Deathless & Divided (The Chicago War #1)

by Bethany-Kris

  Damian froze in place. How in the hell did Theo know about the Poletti hit? Theo asked his boss about it like he knew Terrance had been the one to make the call. But that was impossible. Damian hadn’t said a word to his friend about the hit.

  Dino knew …

  Damian passed Dino a questioning stare.

  Dino simply shrugged and lifted his beer to his lips without a word.

  “What about the Poletti kid?” Terrance asked.

  “Are we looking at a situation of retaliation here?” Theo asked back.

  Joel’s stare snapped to his grandfather. “What in the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing,” Terrance muttered with a wave of his hand to dismiss the concerns.

  Theo didn’t relent. “You put that hit out on him, didn’t you, Boss?”

  “What did you just say?” Joel asked, his tone taking on a threatening edge.

  “Just what I fucking said,” Theo said without any heat to his words. “You’re not deaf or stupid so clean out your ears. Boss decided to cull that issue before you got a big head and invited the enemy in. Shit like that happens when you think you make all the calls and you don’t, Joel. Welcome to the big boy world where you are not the most important person in the room. I imagine that must be hard for you, but grin and bear it, yeah? God knows we’ve done it enough for you.”

  Ouch.

  “Damn,” Dino whispered like he was fucking proud or something.

  Damian figured it out then. Terrance had told Joel of the hit on James Poletti, but he obviously hadn’t explained to his grandson that he was the one who made the call for it.

  Terrance opened his mouth to speak. “I—”

  “Did you kill James?” Joel demanded, cutting in on the boss.

  Terrance heaved a sigh. “Joel, you are one more word away from getting my boot in your teeth.”

  Riley stumbled out from the corner, waving his glass wildly as he pointed at the boss. “You did this?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You … you did this!” Riley shouted. “My Mia—she died because of you?”

  “Somebody needs to stop him before he does something he regrets,” Dino said.

  “I think you’ve had quite enough,” Terrance said calmly to his front boss. He gestured at one of the enforcers leaning against a chair behind him. “Ruck, take him home or—”

  “I will not go home!” Riley took another stumbling step forward before his glass fell from his trembling hand. It shattered across the floor, the rum slipping along the lines in the tiles. Everyone else in the room seemed too frozen to speak or move. “Did you do this, Terrance? Tell me.”

  “I wasn’t the one holding the gun, Riley.”

  “You didn’t have to be,” Riley said. “Isn’t that what you always said, Boss? The man who orders the gun is just as bloody as the one who pulls the trigger.”

  “Take him home,” Terrance repeated to the enforcer, still unruffled by the threatening tone Riley had taken on. “Sober him up and get him thinking clearly.”

  Riley cackled with a drunken laugh as the enforcer stepped forward to shuffle him out of the strip joint. The rest of the men who had gathered for the meeting stayed quiet until the front boss for the Outfit was out of the building and it was safe to speak again.

  “He’ll be fine once he cleans up,” Ben said to Terrance.

  The boss didn’t look like he believed a word of it.

  “It could be retaliation,” Terrance said instead. He subtly passed a glance in Damian’s direction before going back to the conversation at hand. “The hit wasn’t entirely clean when it was followed through. There might have been someone who saw something, figured out the hit came from the Outfit, and didn’t come forward to the police.”

  No one turned to Damian for answers.

  This was exactly why he liked being on the boss’s payroll and not anyone else’s. The only person he needed to answer to for his fuck up was Terrance. Even so, he didn’t think the boss was blaming him for it.

  “You fucking bastard,” Joel hissed. “And for what, to teach me a goddamn lesson?”

  Terrance shrugged his thick shoulders like it didn’t make a difference either way. “You will learn my lessons one way or another, Joel.”

  Joel gawked with his jaw wide open and hatred brimming. “Who did the hit, then?”

  “I want enforcers on all the women,” Terrance said instead of answering his grandson.

