you have to do.”

  “If you’re scared—”

  “I am scared,” she said, anger flashing into her voice. “I’m petrified. And you’re still dragging me around like… like I’m some prop. Some fucking prop to prove that you’re a man and you’re not scared.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “It’s not like that.”

  “Isn’t it? You just want me to get used to your world. But living like I’m about to die all the time isn’t my kind of life, okay?”

  I stared, surprised, and took a step back. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You know what I’m talking about.” Her fingers pressed against the door’s frame, her knuckles turning white. “You shouldn’t have brought me out with you this morning. You shouldn’t have… oh, shit.” She blinked away some angry tears, wiping them off her face with a hard gesture.

  “I wasn’t trying to upset you,” I said.

  “And you still did it anyway. I’m not a prop, Dante. And if I don’t want to get used to all this killing.”

  I stared into her eyes for a long moment and my face hardened. I wanted to argue, wanted to explain. I was doing this for her as much as for me. I needed Vlas to know that she wasn’t a weakness, and that way she wouldn’t be in as much danger. She wouldn’t be a direct target. I needed her to know that she was my top priority, she was the thing I was fighting for.

  Even if she wasn’t in my life, Vlas would come for her. That was her father’s doing, not mine. I was only trying to keep her alive.

  But the words died on my lips. I couldn’t manage to find them.

  My phone began to ring, a shrill scream from my pocket. She shook her head, tears falling again. “You should get that.”

  “Aida—”

  She shut the door in my face. I stood there, seething with anger, then tore my phone from my pocket. “What the fuck do you want?” I growled.

  “It’s me,” Steven said.

  “And what the fuck do you want?”

  “We know where Vlas is.”

  I turned away from the door, frowning down at the steps. I was so angry with myself, but Steven’s words cut through the rage. “Where?”

  “He has a meeting with the Jalisco cartel. One of our informants in their ranks sent me a text. They’re meeting about a shipment this afternoon.”

  “Fuck,” I said. “Where?”

  “Deep south, down by the docks, this empty parking lot at the edge of the city. Quiet spot, not a lot around.” He hesitated for a second. “But it’s near the park.”

  I took a deep breath to calm myself. I closed my eyes and forced myself to focus on this moment, on this decision. “Gather everyone,” I said. “I want four cars, packed with guns. We’re hitting them hard.”

  “If we kill any Jalisco in the crossfire—” he started.

  But I interrupted him. “Fuck the Jalisco. Tell our informant our plans, tell them to drop as soon as they see us coming.”

  “They won’t like it, Dante. They want this deal.”

  “Tell them I’ll pay fifty percent more than Vlas for whatever the fuck they have.”

  He let out a breath. “Understood. Should we run this past Don Leone?”

  “No,” I said. “Not enough time. Get it set up.”

  “I will.” He hung up and I lingered on the porch.

  I could go inside. I could go in and talk to Aida, explain to her what I’m doing, why I’m doing it. Maybe she’d understand, maybe she’d even forgive me.

  But I can’t let this opportunity pass.

  Vlas didn’t know we had a man in the Jalisco cartel. Nobody did, I met him through a personal friend, and was paying him from my own personal pocket. Not even Don Leone knew about him.

  This was my shot. This was my opportunity to hit Vlas back hard for the shit he tried on me.

  I walked down the steps, toward my car, and refused to look back at the house.

  * * *

  The sunshine slanted at sharp angles through the trees and cast light and shadow across the dash of my car. I stared straight ahead at the rundown gravel road, tire tracks bitten deep into the earth, and took deep, calming breaths.

  Steven sat in the passenger side, a submachine gun in his lap. He checked the magazine and pulled back the slide before letting out a deep breath.

  “Good afternoon for it,” he said.

  I snorted. “Perfect day for killing.”

  Steven gave me one of his rare smiles. In the back, Biagio and Gino laughed, both of them nervously holding their weapons.

