What the fuck was that?
The girls scream, and I hug them tight against me. “Stay here,” I say, my voice quivering. “I’m going to find Mom and Dad.” I leap up from the floor and dart into the plumes of smoke billowing out of the kitchen doorway, sidestepping bodies lying on the floor.
Please no, please no, please no!
The thick smoke gathers in the back of my throat, my airway singed with soot.
“Mom!” I rasp. “Dad!”
I try to run but my legs are limp like overcooked spaghetti noodles, wobbly, weak, and utterly useless. A sigh of relief makes my shoulders slump when I see them slowly rise to their feet in the center of the massacred cake.
In my periphery, I see a shadow move toward the back window along the back of the house.
A gloved hand appears against the glass, pointed directly at them both.
My mouth opens but my lips refuse to form the words.
I claw at the air in front of me as if the smoke cloud is a concrete wall separating me from my parents. “Mom! Dad!”
This time, my words pierce the air and they grip one another tight, covered in black ash.
“Get down!” I scream a split second too late.
Crack! Pop!
Two shots.
Two lives.
Extinguished.
Forever.
Chapter Six
MASSIMO
“Listen, I’m tired of your fucking games. You brought me here for a reason and I want to know what—"
My next terse words are cut off by a loud explosion coming from deep within the Ivankov house across the street.
Shit.
We were just inside that house.
And a lot of people still are, including Kristina and her family.
Window panes shatter, shards of glass flying through the air from the force of the explosion. Streams of heavy gray smoke swirl out of the side of the house.
“What the fuck just happened?” Savio barks.
But I just stare wordlessly at the people flying out of the front door, screaming, crying, and shouting for help. They’re all in the same uniform of crisp white shirts and black pants, so I bet they’re with the catering company hired to handle the party.
Except there is nothing to celebrate at this moment.
And most of the shirts I see are no longer a crisp white.
From what I could tell, it had been a happy home.
I’ve never had one of those, courtesy of the fucking asshole flanking my right.
But I don’t have time to unpack that shit right now.
My eyes scan the path leading up to the house and I see lots of panicked faces, save for five.
None of the Ivankovs have come out of the house yet.
“The Juarez Cartel,” Savio mutters.
“Oh, you mean the cartel you told Anton not to worry about?” I snap. “Looks like he wasn’t overreacting after all.”
Savio’s face pales as he stares at the plumes of smoke billowing out the windows on the back of the house. “I told him he needed more security.”
“That’s why I’m here, to save your life if someone threatens it with a bomb?” I lift an eyebrow, turning off the ignition. “You sure you want to put that kind of trust in me? We don’t have the best history.” Sarcasm laces my words, ire bubbling deep in my chest.
Calm the fuck down and think about Joey…you’re here for him, not for Savio.
“I know exactly what kind of incentive you need to do this job,” he seethes. “And I have constant eyes on that incentive, don’t you forget that.”
My spine stiffens and the urge to shoot him in the head grabs hold.
“We need to get back in the house and find out what happened. I need to know who is in there, if it’s anyone suspicious. There is a lot at stake, a lot I need to protect. I can’t risk that these people will come after the other syndicate partners.” Savio pauses. “You work for me now, Massimo. Remember? Don’t challenge me or you know exactly what I will do.”
Yeah, I know all too well.
He has me backed into a corner, trapped like a fucking rat.
I push open the door of the car and walk back toward the house, Savio on my heels.
Chicken shit dickwad.
He’d let me take a bullet or a bomb for him without blinking an eye.
The absolute antithesis of a doting father.
Another wave of people prepping for the party stumbles out of the house in a daze, covered in soot and dust. Streaks of blood stain their faces and clothes and they clutch one another, crying, muttering, and thanking God for sparing their lives.
I push my way into the front door, eyeing the carnage sprawled on the floor in the kitchen, the few who weren’t as lucky.
Sirens already blare in the distance of the affluent Long Island neighborhood.
Rich people never have to wait for anything.
The world is at their beck and call.
At least, that’s how my father sees things. And if the world doesn’t abide by his wishes, he just picks a target and destroys it. Rinse and repeat until he gets what he wants.
For years, he has done just that in the quest to create his empire.
He’s stolen, he’s looted, and he’s killed all in an attempt to take over the underworld.
And he’d sell his soul to the devil to protect it.
Me, he never gave a shit about protecting.
But his legacy?
That is worth everything to him. Every penny, every casualty, every sacrifice.
To my father, there is nothing more valuable than power.
Nothing, including his own family.
But Savio doesn’t realize that I’m not the angry and sullen kid who left home at age sixteen to make my own way in the world after I watched him almost kill my mother.
I am someone else entirely, someone who will threaten everything he is and everything he has.
Because the evil that runs through his veins runs through mine too.
I’ve just been waiting for the opportunity to unleash it all over him.
And now that I have it, I will use every weapon in my arsenal to get what I want…Savio, cut off at the knees, stripped of everything, begging for my mercy.
Not that he’ll ever get it, motherfucker that he is.
So I’ll let him think that I’m here to safeguard his livelihood.
And the revenge will taste so sweet on my tongue when I walk away knowing I crushed it instead.
I just need to bide my time.
I inch toward the kitchen, covering my face with one of the sides of my jacket so the toxic cloud doesn’t asphyxiate me. From the look of the room, the bomb definitely did its job.
The explosion had everyone scattering like cockroaches, except for the targets.
In a corner near the back window, I see two ash-covered bodies crumbled in a heap on the floor.
Anton and Kira Ivankov.
Their faces are stained charcoal, but I can still make out their features. Matching pools of blood spread onto the ceramic tile floor beneath them.
Kristina is on the floor next to them, pressing her head against their chests, her upper body quivering as she does some sort of examination of their motionless bodies.
I jog over to her, dropping to my knees. “We heard the explosion and came back. Are they…?”
Tears stream down her cheeks. “I saw it happen,” she whispers. “I saw the shooter in the backyard.”