Deathless & Divided (The Chicago War #1)

by Bethany-Kris

Dino smiled a cold sight. “Both.”

  Damian wasn’t surprised. He’d never once thought that Dino forgave the people around him for doing what they had back when he and his siblings were younger. Like the smart man he was, Dino waited patiently before striking back.

  “I thought you were the one who told Lily not to blame the gun,” Damian said quietly.

  “Right now, the people are the gun. I’m correcting that shit before it gets worse.”

  Was he?

  Damian didn’t know what to believe anymore.

  “Let’s just get this done,” Dino said with a nod at the black suburban.

  “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  Damian took the ratchet gun Dino offered and squeezed the trigger to test the tool. It zinged with a loud sound, ready to be put to work.

  “I’ll get to work on removing the doors, hood, bumpers and back,” Dino said. “You get to work on the tires and interior.”

  Damian didn’t care. “Whatever.”

  Two hours later, the suburban had nearly three quarters of its major parts removed and set aside. It was starting to look like nothing more than a shell of a vehicle. Once it was down to the frame and chassis, Damian and Dino could take a torch and saw to the steel and cut it apart, too. Then, it really would be nothing but scrap metal to be taken away.

  Nothing to find.

  Vanished.

  Damian lifted the mask from his face. He’d put it on earlier to keep from ingesting too much dust and grime as they worked. “How’d you lose the cops that day?”

  Dino didn’t look down as he ripped off the material covering the suburban’s roof. “Hit a small back road quickly and kept going until I was clear. They must have took a different route. I never saw them once.”

  “Lucky,” Damian said.

  “Something like that.”

  “Do you think Theo knows?”

  Dino chuckled. “Theo suspects I’ve had a hand in certain things. Or rather, he believes I’ve had a hand in pushing certain individuals along. I’ve never confirmed or denied anything.”

  Just like how Damian never lied. He omitted a great deal of things. He talked around a lot of shit. His game was good, sure. Lying didn’t factor into that at all.

  Dino glanced over his shoulder at Damian. “Is there something else on your mind, or what?”

  “Yes.”

  “Spit it out, D.”

  Damian blew out a harsh breath. “So you shot up the restaurant, which just happened to work in your favor with Mia’s death and now Riley’s threats of retaliation. You’ve got the Rossi family fighting with the Contis and the Trentinis.”

  Dino barked out a laugh. “You did the Rossi mess, Damian.”

  True enough.

  “You wanted a wider divide,” Damian said.

  “And you could have done that in a million other ways,” Dino argued. “Yet you chose to fuck with your aunt and uncle. Why was that?”

  Damian refused to provide an answer.

  Apparently, Dino wasn’t looking for one. “Don’t bother. We both know. You’re looking to mess their shit up, too. And it worked, so shut your mouth about it. You’re no better than me, Damian, you’re just sneakier about it. Watch that or it might bite you on the ass someday.”

  Yeah, Damian doubted that.

  “The DeLuca side of things still haven’t made a hard and fast choice for either side,” Damian said. “Ben’s gone, the divide between the four families is so big, you couldn’t throw a rock and hit the other side.”

  “What are you dancing around?” Dino asked.

  “What is left? Who’s left?”

  “The boss.”

  Damian should have known that.

  When Dino first discussed his plans with Damian, there had been no mention of dividing the families. Not like they had ended up, anyway. The issues with the Poletti hit simply tipped the scales in Dino’s favor.

  It gave a justifiable, reasonable way to keep total suspicion off the restaurant shooting as being an inside job. Dino chose to run with it. Damian had no other choice but follow behind. Like with everything else, the issue only grew. The paranoia grew. Riley Conti’s anger helped to cover Dino and Damian’s tracks further.

  No one really knew that they were fighting for nothing.

  Well, not nothing. They just weren’t fighting for the right reasons.

  “Are we going after him for me or for you?” Damian finally asked, repeating his earlier words.

  “Both.”

  Well, that answered everything, didn’t it?

