With Us (The Amato Series Book 1)

by Layla Frost

  I wanted a mostly silent DJ, but she said swing bands were making a comeback.

  I wanted an event hall, she said churches were all the rage with their rich history.

  I wanted classic with a unique twist, she said theme weddings were popular.

  After the third time of being cut off, I stood. “We have other meetings to get to. Thank you.”

  The planner just set her stuff down and looked at me. “I’m booking up fast, so you should probably get in while I’m willing to take you. It’s a fifty percent down payment, would you like to put that on a card?”

  Rachelle was less kind. “I’d be surprised if you do more than one wedding a year. You’re rude and pushy. It’s the bride’s day to plan with your help, not your day to dictate based on what companies are offering you discounts, or flat out paying you to push for them.”

  Without another word, we walked outside and headed down the street.

  “That was… interesting,” I said.

  “I’m sorry about that. She came highly recommended, if you can believe. One of the girls I lunch with at the club said she did her daughter’s wedding and she was perfect. Of course, Angie isn’t exactly on the cusp of hot trends. She still has helmet hair…”

  I laughed. “It’s fine. We have other meetings scheduled throughout the week, I’m sure we’ll find someone. Are you okay to drive me home? Theo got called away.”

  “Of course!” She looped my arm with hers. “But I thought we’d check out some dress shops first. Maybe grab some dinner.”

  Déjà vu hit me, making me panic.

  My heart raced and I knew my eyes were wide when I looked at her. “Did Theo—”

  “No.” Her expression looked pained. “This isn’t about what he’s doing. You probably know more than me. I just want to spend the time with my future daughter-in-law. Honest.”

  My breath whooshed out, the bunched muscles in my shoulders relaxing. “That sounds like a lot of fun. Let’s go.”

  Popping into random boutiques, we started talking about our different ideas for the wedding. It was a lot of fun, but Theo was always in the back of my mind.

  As we sat down for Thai food, I went from starving to no appetite. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but something felt wrong.

  Very, horribly, awfully wrong.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Betrayal

  Theo

  I had to hand it to him, he faced the whole thing better than I’d expected a rat to.

  He could’ve denied it. Passed the blame to someone else. Thrown doubt around.

  And fuck if I wouldn’t have fallen for it. Because, as I held a fucking gun on one of the people I trusted most in the world, I didn’t want to believe it was him who’d betrayed me.

  But I knew the truth.

  When Niall and I had walked into the basement of the building where he’d been working, he’d looked surprised to see us for a moment. But even in the dim light, he’d read our expressions easily.

  I watched closely as he closed his eyes, opening them slowly. As he did, it was like the easygoing mask he’d been wearing slipped off. I was left staring into a bottomless black pit of nothing.

  Scary and unpredictable.

  Holding out his arms, he calmly said, “I’ve got pieces in my shoulder holster and right calf. Knife on the left.”

  Niall approached slowly, removing the stated weapons before patting him down to be safe.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “You didn’t go to war for them. They killed them, and you didn’t go to war.”

  My brows lowered, my head jerking back. “I killed them. I’m not bringing everyone down for the actions of a few. But when I found out who was responsible, I made them pay.”

  His face twisted with bitterness. “What if it was Dahlia? What if you came home to find her raped, bloody, and beaten to death?”

  With a few long strides, I had his back to the wall, my gun pushed to his head. “Don’t you fucking bring Dahlia into this. Her name doesn’t leave your mouth, you hear me?”

  There was no flash of fear. No negotiations. No excuses.

  His expression was eerily blank, especially considering I had a gun to his head. It wasn’t that he was trying to call a bluff, as if I wouldn’t pull the trigger.

  Ben just didn’t care.

  “You’d have gone to war for her,” he said. “You’d have set the world on fire and watched it burn if it were her.”

  He wasn’t lying.

  “So, what? You decided I needed to pay? Ten fucking years later, and you’ve decided I didn’t do enough?”

