by Meghan March
No. I’m not dying today. I’m not going to be another casualty of this bitter feud, which now is finally making sense.
I know Dom killed Gianni Rossetti because Rossetti came to him and accused him of torturing and murdering his wife and tried to kill him for it, even though he’d entered the meeting under the premise of coming in peace. Dom shot Rossetti in self-defense because the man was out of his mind with grief, something that Dom’s security should have picked up on before letting the man in the room. Gianni Rossetti had to have already packed off Memphis to Lockwood at that point, because that’s the only way he would have taken the risk and truly have nothing to lose. To Dom, I have to imagine it felt a whole lot more like Rossetti committing suicide by rival rather than a murder.
I wasn’t there—hell, I was just a kid—but the story spread far and wide, making it clear that the Rossettis and the Cassos couldn’t stand one another. And that existed as truth until recently when we started trying to make inroads for peace for the betterment of both families’ businesses.
Until GTR Rossetti fucked it all up.
Now we’re back to being mortal enemies, and I have to figure out how to survive this day. Because I’m not leaving Memphis. Not when she needs me more than ever, especially because I know that she’s Alessandra. You can’t look at that picture of Regina Rossetti and not see the resemblance that could only mean Memphis is her daughter.
I don’t need a DNA test to believe it. My gut has already spoken.
While my brain is rolling through all of this, I tell Cav what we know. He didn’t start working for Dom until I was already gone on my mission to become Creighton’s best friend in school. We may not have known each other in this capacity, but Cav did his time working for our father, just like I did. We all put in our time for Dom. And that’s about to come to an end.
I hadn’t decided to take over the family until this moment, but it’s the only choice I can make. I’m done with the bloodbaths and killing.
It ends today.
“What about me?” Memphis says as Cav and Benny discuss options, and I listen.
My passiveness evaporates as soon as her question hangs between us. “What do you mean, what about you?”
“What if you tell them who you think I might be and trade me for Cynthia? It might work. You can’t say it wouldn’t.”
Even as the words leave her mouth, I can see the fear in her gorgeous eyes. She may have war-time experience and been embedded with the troops to bring hard-hitting truths to the masses, but this is different, and she knows it.
“Fuck no. That’s not happening. No fucking way are you going anywhere near them. They will never know who you are.” My tone is final.
“Actually, that ain’t a bad idea,” Benny says, and I’ve never felt the urge to punch him in the face like I do right now.
“No. Fucking. Way.” I glare at him, telling him to shut the fuck up with my expression.
“That’s what your old man would do,” he adds.
“I don’t give a fuck. I’m not Dom, and I never will be.”
“That’s the damn truth.”
The gravelly voice comes from behind me, and I’m not even sure why I’m surprised that Dom is here. Of course he is.
I pivot and face my father, who, despite having the same voice, looks as though he’s aged a few years since I last saw him at the hospital. His ability to show up when I least want him to hasn’t changed at all, though.
“You checked out of the hospital against medical advice?”
He nods, his eyes narrowed. “They gave me that whole spiel while I was walking out the door. Like I need a doctor to tell me when I’m ready to go. They don’t know jack shit, and I don’t take orders from anyone.” He scans the room, his gaze landing on Memphis. “I knew you’d look better as a brunette.”
Memphis seems to be holding her breath, and I put an arm around her. I honestly don’t know how much Dom knows or overheard, but I’m not telling him shit about the fact that Memphis is likely Alessandra Rossetti. It doesn’t matter to me, and therefore it doesn’t affect him. I also don’t give a shit that he’d say the opposite, given the opportunity.
“How she looks as a brunette isn’t any of your damn business, and it sure as fuck doesn’t impact the situation we have at hand. The Rossettis have her mother, and they want to trade her for me.”
Dom’s expression doesn’t change, and it reminds me of all those times in my childhood when I thought he was a Spartan. So fucking stoic, even when all you wanted to see was a tiny bit of humanity. Since then, I’ve seen it on his face, like when he sees his granddaughter and he suddenly morphs into a human who lives and breathes and can be hurt.
But not right now.
Right now, he’s rock solid.
Dom pins me with a look that would incinerate a lesser man. “The only way they’re getting you is over my dead body.”
To say that his harsh words surprise me would be a vast understatement. I’ve never mattered much to my father, and I don’t know why he would start caring now. It would take more than a brush with death to change him, because he’s had plenty of those over the years.
“Good, because that’s what I said,” Memphis says, and Dom’s gaze dips to her face.
“You have a better idea, girl?” he asks.
“Not yet, but I’m sure we can come up with one. Why does anyone have to be traded? Why can’t the cops take them out and rescue her?”
Dom’s attention moves to me. “You got a cop who’ll get involved?”
His question shocks me, because as far as I’ve always known, Dom has avoided cops like the plague. He only kept a few on his payroll as a dire necessity.
“I might.”
“They got anyone undercover? Inside the Rossettis?”
His question is eerie, and I remember the meeting I had in the club in my office. Dom has it bugged, and he wants to see if I’ll lie to him. I don’t know it for certain, but there’s a damn good possibility that he had Primo check the tapes.
“Yes. They’ve got a man inside.”