  The other car was parked just behind ours, engine rumbling. I checked the rearview and saw Cosimo and Ryan sitting up front. I knew Chad and John were in the back, and all four of them were armed to the fucking teeth. Half my best muscle was there and ready to get revenge for all the shit Vlas had put us through these last couple of weeks.

  Ahead, the road turned around a bend and disappeared beyond the forest. I knew it headed up a short hill and ended at the parking lot where Vlas and the Jalisco were having their meeting. I checked my watch and gripped the steering wheel, my stomach doing flips. Just another minute, and it was time. We’d been staked out for a couple of painful hours, in position before the Russians arrived to avoid getting caught, and now it was finally almost time.

  “This could be a trap.” Steven said it so calmly that I thought he wasn’t even talking to me.

  I grunted in return. “Could be.”

  “Might be a bad idea to go through with this.”

  “Might be. But we are.”

  He nodded. “I know. We have to. Chance to hit Vlas like this doesn’t come around twice.”

  “The motherfucker. What I don’t get is why he’d start some new deal with the Jalisco cartel when he’s in the middle of a war with me. Like this wouldn’t split his attention? Those cartel guys are no joke.”

  “I know,” Steven said. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but it’s something big. He wouldn’t bring the Jalisco into this if he had other options or just some small-scale shit. This is going to be big, Dante.”

  “It was,” I corrected. “Now it’s about to blow up in his fucking face.”

  Steven grunted and the guys in the back laughed nervously. I grinned at them and hoped I exuded calm and power. I wanted them to be ready for anything, and I didn’t want them to see their leader’s nerves.

  But I had nerves. I wasn’t immune to them, wasn’t immune to second-guessing myself. Steven was right that this could be a trap. It was almost too good to be true, and when it came to killing men in broad daylight, too good to be true could lead to a prison sentence or worse.

  No turning back now. The clock ticked over and I nodded to myself. I put the car into drive and began to creep forward, waiting for the second car to follow.

  Sure enough, they started rolling behind me.

  Steven let out a breath and stared straight ahead. I rolled the car down the gravel path and went around the bend. As soon as I saw the slope upward, the trees thinning out and disappearing at the top, I accelerated. The sunlight flipped along the dash, making wild patterns on the black plastic and leather, before the SUV came to the crest of the hill and leveled out.

  The parking lot spread out ahead of us, and I heard Steven grunt in surprise.

  I began to roll down the windows.

  About fifty yards away, two black trucks were parked side by side. Next to those was a brown van, the side door hanging open. Men stood facing each other in loose groups, and I tried to get a rough count of them before gunning the engine harder. I thought there were eight men on the left group, closer to the van, and ten men in the right group.

  Standing just in the center of the men, gesturing and saying something, was Vlas. He wore a black button-down, black dress pants, and black dress shoes. He had a gun tucked into his back waistband, and as soon as our cars came speeding toward them, the men bega
n to shout.

  The Jalisco wasted no time as the Russians milled around, confused, brandishing weapons. Vlas shouted, pulling his gun, trying to get his men under control as the Jalisco jumped into their van, not even bothering with the Russians at all. I roared over to the Russians, slammed on the brakes, and stopped parallel with them. I saw their eyes, wide and shocked, their guns not even raised as I shoved the barrel of my weapon out the lowered window and pointed it at them.

  I saw black shirts, jeans, blue eyes, pale skin, beards, hooked noses. I recognized a few of them. Vlas had brought all of his big enforcers with him, some of the biggest names in his crew. There was Mikhail, Sacha the Slasher, Crazy Vadim. There was Wassily, a great wrestler and boxer, leaning against the car and only just starting to pull a gun. They were sitting ducks, out in the open and I didn’t hesitate.

  I lit the motherfuckers up.

  My gun roared to life in my hands. Steven jumped out his side, leaned over the hood and began firing. The other car screamed to a stop behind ours and opened fire, spraying bullets into the bodies of the Russians caught out in the open.