  The anger Damian had been holding back about the bullet holes in Lily’s car finally spilled over. He couldn’t control it any longer.

  “Eight!” Damian shouted.

  Dino didn’t even flinch from Damian’s show of rage. “Eight what?”

  “Eight bullet holes across the bumper of her Maserati. Two more went through the back windshield!”

  “It’s a car, Damian. We’ll get it fixed.”

  “That is not the fucking point,” Damian hissed.

  “You’re dancing a thin line,” Dino warned.

  Damian was damn well ready to jump the hell over it.

  “Too close, Dino. That was too close for comfort.”

  “Like I said—”

  “Too close.”

  Dino sighed. “Her vehicle wasn’t the only one with bullet holes.”

  “She could have been inside.”

  Didn’t Dino realize that?

  “She wasn’t.”

  “She could have been!” Damian yelled, his anger boiling over.

  “You made sure she wasn’t.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Lily padded into the dark, empty kitchen. Pulling a glass out of the cupboard, she tipped the cup under the sink faucet and turned on the water. She’d woken up out of a dead sleep for no other reason than her throat was dry and she needed a drink.

  Sipping from the water, she stared out the kitchen window into the driveway. A familiar blue Porsche caught her eye instantly. She nearly dropped the damn glass. Damian’s car was parked beside hers and guessing by the dew drops gathering on the blue paint, it had been there quite a while.

  He hadn’t mentioned needing to come over. In fact, Lily was positive Damian said he had work to do and might not even see her the next day. Their wedding was just two weeks away; Lily didn’t mind that he had business to handle because she could always use a day to make sure everything was going smoothly with the two wedding event coordinators that Dino hired. Besides that, Lily had taken up two summer online classes for credits she needed in order to be ahead of the game for school in the fall.

  She had a lot of stuff going on.

  Damian did, too.

  Why hadn’t he told her he was coming over?

  The digital microwave clock blinked 4AM. More confused than ever, Lily turned the garage light on and looked out the window connecting the garage to the kitchen. Dino’s white Bentley wasn’t parked beside Lily’s Maserati. Damian promised to have her car repaired before the wedding but Lily had been using Dino’s car to run errands or to do whatever else she needed in the day. Her brother was too busy trying to keep a firm handle on the DeLuca crew with Theo to be worrying about his car.

  But now Dino’s car was gone, too.

  Listening for any sounds in the house, Lily couldn’t hear a thing. Nothing that said her brother and Damian were inside, anyway. Lily dumped the remaining water from her glass down the drain, keeping an eye on Damian’s car at the same time.

  She figured it didn’t matter. Maybe Dino and Damian had business and met up or something. Padding back through the dark house, Lily came to a stop at the foot of the stairwell. The faintest sound, something Lily was sure she had never heard before, hummed from the back of the house. The noise got louder, like metal grinding on metal.

  What in the hell was that?

  Annoyed, Lily made her way to the back of the house quickly. She slipped on her ballet flats and pushed open the back
door leading to the deck. Darkness covered the back property except toward Dino’s small storage shed at the far end. White light spilled from the open garage door as sparks flew. Smoke and dust billowed out around the halo of light, illuminating a figure bending down with some kind of tool as the person worked on what looked like a … vehicle? Or rather, the frame of some kind of vehicle.

  Maybe she should have turned around, went back inside the house, and pretended like she hadn’t seen a thing, but something inside Lily’s gut wouldn’t let her. Before she even understood her own actions, Lily had walked down the steps of the deck and was half way across the back yard.

  The closer she came to that grinding sound and the man in the light, the worse she felt. The tightest sensation wrapped around her heart, filling it to the brim with dread and making every beat hurt.

  When Lily was just a few steps away from the garage door, her heart might as well have fell from her chest and shattered across the lawn. The vehicle … She knew that vehicle. She knew the shape of it because the image of it had permanently imprinted itself inside her memories ever since that shooting at the Trentini home. It didn’t matter that all that was left of the vehicle was nothing more than a steel frame and twisted black metal.

  No, Lily knew.

