Booze and Bullets (Brooklyn Brothers #3)

by Melanie Munton

  Cris and Enzo were in a discussion about a hedge fund Cris was managing for his parents when Nico cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Uh, actually, I found a few properties in Croatia. In the Istria region, right along the Adriatic coastline.”

  It was probably the first time I’d ever heard Nico sound unsure of himself. Almost insecure, which I never would have dreamed was possible.

  A slow smile spread across Cris’s face at Nico’s words, while both Val and Enzo’s eyebrows went up. “Really?” Enzo said.

  “The best ones are just outside of Rovinj,” Nico said. “The prices are better than Cinque Terre and the Amalfi coast because the tourism industry isn’t quite as saturated in Istria. The travel to Italy from there is easy and inexpensive. I met with a realtor while I was in Rovinj and checked out the properties myself. I think they’re worth looking into.”

  Wait, that was part of the “business” he’d been dealing with during our day-and-a-half layover in the country? I thought he’d been in meetings regarding the purchase of the winery the whole time. He’d been scoping out properties for his parents, too? No wonder I hadn’t seen much of him for those two days.

  “We definitely will,” Val declared brightly, her face exuberant. “I haven’t been to Istria in years.”

  Enzo hadn’t taken his eyes off of Nico. He bowed his head, looking like a proud papa. “Thank you, son. We appreciate you taking the time.”

  Nico nodded curtly, anxiously tapping his finger against the rim of his glass. But I saw the way his chest swelled beneath his suit jacket. It was minute, but his father’s approval made the tension in his shoulders ease.

  “I’ll email you all the information,” he added. “The realtor is standing by in case you want to pull the trigger on any of those properties. If not, she said she’s got more options.”

  This time when Enzo and Val looked eyes across the table, I saw Val shoot her husband an I told you so look. Even Cris leaned back in his chair and looked at Nico with brotherly pride.

  There was a story here.

  A reason why Nico taking this initiative was new and unexpected to his entire family. A reason why he seemed somewhat uneasy bringing it up. It was as if no one ever asked much of him because no one really expected much of him.

  And for some insane reason, I had the ridiculous impulse to reach under the table and take his hand. To hold it. I didn’t know how or why, but I sensed that he needed someone to believe he wasn’t useless, that he had something to offer. There was a desire to show everyone that he was more than the front he put on. More than what he revealed and allowed others to see. I could feel it in him.

  Could he possibly be deeper than that playboy bachelor exterior he wore like a suit of armor?

  After the meal was over and the table was cleared, the men excused themselves into the den. “There are some family matters we need to discuss,” Nico said to me in a low voice. “Won’t take longer than an hour. You okay to hang out with the girls for a little while?”

  Actual family matters? Or five family matters? The girls had explained more to me about the recent happenings between the Rossettis and the New York Firm than Nico seemed willing to. But since he didn’t elaborate, I didn’t bother asking.

  “Sure.”

  Not even a minute after he’d closed himself inside the den with his brothers and father, my cell phone rang. When I saw the number on the screen, I excused myself from the conversation around me and stepped outside. I didn’t answer until I reached the front sidewalk and ensured no one from inside the house could hear me.

  “What are you doing calling me?” I whispered. “Is Batya okay?”

  “Walk down the street,” Dimitri commanded. “To the alley.”

  How the hell did he know where I was? I was too worried to bother asking that, so I followed his instruction.

  “Where is Batya?”

  “He’s fine,” Dimitri answered. “Everything is all right for now. But I need to speak with you.”

  “You need to make it fast. It isn’t a good time.”

  “No, I mean in person.”

  I looked at the phone in bafflement. “Have you gone mad? I’m in Brooklyn. I’m—”

  “I know exactly where you are, kotonoyok.”

  I jumped, letting out a little squeak. Because that voice had not only come through the phone, but from behind me in the bloody alley. When I whirled around, I saw Dimitri standing there with a black hood over his head, concealing most of his face.