  Smoke and blood filled the air. I could smell gunpowder, taste iron and copper on my tongue. I emptied my magazine, killed Wassily outright, killed Sacha, wounded Vadim. I saw men clawing along the ground, blood oozing from their broken bodies, screams of rage and pain. They managed to fire back once or twice, but there was no real resistance, no real fight. I reloaded my weapon as Steven jumped back inside. I grabbed the handle of the car, but he latched onto my shoulder.

  “Go,” he growled. “Go. Drive.”

  “Vlas,” I snapped. “We have to make sure.”

  “They’re not all down and the cops are going to come soon. We have to get the fuck out of here.”

  Before I could argue again, one of the black trucks roared to life. It pulled back, slammed into the other truck, and started driving away. The Jalisco van began to drive in the opposite direction, back down the gravel road we’d just come from, swerving along the road like it was avoiding more gunfire.

  “That’s him,” I growled, throwing the car into gear. “Hold on.”

  I slammed my foot on the gas and the car leaped forward. I drove fast, trying to catch up to the truck as it careened around a corner, tires screaming. It got onto the main arterial road that cut directly down the center of the Philadelphia and picked up pace, blowing through red lights.

  I kept up. Steven shouted something but I couldn’t hear him. Vlas was in that truck, I just fucking knew it. If anyone there could have escaped that hell, it was Vlas, there was no doubt in my mind. We’d killed all his other men, assassinated some of his top men, some of the most important men in the Russian mafia. It was a good hit, a very good hit, but without Vlas, it was meaningless.

  The truck hit another turn up ahead, screaming into a neighborhood. I kept pace, turning the wheel violently. I lost control for a second and the side of the car slammed into a parked dark blue sedan. I hit the gas anyway, jolting forward, scraping down the side of another black Prius then speeding after the truck. Ahead, it hit a hard turn, tires throwing dirt and smoke up into the air.

  “Stop,” Steven snapped at me, grabbing at the wheel. “Stop, Dante.”

  “Fuck off,” I growled , shoving him. I elbowed him in the face and he grunted in pain, grabbing his eye, as I hit the turn. I flung the wheel around too slowly though, distracted by Steven’s outburst, and the car slammed into the rear of a parked Honda Civic with a deafening crack.

  My face slammed forward as the airbag rushed out to meet my face. I saw stars and black around the edge of my vision and my ears were ringing from the crash and from the gunfire. I coughed, looked around. Gino was on the floor, groaning, and Biagio seemed fine. He’d put his seatbelt on at some point, probably after the shooting. Steven glared at me and yelled something.

  “What?” I said.

  “Get the fuck out,” he shouted in my face, shoving me.

  I managed to stumble out the side as the second SUV pulled up. Chad jumped out the back, eyes wild. “What the fuck happened?” he yelled.

  “Shut up,” Steven said, coming around the wrecked car. He grabbed me and shoved me into the back of the second car. “Get him out of here.”

  “What about you?” Cosimo asked.

  “We’ll get away on foot. Get the fuck out of here.”

  I gathered myself, blinking away the disorientation. I was dizzy but I pushed through the pain. “Steven,” I barked. “Get in. Cosimo, grab him and get him in here.”

  Cosimo jumped at my order. Steven got in despite his anger, leaving Gino and Biagio alone. They both nodded at me then took off running in opposite directions. Cosimo slammed the door shut then got back behind the wheel and started to drive. He went fast for a few blocks then slowed down.

  Nobody spoke. I was crammed in the back with Steven, Chad, and John, and my ears were still ringing like bells. I leaned my head back and took a deep breath, filling up my lungs.

  “Think we sent a message?” I asked the car.

  John laughed. Cosimo laughed with him, then the whole car was laughing, a relieved kind of laughter that bubbled up from the gut. I grinned at Steven who just glared at me, not smiling, not laughing, not saying a word.

  Cosimo drove to the bakery and parked out front. He got out along with everyone but Steven. I sat in the back with my second-in-command as the boys lingered on the sidewalk, not sure what to do.

  Steven gave me a long look. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he growled.

  “Don’t know what you mean.”