  Another lesson Joel needed to learn was to never expect answers from a boss. Terrance wasn’t required to explain his decisions.

  Terrance ticked his chin in Chris’s direction, an enforcer that tended to work a lot with the Conti crew. “Chris, stick close to Adriano and Evelina. I’m sure Riley will agree with me once he’s clear-headed.”

  Laurent spoke up, too. “I have a couple of men from my crew keeping an eye on my wife.”

  “Already.” Terrance didn’t even pose the word as a question. It felt loaded with something Damian couldn’t place. “Why is that, Laurent? You had no reason to believe this was a situation of retaliation on anyone’s part.”

  “Being safe, Boss.”

  Even Damian had to wonder about that.

  “Sure, sure,” the boss drawled before giving his right-hand his attention. “Ben, I’m sure you’ll figure something out for the DeLuca side.”

  “Of course,” Ben replied.

  “And Damian,” Terrance added.

  Damian perked, but barely. “Yeah?”

  “I know your time is well-spent with the Rossi crew lately, but you’ll be drawing back on that until this mess has blown over.”

  “Oh?”

  “Lily seems to like spending time with my granddaughter. I’m sure over the next little while they’ll be together a lot, given Abriella is in the wedding. I’ll have an extra guard on Abriella. But otherwise, I expect you to be their shadow at every point when they are together.”

  Joel scoffed, obviously still pissed and reeling over the information he learned today. “And he’s so fucking good at being in those, right?”

  Damian acted like Joel didn’t say a thing. “Will do, Boss.”

  “Good,” Terrance said.

  Tribute went forward as it always did every month. The men paid their seventy-percent due to the boss without question. No one was short. No one ever was. All the while, Damian couldn’t help but notice how the mood had changed between the men. Where some would chat away in comfortable groups usually, most were off by themselves.

  The paranoia had set in already.

  All it took was a suggestion of something that nobody had even confirmed: inside job.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Lily blindly waved her hand over her nightstand while her face was still shoved into a pillow. She didn’t know what that god awful ringing was, but it needed to go away. Finally, she found the cell phone ringing and pressed the home key, knowing it would ignore the call.

  She eyed the alarm clock on her stand, noting the early morning time. Whoever was calling at six in the damn morning could make their way straight to hell where a person like that deserved to go. Waking her up at this time was unacceptable. Especially since the last few days had been just about as stressful as they could be. Lily’s dreams had been plagued with memories of the blood and broken glass at the restaurant. Her days were filled with her friend’s heartache and the confusing mess happening to the people around her in the Outfit.

  No one trusted anyone.

  She understood that much at least.

  Groaning, Lily turned back in the bed and promptly dozed off again.

  Not thirty seconds later, her phone began to screech with another call.

  Damn it.

  She should have just silenced the stupid thing.

  Knowing the caller might be Evelina, Lily forced herself to wake up again. More frustrated and tired than ever, Lily reached over and grabbed the phone, dragging it to her ear before answering the call.

  “Hello
?” Lily asked, her voice gravelly with sleep.

  “You sound like a real winner in the morning.”

  The dark molasses tenor of Damian washed over Lily’s senses. His voice still had the strangest effects on her insides and she didn’t know why. Lily chose not to question it.

  “God, Damian, do you know what time it is?”

  “You know, that only sounds good when you’re saying it to me in bed, Lily.”

  Lily’s cheeks heated and she tried to bury her face deeper into the pillow. “Shut up. I am in bed, okay.”

  “Not mine.”

  “Stop. It’s too early for this.”

  “Never too early for that.” Damian hummed deeply. “I’m trying to perk you up, Lily.”

  She grinned into her sheet, pulling it higher over her head. This man was such a serious mind-fuck for her. He didn’t have to be sweet and funny or anything like that, but he was. Especially with her. They might have slept together, but that didn’t mean anything when Lily considered the fact she was still being made to marry Damian whether she wanted to or not.