  “What in God’s name are you doing here?” I hissed, feeling frantic. “Why aren’t you with my father? Protecting him?”

  The hard angles of Dimitri’s face softened. “Because he asked me to protect you. Don’t worry, he has plenty of protection. But you don’t.”

  My head reared back. “He asked you to guard me? Why would he do that? He ensured me I had nothing to fear from Nico Rossetti. He promised me the man would keep me out of harm’s way.”

  Dimitri’s eye twitched. “He didn’t offer an explanation. Perhaps he’s second guessing his decision to marry you off due to the friction between the Rossettis and the New York Firm. Maybe he wants to ensure you don’t get caught in the middle of their war. Which I could have told him was a possibility if he’d only listened to me in the first place.”

  He knew about all that? Why hadn’t anyone felt it prudent to tell me before I was dragged out of Russia?

  I rubbed my temples. “Batya would never risk my safety.”

  Dimitri shrugged. “All I know is Sergei gave me an order, so here I am.”

  I peeked around the corner to make sure no Rossetti had come looking for me. If anyone saw me talking to Dimitri like this, it wouldn’t send a good message. They’d get the wrong idea. “And what exactly are your orders?”

  “To keep an eye on you and make sure no harm comes to you. Call it extra security, especially with the trial of Raphael Esposito coming up.”

  He certainly knew more about the situation than he’d ever let on in Moscow. Was there more going on between Batya and Nico behind my back?

  “I’d honestly feel better if you were by my father’s side,” I told Dimitri reassuringly. “I know you don’t feel that you can trust Nico, but I don’t think he’ll let anything happen to me.”

  Dimitri’s eyes bulged. “Are you serious? Alexia, you can’t trust him. None of the Rossettis. Anyone who has affiliations with the Firm cannot be trusted. You know this. You’ve grown up your entire life being told this.”

  Yes, yes. The russkaya mafiya was not friendly with the Italian-American mafia. I’d heard it over and over from Batya for years. He refused to ever do business with the syndicate. Which made his dealings with Nico a bit puzzling. If he’d known of the Rossettis’ connection with the Firm, contentious as it was, why had he still thrown me at Nico?

  “They are enemies with the families, Dimitri,” I argued adamantly. “Not allies. They are the ones responsible for putting Raphael in jail in the first place. Why would they want to hurt me?”

  The ragged scar on his cheek turned whiter as his mouth tightened. “That’s just the image they project. Did you know one of the sons is dating the daughter of a former boss in the Firm? They’re more involved in the business than they want the public—or the police—to know. Do you honestly think they’ve acquired all that wealth strictly through legal means? You grew up in this life, Alexia. You know better than that.”

  Doubt scratched at the back of my mind.

  But the girls had never once let on that they were involved in any kind of organized crime. I’d seen no evidence of it. And lunch today with all of them had just felt too…normal. It didn’t seem possible.

  “At the end of the day, Dimitri, you have to ask yourself if you trust my father. Even if you doubt some of his decisions, do you trust him?”

  His eyes cleared, as if he couldn’t have been more bewildered by the question. “Of course, you know I do. I’d give my life for him. And for you.”

  I laid my
hand on his arm comfortingly. “Then you must step back. Stay in the city if that is my father’s orders. I understand you cannot disobey him. But Nico cannot know you are here in Brooklyn. He would think you and Batya have malicious agendas. That you’re working against him. Worse, that I’m working with you against him.”

  Dimitri canted his head to the side. “Do you care about your own safety, kotonoyok? Or about your husband’s feelings if he were to see us meeting?”

  I breathed through my nose as I decided how to answer that. I wasn’t sure I even knew the answer myself. “Right now, I only care about my father’s safety. That is all that is important to me.”

  After studying me for a few tense moments, Dimitri nodded. “Then rest easy. Nothing will happen to him. I will stay out of sight while I’m here. Unless there comes a time where I need to step in.”

  A loud horn blared on the street just behind us, making us both turn in that direction. Just an angry motorist—there didn’t seem to be any other kind in this city.