  “That car chase. Are you fucking insane? You don’t get into car chase after shooting up a rival gang. That’s how you get fucking caught. Do you know how many cameras we passed back there?”

  I grunted. “Couldn’t let him go.”

  “You should’ve,” he snapped. “If you were smart, you would have.”

  “Go fuck yourself, Steven.”

  “No,” Steven growled, leaning toward me. He grabbed me by the shirt and pushed me back against the door, his eyes wild and angry. “No, Dante. Listen to me. You can’t fuck this up for everyone just because you’re pissed off at Vlas.”

  “Get off me,” I said, my voice even.

  He stared at me for a long moment then let me go. I could see the guys on the sidewalk looking confused and concerned. John said something to Cosimo, who just shook his head and looked away.

  I leaned toward Steven. “You do something like that in front of the others again, and I’ll have you beaten,” he said. “You do it more than once, I’ll have you shot. Do you understand me?”

  Steven glared but nodded. “I went too far.”

  “You did.” I took a deep breath. “I understand why. That was stressful. I know I shouldn’t have chased Vlas, but you also have to realize that if we didn’t hit Vlas in that, it was for nothing.”

  “We killed at least six of their top lieutenants,” he said, shaking his head. “We just did more damage to them than they’ve done to us in years. In one hit, we just gutted half their top level organization. Do you have any idea what that’s going to do to them?”

  “Nothing, not if Vlas survived.”

  He let out a breath. “Go home,” he said. “Get yourself cleaned up.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Make sure the guys are okay and do some damage control.”

  I shook my head slowly. “You’ll do nothing without my permission,” I said.

  He glared at me then pointed at my side. “Go home, Dante.”

  I followed his gaze and saw that my shirt was red with blood. “Shit.” I unbuttoned the front and opened it enough to check the stitches. Not ripped, but it was oozing again.

  “Go rest,” Steven said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  I grunted and let a smile drift across my face. “It was a good hit, though.”

  “It was.” Steven opened the door.

  “Make sure Gino and Biagio get back,” I
said as I got out of the car. “You four go back to my place around the corner and clean up there. We’ll lay low for a couple of days.”

  “Fine,” Steven agreed.

  “You know where I’ll be.” I got behind the wheel and put it into drive, pulling forward and away from the bakery.

  I gripped the wheel hard as I drove.

  Not from the pain or the ringing in my eras. Not from the fear or the adrenaline that was still rolling through my body.

  But because I knew I fucked up.

  I knew Vlas was in that truck.

  He’s the only one smart enough to run in that situation. Any of those other fucking idiots would’ve tried to fight, tried to kill. Vlas was the only one with a real sense of self-preservation.

  He was still alive. I knew it, deep in my gut, he was still alive.

  And he was going to want revenge for this.

  If there wasn’t all-out war before, I knew there would be.

  22

  Aida

  I was pacing the living room when Dante came back in through the front door. I walked to the hallway and stared at him as he leaned against the doorframe, a smile on his lips.

  A line of blood trickled from a cut on his forehead and his shirt was stained red.

  “Oh, god,” I whispered.

  I knew something was happening when Gino was called away. I knew he wouldn’t leave me alone unless something serious was going down. But seeing Dante standing there bleeding, a smile on his lips, made me want to rush to his side and help him.

  But I held back. I don’t know why, but I didn’t let myself get sucked toward him, even though everything about him made me want to kiss his lips.

  “I’m fine,” he grunted. “Just a car accident.”

  “Just a—” I stopped myself. “What the hell happened, Dante?”

  “Help me upstairs.”

  I hesitated as he stepped into the house and closed the door. He locked the door and looked at me.

  I took a sharp breath and took a step closer. “Will you tell me what happened?”

  “If you help me upstairs.”

  I nodded and went to him. I let out a sigh of relief as I gave in to my desires and let him put some weight onto my shoulders. I helped him limp up the steps, both flights, and back to his room. I got him sitting down on the edge of the tub as I started to draw a bath, but he waved me off.