Dom replies with a sharp nod. “Good, then we let them do the dirty work. I’m not losing you now that Enzo’s dead. You’re my heir, Cannon. You aren’t dying today.”
The matter-of-fact reporting of Enzo’s death hits us all hard.
“What the hell happened?” I ask as Memphis stiffens beside me.
“Tore some shit open when he tried to leave. Dumbass didn’t know how to listen to his body. They got him back on the table, but he didn’t make it out of surgery. Why the hell do you think I didn’t want to be in the hospital any longer? I wasn’t going to give them another chance to try to cut me open.”
“What about Creighton?” Cav asks.
“He’s being sprung as we speak. He and Holly aren’t part of this.”
“Good. They don’t need to be.”
Dom glances at Cav. “You and your woman need to go to Creighton’s penthouse. Take Eden and Bishop. I don’t want you in the line of fire if shit goes sideways.” He looks to me. “Your woman comes with us.”
“No. Fuck no.” I bite out the reply.
Dom smiles, but it’s predatory. “Don’t think I don’t know everything that happens in this building. I know exactly who she is. Suspected for a while.”
His gaze shifts to her. “You can cover your face with makeup and change your eyes and wear wigs, but bones don’t lie. You’re still the image of your mother, God rest her soul. And I owe you an apology for what happened with your father. Gianni was a good man, a man who was betrayed by his own brother. It’s time to take out that piece of shit Giancarlo and his son GTR, because I’m done with this feud. I’m gonna watch my grandkids grow up, and the Rossettis ain’t taking that shit from me. I don’t care if they’re carted off in body bags today or locked up to rot in prison. The bad blood ends now.”
From beside me, Memphis trembles as she stares at Dom. “Did you kill my father?”
Dom narrows his gaze. �
��I just told you I did, girl.”
“No, not Gianni Rossetti. Leander Lockwood. The news anchor.”
Finally, there’s a look of shock emblazoned on Dom’s face, but still, I step in front of Memphis. My instinct is to protect her at all costs. I felt it that day at the construction site, and I feel it now a thousand times more acutely.
But instead of replying with a gun in her face like I expect, Dom laughs. “Fuck no. Not a chance. He was investigating me, though. He tried to be careful, but he wasn’t careful enough. A week before he died, he was watching me through the window of Andre’s, so I had my guys invite him inside.”
41
Memphis
“What?” I whisper the question as my entire body freezes.
“Yeah, I met the man,” Dom says. “He was all right. We talked for a while, and I told him what happened with Gianni. Told him the truth about what I’ve pieced together over the last twenty-some years—that Giancarlo had to have killed Regina so that Gianni would come after me, thinking I offed his wife. It was a hell of a plan to take control of the family, and Giancarlo pulled it off. I also told Lockwood I didn’t know what the hell happened to that little girl Gianni hid before coming to me, but I wondered if he did.”
Shock keeps me standing upright, even though my knees are weak once more. “What did he say?”
“He said I didn’t need to worry about that little girl, because she turned out just fine. Better than fine. She was a hell of a woman, and her father would be proud as hell, just like he was.”
Tears spill down my cheeks as I blink over and over, staring at the face of a man who saw my father before he died. Saw him and spoke to him like an equal. A man who definitely didn’t kill him, given the respect in Dom’s tone and expression.
My voice trembles, and a sob beats my words out. “You liked him?”
“I did. And when I found out he killed himself, I wondered what the fuck happened, because he didn’t strike me as suicidal.”
I shake my head, a new wave of tears breaking free. “He wasn’t. He wouldn’t.”
Dom nods. “I agree with you. Just like I knew that his daughter, the reporter Memphis Lockwood, who I looked up after the meeting, would come looking to find out what happened to him. I knew who you were the moment I saw you on that sidewalk. You’re a chameleon, but you can’t hide the bones your mother gave you, Alessandra.”
Alessandra. Hearing that name on his lips knocks the wind out of me, because I can’t argue the fact anymore.
“I knew too. The moment I saw her. Almost took my breath away,” Benny says, turning to Dom. “Today, we end this. That bastard killed Regina. You wouldn’t let me touch him for all those years, and I’m done waiting. His death belongs to me.”
42
Cannon
Memphis, who I still can’t think of as Alessandra yet, sits beside me in the back of the Escalade in her Drew Carson wig and contacts. She’s here against my wishes. I wanted her at Creighton’s, safe and sound, but she refused to let us handle this without her.
“I’ll just follow you anyway, so don’t try to shut me out.”
Knowing how damn stubborn she is, I believed every word she said. But still, I didn’t let her come along without rules.
She does what I say, when I say it, and without question. And if anything happens to her, she vowed to come back and haunt me for the rest of my life.
The swap is set to take place in twenty-five minutes, and it’ll take us fifteen to get there with traffic.
Cole is on board, along with the team of Feds who have been watching the Rossettis and waiting for the perfect opportunity to take them out. With an active kidnapping of the former wife of a high-profile news anchor, the perfect opportunity is now.
Every single person in the car is wearing body armor under his or her clothes. We all agreed that we have a hell of a lot to live for.