  He shook his head as best as he could the barrel of a gun against it. “No. I decided the minute you told me you only killed three of them that you didn’t do enough. But this isn’t about you paying. It’s about starting a fucking war. With you in prison, Donnelly and the Irish were supposed to poach your territory. They made moves, but you got out too early.”

  Donnelly was a selfish bastard who’d been running the Irish for more than fifteen years. He wouldn’t have gone head-to-head with me, but he was an opportunist.

  “And the fight setup was your attempt at sending me back,” I surmised.

  He gave a jerky nod.

  Clenching my jaw, I tried to get a handle on my temper. I’d done a fuck of a lot for Ben, and he’d thrown it in my face while reaching around to stab me in the back. That rage and betrayal ate at my fucking core, but it was nothing compared to knowing how this was going to hurt Dahlia.

  “How could you do this to her? Be her friend, then hire someone to kidnap her? Twice!” White knuckling the gun, I pressed it harder against him.

  He flinched at the pressure, but made no other movement.

  “What were you planning on doing to her?” I growled. “Hurt her? Do what—”

  “No!” Ben’s eyes widened, and, for the first time, he showed emotion. Remorse. “God, no. I was just trying to get her away from you. I’d never do that to Dahlia, I love her.”

  “What the fuck did you—”

  He shook his head. “Not like that. Dahlia’s too good for a piece of shit like me. She’s too good for any of us. You sank your claws into her and pulled her down into our world, but she doesn’t belong here.”

  Once again, he wasn’t lying.

  But that wasn’t his decision to make.

  It must have been cathartic for him to finally talk, because with the floodgates opened, Ben kept sharing. His tone was bland and casual, as if we were discussing the weather. “When I’d heard you’d hooked up with someone, I figured she deserved to go down, too. Then Luc warned me not to say anything about Amato business in front of her. I still didn’t give a fuck. Not until I met her. She’s so sweet. Genuinely a nice person who didn’t expect shit but gave everything.”

  It took all my control to not tell him to shut the fuck up. I needed to hear it all, even if it was pissing me the fuck off.

  “How did you get someone like her?” Without giving me time to answer, he continued. “I wanted to warn her off. I came close to it a million times. But I’d have thrown away years of work. I left clues, though. Like putting on the news while I distracted your mom. I thought once Dahlia saw you’d been arrested, she’d leave. But she waited.”

  “And her finding out about Larson’s death?”

  “I’d hooked my phone to your smart TV and streamed the recorded news. It was an old broadcast, but she was too caught up to notice. I’d figured she’d leave, or you’d lie and then she’d leave. It tore her apart, but she stayed.” His lip curled in disgust. “I don’t think you even know how much of herself she sacrificed to come to terms with who we all are. What we do.”

  “All this because I only tortured and killed three people? Luca and I didn’t give them a slap on the wrist and let them walk away. We took our time.”

  Niall spoke for the first time. “He’s not lying. They left those bodies in the middle of a building that was supposed to be safe guarded. Scared the shit out of eve
ryone to know it was compromised and what they were capable of. Looked like a feckin’ horror movie.”

  Ben’s face contorted with anger, his focus on his single-minded vengeance. “What about how I found them? How I found her? She was my mother!”

  “Ay,” Niall said, “and she was my sister!”

  “But it was my fault! I had to do something.” Ben’s eyes were filled with a wild grief. “They all need to pay. Every last one of them.”

  Since being old enough to get involved in Amato business, I’d never hesitated. We didn’t follow the law, but we had our own code. A clear right and wrong.

  He’d betrayed the family and that called for his death.

  But for the first time ever, I hesitated and almost lowered my arm.

  “You don’t do it.” Niall pushed my gun out of the way and replaced it with his own. “I do.”

  “He’s your family—” I started.

  “No.” Niall’s face was blank. “Family has your back. They don’t turn on you to serve themselves. They don’t set you up to fall. Amato is my family.”