  When he turned back to me, his hand rose to cup my cheek, just like the day we’d said goodbye. His thumb brushed over my jaw, getting rather close to my mouth. His eyes darkened noticeably, but I ignored it.

  It was just Dimitri and the crush I knew he’d never act on.

  Because he would never betray Batya like that.

  “Don’t think that you can trust him, Alexia,” he said gravely. “The second you do is the second he’ll prove you wrong.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I only nodded.

  With his ominous warning ringing in my ears, Dimitri adjusted his hood. “Do zavtra.” Till tomorrow. Then he vanished around the corner.

  Okay, so recap.

  Nico said the Rossettis were basically mortal enemies of the five families.

  Dimitri said that all was not as it seemed.

  Who to believe?

  The man I’d known for nearly fifteen years, whom I trusted with my very life? And my father’s life?

  Or my husband of six days?

  “This is everything I could find on her,” Ace said as he dropped a thick manila folder onto my lap.

  I immediately scooped it up and started digging through the files. After learning of her Cambridge education, I was eager to know more about Lexi and what other secrets she was hiding. “Anything of particular import on your first glance?”

  Taking the opposite end of the leather couch in Dad’s den, Ace spread his arms out behind him. “Looks like you’ve got a smart one there, Nico. I couldn’t find any payouts from Sergei Kozlov to Cambridge or to any of the other prestigious schools in England she attended. And my search was very thorough.”

  Being the tech genius that he was, I believed him. Ace was a security specialist and unofficial hacker. If we needed information about anything or anyone that we didn’t have direct access to, Ace was our guy to make it happen. He could tap into nearly any government or law enforcement database, which had been extremely helpful as of late.

  “So, she got into Cambridge on her own,” I concluded. Sifting through page after page, I came across several photos from her modeling days, including one of her on the cover of Vogue. “And this was after her modeling career?”

  “Yeah, which sparked a few interesting questions.”

  I glanced up at him over the folder. “Meaning?”

  “Her contract with her modeling agency was rescinded before the termination date was reached. There was well over a year left of her representation period. And from what I read, she was the one who backed out.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “No reason was ever recorded.”

  Huh.

  Maybe she’d just gotten sick of that life? Wanted to go to school and get a degree? It was curious, though, why she would have given up a life of fame, notoriety, and wealth. Not that she didn’t have that as Sergei’s daughter. But as a model, she hadn’t been affiliated with the Russian mafia. She’d simply been Alexia Kozlov, international supermodel.

  “What else?” I flipped through more documents.

  “Well…she’s not Sergei Kozlov’s biological daughter.”

  Everyone’s heads jerked to Ace. Luka stopped his pacing in his usual spot in front of the fireplace. Cris and Rome sat bolt upright in the twin wingback chairs, slack-jawed.

  “What?” I blurted out, stunned.

  “You want to explain that?” Dad said.

  “He adopted her when she was seven,” Ace explained. “Plucked her from a tiny village in north Siberia. The adoption papers were mostly bare bones, some of them may have even been falsified. But there’s no record of her having any other family, nor how she wound up by herself. There were, however, medical records from a Russian hospital shortly after the adoption. Lexi was brought in for extreme malnutrition, dehydration, and protein deficiency.”

  Jesus.

  Who the hell had been taking care of her all that time? Where had she been living?

  “And Sergei never had any other children, correct?” Cris asked.

  Ace shook his head. “No. And we all know the story of Claudia Kozlov.” Everyone did in our world. “About five years before he adopted Lexi, Sergei’s wife had a miscarriage. It supposedly caused so many complications that she wasn’t able to have any more children after that. Rumor has it that she became so depressed she died of her own despair. Sergei never remarried after her passing.”

  The story of how deeply the tragedy of his beloved wife’s death affected Sergei was well-known in the mafia world. According to rumors, the Russian boss became a completely different man. Turned far more ruthless. Showed no mercy. Had little to no value for human life. I’d often heard it said that everything inside of him had died along with Claudia, leaving nothing behind but a rotten shell of a human being.