Benny’s ready. His old gun, the one he used for countless hits but left with Dom when he retired, is loaded and at his side. He made the case for being the one to pull the trigger, because he’ll be dead before they could put him on trial for murder. Also, given his condition, there’s no way in hell they’ll lock him up.
Cole asked for my promise that we weren’t coming in armed, and I laughed at him.
“Who the fuck do you think we are?” is the question I asked.
He finally gave up and said that we weren’t allowed to shoot anyone who wasn’t a Rossetti—in the unfortunate event that things go south—because if we accidentally kill his undercover officer, we’ll all be going to prison.
We agreed to the stipulation because we’ve got fucking better things to do.
When we reach the old warehouse, one that’s under construction to become trendy lofts but currently has plastic for windows, I scan for any sign of the cops or Feds. Even though they think they’re tricky, they generally suck at staying out of sight. Today, however, I’m surprised to find no signs of them.
Which means they might not be here.
Cole had one more round of approvals he had to get before he could commit his team to the plan, and there’s a damned good chance he didn’t get the go-ahead. The department has never played well with Dom, and I didn’t expect them to this time.
Either way, this ends today. We don’t need the cops or the Feds to do what we came here to do.
We circle the warehouse. After cutting through the construction gate, we drive into the wide opening that will eventually be garage parking for residents’ use only at exorbitant rates. But right now, only two black SUVs are inside the warehouse’s basement, facing the entrance, their high beams lighting the darkness.
Memphis stiffens beside me, and I reach down to squeeze her hand. “Stay right here and don’t move. Got it?”
I reiterate the point I made earlier, because the front seats of every one of Dom’s vehicles have been retrofitted to include armor sufficient to stop even a fifty-caliber bullet. The doors are all armored, and the windows are bullet resistant. Basically, Memphis is sitting in a tank that nothing short of a bomb blast could take out.
Right now, Dom rides behind Primo, I’m in the middle, and Benny’s up front ahead of Memphis.
As soon as we come to a stop, the doors of the other SUVs open. Giancarlo Rossetti and two of his goons—one of whom must be the undercover—step out of the back doors of one. Out of the other SUV come GTR, Cynthia, a junior Rossetti cousin, and someone who makes Memphis suck in a harsh breath.
“What the hell is Randi doing here?”
I follow her pointing finger to the black-and-silver-haired woman standing behind GTR.
“I have no fucking idea, but that doesn’t make any sense,” I reply, but Dom doesn’t have any such confusion.
“She must be expendable, and they’re using us to take her out because they’re done with her. They think they’re smart, but they’re fucking stupid. Come on, it’s time to do this.”
Our doors open and the four of us climb out, but not before I crush my lips against Memphis’s.
“I love you. No matter what happens next, I will love you forever.”
“Danger, don’t you dare fucking get shot. Promise me.”
I can’t give her that promise, so I kiss her again and follow my father.
My palms itch for the two pistols tucked into the compression shirt covering my body armor, and I wonder if I’ve been lying to myself about this all along. Maybe I am a gangster and I didn’t know it.
Then again, the only person I want to take out is Giancarlo, for killing Memphis’s biological mother. And if my suspicions are right . . . in a roundabout way, he might have killed both of her fathers too.
It’s the only explanation that makes sense about what happened to Leander Lockwood.
Dom told him what he suspected about Giancarlo killing Regina, and if Leander was anything like his daughter, he would have shifted his focus to the Rossettis. Which means there’s a hell of a good chance that it got him killed. It wouldn’t be
the first time the Rossettis have staged a murder as a suicide, and for that, I want vengeance.
They’ve taken too much from the woman I love, and it ends today, in this warehouse basement with water dripping from the pipes and the scent of destruction in the air.
“Surprised to see you still standing, Dom. You really are Teflon, even when it comes to bullets.” Giancarlo taunts Dom for what is certainly going to be the last time.
Beside me, Benny stands casually, but only a fool would dismiss the old man as not being lethal. I have no idea how many people he has killed, and I don’t want to. Suffice it to say he’s paying his penance because he doesn’t have long on this earth.
“Give us the woman. We’re not here to fuck around,” Dom orders.
Giancarlo laughs. “Didn’t think you’d be so quick to turn over your kid in exchange for this annoying bitch, but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. It ain’t like you don’t have more of your bastards hanging around to fill his shoes once he’s dead.”
It might upset others to hear someone speak of their death so casually, but Giancarlo’s attempt to rile me doesn’t work. I learned my ice-cold expression from the best—Dom and Creighton.
“You should’ve picked better. This one’s always been disposable.” Dom jerks his head at me.
I don’t even feel the slash of his words, because I know what he says isn’t true.
Giancarlo’s laugh shifts in my direction. “How could you be loyal to this prick, kid? And trade yourself for this cunt? I wouldn’t. Guess you really don’t have balls, Cannon. Come over here so we can show you how we handle someone who doesn’t have any balls.”
In the past, I would have cared what they said. But now I know it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with me, and everything to do with Giancarlo. He’s been trying for the last twenty-five years to prove he deserved the position he stole, and yet he still feels like a fraud. No wonder his son turned out to be such an asshole too.