  It was hard to hate someone when you liked them.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I told you, trying to—”

  “No, Damian. What are you doing with me?”

  “Calling you, sweetheart.”

  “Why?” Lily asked quietly.

  “Because I have a surprise. Get up and come downstairs to the front.”

  Lily sat up in bed. “A surprise?”

  “Yes. Get up, I said.”

  The call hung up. Grumbling under her breath, Lily found the strength to get out of bed. She pulled on something suitable for wearing outside her bedroom, slid on a pair of ballet flats, and made her way downstairs.

  Strangely, Theo was sitting at the dinner table with Dino when Lily passed the kitchen by. For not being very friendly, her brothers seemed to be spending a hell of a lot more time together now.

  “Morning, princess,” Dino called.

  Lily gave her brother a dirty look and flipped him the bird.

  “A little early for your attitude, isn’t it?” Theo called.

  “Somebody woke me up.”

  Both her brothers laughed. Lily ignored them and continued her trek to the front door. Without looking out through the curtains first, she pulled it open and damn near fell over the threshold at the sight in front of her.

  Damian stood with his arms crossed and leaning against one of the most gorgeous cars Lily had ever seen. It sported strong, bold lines making the sporty look of it all the more sleek and sexy. The yellow paint with black highlights was sure to draw attention.

  The cobalt blue Porsche sitting beside the yellow sports car was one Lily recognized. It was Damian’s car. The yellow one, she didn’t have a clue.

  Lily gaped. “Holy shit.”

  “Good morning,” Damian murmured, never moving a muscle.

  “Whose car is that?”

  Damian smiled a sexy sight. “Yours.”

  No way.

  Lily’s eyes widened. “You’re lying.”

  “I am not. Stop gawking, Lily, it looks terrible on you.”

  Her mouth snapped shut audibly.

  “That’s …” Lily eyed the silver trident emblem on the grill of the car in total disbelief. Sure, Damian had a high-end car and even Lily’s brothers drove expensive vehicles. She, on the other hand, had never once owned her own car despite having a license. “Is that a Maserati?’

  Damian glanced down at the car, nodding. “It is. A GranTurismo, if you want to be specific.”

  Holy shit.

  “You bought me a Maserati?” Lily asked, her voice faint and unsure.

  “I did,” Damian said simply.

  “Why?”

  “Do I need a reason?” he asked.

  “Is this like … Damian, that’s a six-figure car.”

  “Si.”

  “You bought me a car,” Lily said, still in shock.

  Damian’s grin grew. “Happy birthday, Lily.”

  Her heart stopped for a split second. Somehow, with all the mess that had been going on over the last couple of days after the shooting at the restaurant and everything else, Lily had forgotten her own damn birthday.

  Clearly someone else hadn’t.

  Damian.

  “How did you know?” Lily asked.

  “You’re intended to be my wife. Of course I would want to know when your birthday was,” Damian replied. “And it’s been a rough couple of days with you being there for Eve, I know. I wanted to see you smile and this seemed like a good time to hand over your birthday present.”

  All over again, her heart kick-started with confusion and a strange mixture of bliss. Why would Damian do this? Why did he care about her or act like he did?

  I’m not asking for you to fall in love with me.

  When he did something like this, she found that hard to believe.

  Quiet chuckles rang out behind Lily from her brothers. Obviously they had sneaked up on her when she was otherwise distracted with the dangerously attractive man and the equally beautiful car in the driveway.

  Lily glanced over her shoulder at Dino. “Did you know?”

  “Yes,” Dino replied. “I picked the color. Theo and Damian argued over the model for a good week before D won.”

  “It’s very yellow,” Lily said, unsure of what else to say.

  “The windows are dark enough that even when people stare, they won’t know it’s you,” Theo said.

  Goddammit.

  They knew her too well.

  “So even when you’re in the spotlight,” Damian said, drawing Lily’s attention back again, “… you won’t really be in it, sweetheart.”