  The torch lit up again, blowing into the chassis. The man dropped the tool and picked up what looked like a grinder of some sort. Sparks flew everywhere, lighting up the mask the person wore to protect his face. The awful grinding sound started up again, making Lily cringe from the volume of the noise. Lily’s ears ached and the terrible stench the grinder created as it cut through the hot steel burned her nose.

  Lily turned on her heel, needing to get away from that vehicle and what it all meant. She didn’t make it very far. The grinder shut off just as she took her first few steps. She heard a muffled curse before the familiar voice became a hell of a lot clearer.

  “Lily?”

  No.

  Why?

  Everything inside screamed those two simple words. Nothing was right. Everything was so terribly wrong and foul.

  Lily spun on her heel in the dewy grass. “Why?”

  Damian dropped the welding mask to the cement floor of the building. “Lily—”

  “Why is that here?” she interrupted, her voice barely breaking a whisper.

  “It’s nothing, Lily.”

  Lily scoffed, dark and hateful. “Right. It’s nothing. Tell me that’s not the vehicle used in the Trentini shooting. Tell me that!”

  Damian didn’t look away as he said, “I can’t.”

  “Because it is.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed quietly.

  Lily’s heart broke all over again. “Why?”

  “Dino—”

  No, Lily didn’t want to hear that, either. She turned toward the house and bolted as fast as she could away from Damian. The sound of the tool he’d been holding echoed with a bang as he dropped it to the cement floor.

  “Lily!”

  What had her brother done? That vehicle could only mean one thing. Dino had a hand in the shooting. He’d nearly killed her in the process. And Damian … he was helping to dispose of the evidence. Damian knew, too.

  Oh, God.

  Memories and things Lily had overlooked flew into her mind one after the other. Whispered conversations and offhanded remarks made by Dino or even Damian at times.

  “This shit happens.”

  “Right now we have to focus on keeping what is important safe, which I thought someone already understood that.”

  “She was safe, man.”

  “Someday, she might actually understand.”

  “Which side are you on?”

  “My side, of course.”

  “Obviously someone is out to prove a point with someone else in the Outfit …”

  “… sometimes it’s better to bide your time, little one. Not everything is black and white.”

  There was so much. Too much. Lily, blind and dumb to her brother and his schemes, had passed over everything without so much as a question.

  Then, there was Damian. That probably hurt her the very most. She’d spent a great deal of the last day in Damian’s bed. Her body could still feel the aftereffects of their lovemaking hours after it had ended. Damian touched her like he cared, like he wanted her. He’d made her believe that.

  How much of it was nothing but lies?

  Had that been a part of whatever plans Dino had, too?

  Bile rose in the back of her throat the closer she came to the house. Fresh, hot tears streaked down her cheeks. Nothing had ever felt quite as hurtful before. Betrayal stung on her tongue, making her sicker than ever.

  “Lily, just wait,” Damian said.

  She’d almost made it to the steps but he caught her first. Damian’s hands, ones she let touch and learn her body, grabbed onto her wrists and spun her around fast to face him. The moment he released her, she swung at him with all her might. Her palm connected with his cheek, the crack reverberating across the nearly silent backyard. Damian tensed and snapped back from her like he was worried she might smack him again.

  “You fucking asshole!” Lily shouted, letting the tears fall freely. “You lied to me!”

  Damian licked the spot of blood from his bottom lip and rubbed at his jaw. “Fuck, you’ve got a mighty swing.”

  Lily held back her scream of frustration. “You’re lucky it was just the one.”

  “Don’t hit me again.”

  “I beg your pardon? Where in the hell do you get off telling me anything after what I just saw you doing?”

  Damian took a step forward, closer to Lily. She backed up one, needing the space. “Just like I said. Don’t hit me again. I’ve never hit you. I would never hit you. Don’t hit me.”

  Lily’s sobs caught in her throat, choking her. “Where is my brother?”

  “Gone. He got a call from Tommas an hour ago. Riley finally retaliated. The Rossi crew took a mighty hit. Terrance wanted the men to gather and discuss what they were going to do from here on out.”