  “Odd that he never adopted a son,” Rome commented, turning to Dad. “You’d think he would have wanted an heir.”

  “Not if he wasn’t blood-related,” Dad replied. “The Russians take their bloodlines very seriously.”

  So, by all accounts, Sergei saved Lexi’s life when she was a kid. From the sounds of it, she could have died if he hadn’t found her. I rubbed the tension knot in my neck, trying to work out why the hell that bothered me so damn much.

  “Other than that,” Ace said, “there weren’t any surprises.”

  “Speaking of,” Cris said. “Do we know anything more about the shooting at Kozlov’s compound? Have we heard from Sergei directly?”

  “Only to confirm that he was alive,” I answered. Sergei had sent me a very brief message, letting me know he wasn’t dead. “Before I left Moscow, he told me if I don’t hear from him, I should assume everything is going according to plan. Otherwise, he’s going to stay radio silent until he gets the situation squared away.”

  My mind chose that moment to recall how Sergei’s bodyguard/righthand man—Dimitri—had looked at Lexi as we’d been walking out the door. The way he’d touched her. That last parting glance at her ass just before the shooting had started.

  The prick.

  “Have we identified the shooters?” Rome asked. “Was it the Voiny? If not, who do these guys work for?”

  “We don’t know, and no one has claimed responsibility for the attack. The one I fought was wearing a mask, and I didn’t exactly stick around to interrogate him.”

  “I’m working on accessing the security camera feeds at the compound from that day,” Ace cut in. “But it’s been a pain in the ass. Whoever set up the firewalls on that system knew what they were doing. It’s going to take some more time to get through them all.”

  “But we can at least assume it was the Voiny,” Luka speculated. “And that with Sergei going below ground, this is their opportunity to rise to power.”

  “I don’t give two goddamns what’s happening in Russia,” Dad snapped. “As long as it’s not directly impacting this family. They can deal with their own shit. Which brings us to the other matter at hand.”

  We all si
multaneously turned to our patriarch, giving him our undivided attention as he shifted gears behind his gleaming mahogany desk. I closed the folder on my lap. I would pour over it later tonight.

  “Raphael Esposito’s trial begins next week. We all know it’s going to turn into a media shit storm like no other, and God knows what Raphael’s defense team has in store for the prosecution. Although I have it on good authority that the prosecuting attorney, Carmen LaMacchia, has enough on him to put him away for five lifetimes. Connelly says she’s a bulldog in court.”

  He was referring to Bryce Connelly, NYPD detective and our close friend from the neighborhood. He was the only individual on the entire force that we wholeheartedly trusted. Hell, he was the only badge in this city who knew, for the most part, what we were about and hadn’t arrested us for it. He had a habit of looking the other way when shit went down with us that wasn’t entirely legal because he didn’t care for the corruption of the families any more than we did.

  Dad interlaced his fingers on top of the desk. “Cristiano has given LaMacchia his statement and agreed to testify in court regarding the night Raphael was arrested. Is everyone still in agreement about that?”

  Even though it was his friend Kade who had shot Raphael in the shoulder and ultimately beaten him half to death, Cris had been there that night and had taken out some of Raphael’s goons himself. All in self-defense, of course. But Cris was taking all the heat in order to keep Sam and Kade out of it.

  Ultimately, it was Cris’s decision to appear before a jury, but since we all shared the same name, his actions affected all of us. So, it came to a family vote, one we had to unanimously come down the same side on.

  A round of murmured yeses answered Dad’s question.

  “I think the bigger question is if Raphael is going to spill his guts about the Gabbianos for a lesser sentence,” Cris said. “There have been rumors that he’s going to implicate Santi and Dominic in a bunch of shit, which has the Sicilians awful anxious.”

  Santi’s trial was scheduled for next month, with Dominic’s following the month after. They’d been intentionally spread out so the media could capitalize on all the drama and attention.