  Ben slumped slightly against the wall, as if he’d just released a heavy weight he’d been carrying around for ten years. He met my eyes. “If you have any soul at all, you’ll let her go.”

  I shook my head once. “No.”

  A single shot rang out, echoing around us as Ben’s body hit the floor.

  I reached out and squeezed Niall’s shoulder. “I’ll have Gabe here in an hour.”

  He covered my hand and squeezed, but didn’t speak or turn around as I left.

  Taking the steps three at a time, I gulped in the fresh air but still felt the weight on my chest. I got in my car and dialed Gabe.

  “Hello?” he answered on the second ring.

  “Clean up. I’ll text you the address.”

  “How many?”

  “One. At least I hope like fuck it’ll only be one.” I ran my hand down my face. “Maybe plan for two.”

  His voice was low and almost gentle, the same soft tone he used with Mar and Tina. “What’s going on, boss?”

  “The rat’s been exterminated.”

  “Fuck. Who?”

  “Ben.”

  “Fucking hell,” he said.

  “Niall did it.”

  “Fucking hell shit. Is he okay?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I left him down there so he could have time, but it may have been a mistake.”

  “No, you know how Niall is. Giving him time and space is exactly what he needs.”

  “I told him you’d be there in about an hour.”

  “Yeah, I’ll prepare and head out.” He was silent for a moment before cursing. “I’m fucking stunned. God, this is going to wreck Dahlia.”

  “I know.”

  “Boss… It’s going to wreck her. While you were in, Ben was who she leaned on. We all kept an eye out, but nothing crossed the line. They were tight because he was good at distracting her. Teaching her how to bake and shit. It was like everyone else was your people doing you a favor, but Ben was her friend. Her only one.”

  “I know. I fucking know. Shit.” I slammed my hands on the steering wheel.

  “I’m only saying something to prepare you. It might get ugly.”

  “Fuck.” I put the car into drive and headed in an arbitrary direction. “Let me know how clean up goes.”

  “Will do, boss.”

  We hung up and I drove around in silence, lost in my head.

  A while later, my phone chimed with Gabe’s tone.

  Gabe: Done. Only one. Niall was gone when I got here.

  Taking the drive home, I tried to plan for anything and everything. Dahlia had struggled when I told her what I did, and I wasn’t sure how firm her acceptance was.

  I pulled into our driveway, but didn’t climb right out. For the first time since she’d come into my life, I wasn’t in a rush to see Dahlia.

  I fucking hated it.

  Dahlia

  Maybe I shouldn’t have had that late coffee. I’m on edge enough.

  I heard Theo’s car pull in, but it was still a few minutes before the door unlocked.

  Don’t freak out. Maybe he was just on the phone.

  One look at his face killed that thought. He was trying to keep his expression normal, but his eyes gave it away.

  Strained and bleak, they showed me what I’d already suspected.

  Something was wrong.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Theo sat on the couch next to me, shifting so he faced me. I’d been expecting him to pull me onto his lap like he usually did, but he gave me space. “Remember how I told you about the rat? How he’d tried to set me up so I’d get caught with Larson and then the fight?”

  I nodded.

  “We caught him.”

  “Okay,” I drawled. “Who was it?”

  “Ben.”

  I burst out laughing.

  Theo had been convinced it’d been someone close to him, but none of them would do that. It didn’t matter how tight-lipped they all were, leaks were bound to happen. And he had a big organization, it’d probably been some low-level nobody.

  “Dahlia, baby, I’m serious.”

  He never calls me ‘baby’.

  I started to get a little peeved as I felt the need to defend my friend. “Ben wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  “He admitted it.”

  “He must have been confused. Maybe he got drunk and let something slip. I’m going to call him.”

  Theo’s face softened, but I refused to acknowledge it.

  “He’ll clear it up,” I said. “It’ll be fine.”