  “You bought me a car,” Lily repeated.

  Christ. She really was turning into a parrot.

  Damian winked. “Take me for a drive, Lily.”

  “God,” Evelina said, her breath hitching on a sob. “I don’t want to go in there.”

  Lily’s frown felt like it had become a permanent fixture on her face. Nine days had passed since Mia Conti’s death. The officials held back on releasing the body until they didn’t have a choice. The means of death was obvious but the motive was unclear.

  Lily didn’t want to watch her friend have another breakdown but it was probably inevitable. Burying her mother would be like another painful confirmation. It wasn’t easy to say goodbye. Lily spent as much time as she could with Evelina over the last week, and she knew it helped her friend, but it was heartbreaking.

  Mia Conti’s death—pointless and filled with uncertainty—only served to remind Lily of her own mother’s death. It felt exactly the same. Everyone knew why Lily’s father had been killed. Turning on the Outfit and being caught was a signed death warrant. But Lily’s mother? Her murder was simply a by-product of her husband’s killing.

  Nothing more.

  Lily grabbed Evelina’s hand and squeezed tight, giving her friend a silent reminder she was there and she was so loved. It was one of the things Lily wished someone had done for her when she was just a little girl burying her mother.

  “Thanks,” Evelina said. “I know this is hard for you, too.”

  “Oh?”

  “Your parents.”

  Lily cleared her throat, glancing around the quiet room. They were alone, but Lily still felt like she had to be careful when she discussed her parents in the presence of others. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had to bury someone.”

  “It’s not fair.”

  “It never is,” Lily murmured.

  Which was the exact reason she despised this life and the ways of the mafia and Outfit. A murder was just another job. A person was just another body. This was just another day. Business as usual, except for the people hurting. Sure, la famiglia would put on a good show for the family with their black suits, remorseful words, and supportive hugs, but it meant nothing. It was all lies.

  This shit happens.

  Move on.
>
  Evelina wiped under her eyes with one hand. “Dad is so … confusing.”

  “Confused or confusing?” Lily asked, her brow furrowing.

  “He’s weird,” Evelina said quietly. “He keeps locking himself in his office. He won’t take calls. Even Adriano can’t get him to pay attention to anything. And he’s mad—really, really mad, Lily.”

  “His wife was killed,” Lily replied simply.

  Just because Evelina wasn’t angry, or rather, hadn’t gotten to that place in her grief yet, didn’t mean Riley Conti would hit that level at the same speed as his daughter.

  Lily shrugged, adding, “I guess I understand the anger.”

  “At Terrance, though?” Evelina asked. “At the Outfit? I don’t know, it just doesn’t make sense.”

  It did to Lily. She hated the Outfit for a long time after it took her parents. She wasn’t sure how the Outfit had been responsible for Mia’s death, if it even was, but it probably led back to something involving the mafia in one way or another.

  Damian leaned in the doorway that separated the private room from the church’s main hall. He offered Lily a small smile. “It’s almost time to start, sweetheart. They’re just waiting on some last minute people.”

  Lily nodded. “A few more minutes, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Evelina sniffled when Damian disappeared again. “He’s been around a lot lately.”

  “Yeah, I guess he has,” Lily murmured more to herself than her friend.

  Lily didn’t mind Damian’s constant presence, honestly. It gave her a chance to get to know the man beyond awkward dinners with people neither of them could stand and what he could do to her in his bed. Not that they had fucked again since that first time.

  “I heard him on the phone the other day talking to somebody about a Poletti hit or whatever,” Lily said. “Retaliation was the word he used, I think. Is that what happened?”

  Evelina grimaced. “Yeah.”

  “What did I miss?”

  “I know as much as you, Lily.”

  Lovely.

  Ignorance was bliss.

  Evelina fell into another crying fit, ruining her makeup further.

  “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything,” Lily told Evelina, wiping the mess from her friend’s face again.