  She didn’t give a damn.

  “You lied to me.”

  Damian shook his head. “I have never lied.”

  “Oh, really?” Lily pointed at the shell of a vehicle Damian had been working on. “What do you call that? All of the stuff that’s been happening, you’ve been doing that. You knew and didn’t tell me. My friend’s mother and your own cousin! You’re a sneaky, lying—”

  Damian stepped forward, clamped a hand over Lily’s mouth, and grabbed her tight. “Hush. I did not do all of it. In fact, I did very fucking little. The only thing I did do was keep you safe while it was happening. Goddamn, Lily, stop it and listen to me.”

  She struggled in his hold, mumbling curses and anything else she could think to spew at him. She didn’t want him touching her or near her. There was no excuse or reason worthy for what was happening around them. Nothing would ever justify useless blood spilling or the heartache of others.

  “Listen to me,” Damian demanded.

  “Fuck you,” Lily spat, finally getting her face away from his hand.

  “Lily, please listen to me!”

  Lily bit his palm. Damian shouted his pain, jerking back away from Lily. She took the chance to put more distance between them. From the top of her head all the way down to her toes, she trembled in her rage.

  “I was there,” Lily hissed.

  Damian nodded. “I know.”

  “I was there, Damian! For the shooting, I watched those people … Was that part of the plan, too?”

  “No one would look to Dino if you or Theo were at the locations when the scenes went down.”

  Locations?

  Locations!

  “More than one?” Lily asked, feeling like the air was being squeezed from her chest.

  Damian’s cool demeanor didn’t change as a million and one emotions washed through Lily. His statement clearly implied more than one. The only other incident Lily had been involved with was the r
estaurant shooting when Mia died.

  The vague conversation and passing looks shared between Damian and Dino when Lily arrived home after the shooting rammed into her mind with an almost painful quality. It taunted her.

  How could you not know?

  How did you not see?

  “He didn’t,” Lily whispered.

  “Yes,” Damian said quietly.

  “My God! Eve’s mother—”

  “Was a mistake,” Damian interjected quickly. “Dino aimed high, meaning to hit above the heads at the table just to get some shit stirring and questions being asked. He wanted a fuss kicked up and some suspicion inside the Outfit, nothing more. Mia must have been standing when he did the drive-by. Laurent, too. It makes sense considering Serena’s spiel. Maybe the argument continued after we left the table.”

  Was that supposed to help Lily?

  It didn’t!

  “Riley focused in on the Poletti boy’s death and wouldn’t let that go,” Damian explained. “He took the shooting as retaliation on Terrance. It grew from there. Dino went with it. It was never supposed to get this big.”

  “You texted him that day,” Lily said, remembering that fact.

  Damian’s jaw tensed. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Exactly for the reason I already told you when you asked that day. To let him know we were leaving and I would be bringing you home.”

  “So I could be there, but not actually be there, right?” Lily asked, hatred swelling up in her heart.

  “Yes,” Damian said softly.

  “I was your pawn. Dino’s, too. That’s all this ever was. And that night. You knew how heartbroken and hurt I was for Eve and over what happened, and I let you fuck me. You used the place I was in to get me into bed, you asshole.”

  “Absolutely not,” Damian growled.

  “Liar,” she said, waving a hand at him. “You’re just like Dino. You’re aiming for one place and you’re going to use everybody else’s backs to step on while you get there. Mine will not be one you break in the process, Damian Rossi.”

  “Stop!” Damian shouted.

  The word slammed Lily straight in the chest, threatening to send her emotions spilling over again. She couldn’t handle this.

  “I did not know it was going to be this bad but yes, I knew Dino had plans,” Damian continued, not giving her the chance to breathe or think. “Certain people—he wanted them gone. I did that, yes. I helped, yes. But shit happened. Instead of only looking at the men inside the Outfit when the restaurant mess happened like Dino wanted, Riley focused outside. Nobody planned for that. Nobody thought of that. It just kept getting bigger.