  “Gattina, he—”

  I stood, my legs shaking as my heart pounded. “I know you’re normally good at this stuff, but you obviously made a really stupid mistake. You said the rat tried to have me kidnapped. Ben wouldn’t have done that. No way.”

  “Dahlia, come here.”

  I shook my head so violently it felt like my brain was shaking around. “I’m going to grab my phone and call him. It’ll be funny. We’ll bake a cake and laugh about it.”

  There was a quick knock at the door before Niall came in without waiting. Theo’s eyes shot to him, widening in surprise.

  “Will you talk some sense into him?” I asked Niall, forcing a laugh that sounded shrill and harsh. “He thinks Ben was the rat.”

  “Everything okay?” Theo asked him.

  Niall nodded before looking at me. “She may have some questions only I can answer.”

  I crossed my arms. “Like why you’re both so awful at your jobs?”

  “Like what made him do it.” Niall had always been cold and distant, more like a shadow than a person. So when he looked at me with a sad smile and concern, my resolve began to crumble.

  “Made him do what?” I asked, my voice trembling.

  “Turn on us. On his family. Including me, his blood family.”

  “What?” I’d been around them both a lot, and there’d never been any mention they were related.

  Niall inhaled deeply before launching in. “I started running with the Irish when I was seven. I did shit that’d haunt me if I weren’t numb to it. Amato is organized chaos for the greater good. Donnelly is chaos for the thrill. My little sister stuck by my side through it all, loving me even when I changed into someone she didn’t recognize.”

  I was caught between being riveted and wanting to cover my ears so I couldn’t hear any of it.

  “When her son, my nephew, was sixteen,” Niall continued, “Donnelly started trying to recruit him.”

  “Ben?” I asked.

  Nodding, Niall continued. “People didn’t fuck with Ben. He was smart and thrived in hectic situations. I’d never brought him in on things, refusing for him to be a part of that life. But there was no respect. It was just about the bottom line. And, bottom line, a guy like Ben could be useful. They went around me. When Leia found out they were trying to turn her baby boy into her shell of
a brother, she went wild. That Irish temper came out swinging, and she wouldn’t back down.” The hint of warmth was replaced by grief. “And it cost her. They didn’t make it quick or neat, and it was Ben who found his parents.”

  “Oh, God,” I whispered. My stomach lurched, and I thought I’d be sick.

  “He came to live with me.” Niall tilted his head toward Theo. “This was around the time Amato was making big changes, so I went to Theo, asking for help. Him and Mr. Ricci worked free of charge, knowing they could be inciting a war that wasn’t theirs. They found who was responsible and made them pay.”

  “How?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  “Do you really want to know?” Theo asked, not as a taunt but with genuine concern.

  I shook my head.

  “You don’t,” Niall confirmed. “He made the Irish see that if they wanted a war, it wasn’t going to end well for them. A tentative truce was called and sides were reconstructed. From that day, I was an Amato. Ben and Leia had big dreams about him being a chef, but he stopped cooking. I tried to get him to follow through, but he had a lot of anger and guilt on his shoulders. He viewed his parents’ death as his fault, and no amount of reassurance changed that. When he was about to go down the same dark path I had, Theo brought him in and kept him close.”

  It was gut-wrenching what he’d been through, and tears streamed steadily down my face.

  Niall’s voice turned cold, his nostrils flared, and he sneered in disgust. “But he threw it away because he felt like what was done wasn’t enough. He let grief and vengeance ruin his life instead of appreciating everything that’d been sacrificed for him.”

  “You’re both wrong. I’m sorry about all you went through. Really, I truly am. But Ben wouldn’t turn on Theo.” I shook my head, nearly rolling my eyes at them. “The rat tried to have me kidnapped. Ben wouldn’t have done that.”

  “He told us,” Niall said softly. “He got addresses from my GPS to set Theo up.”

  “Why? After all that, why would he turn on you?” My voice grew louder until I was practically shouting. I paced, feeling again like my world was shifting.