SWNOVELS When She Tempts: Chapter 31
De Rossi takes me to an office and shuts the door.
“Who the fuck is Polo?” De Rossi demands as soon as we sit down. “Martina wouldn’t say anything until you got here.”
I run my tongue over my teeth. When in doubt, say less.
“He’s my half-brother.”
De Rossi scowls. “And why would he want to betray you? Don’t make me interrogate you, Napoletano. I want the full story. Now.”
I lean back against the chair and wrap my palms over the arm rests. “I’ll tell you everything. I have no reason to hide this part of my history anymore. Polo and I have the same father.”
“The submarine.”
I give shake of my head. “Sal Gallo.”
De Rossi’s eyes widen, and a moment later, he’s out of his seat and whipping out his gun. “You’re Sal’s kid?”
I stare down the barrel. “I am.”
He disengages the safety. “You have thirty seconds to explain yourself before my bullet meets your skull.”
There used to be a time when having a gun pointed at me would at least raise the hairs on the back of my neck, but that was a long time ago. I crack my neck. “Sal raped my mother. You’re looking at the result.”
De Rossi’s forehead creases. “What the fuck.”
“My mother kept me, and her husband—the man you know as my father—agreed to not make a fuss and claim me as his own in exchange for a promotion. That’s how he became a submarine. That might have been the end of Sal’s involvement in my life, but someone up there-” I point my finger to the ceiling, “-decided he wasn’t done with me. Sal heard about a hacker working for the Secondigliano Alliance and discovered it was me—his kid.”
Comprehension slowly crisscrosses over his face. “That’s why they traded you to the Casalesi.”
I nod. “Blood ties run deep in the sistema. Even though I’d never met Sal until then, he was my father, so in some way, I belonged to him.”
De Rossi cocks his head. “Do you?”
“I’ve spent my entire life thinking about how I’m going to kill him.”
He huffs out a sardonic breath and lowers the gun. “You should have done less thinking and more doing. And Polo?”
“Another bastard. He’s never met Sal, but he’s built him up in his head. He wants to join the clan and get a taste of the life of a made man. He betrayed me. He’ll die for it.” That cross in my pocket? I’m going to shove it down Polo’s throat as he dies.
De Rossi takes a seat again and asks, “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me this earlier?”
“You never would’ve trusted me if you knew.”
“And I’m supposed to trust you now?”
“I did everything you asked of me.”
“You allowed your half-brother to assault my sister. She barely got away,” he snaps.
Yeah, I fucked up, but I can’t admit it. I need to bluff so that he gives me what I want. “I helped Martina. Your sister was a shell of a person when I picked her up, but I snapped her out of it. She used the skills I taught her to defend herself against Polo. She’s a brave woman. It was Polo this time, but it could have been anyone. At least now she’s not a sitting duck. She needed someone to look out for her, and that’s exactly what I did. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed the difference already.”
His chest rises and falls as he scowls at me, but when he doesn’t answer right away, I know my point landed.
“She does seem better,” he finally admits. “But I’m not happy, Napoletano. I want you here until this over. Sal knows you’re on my side now, so there’s no point in sending you away. This needs to end soon.”
I meet his gaze. “First, I’d like to collect my favor.”
“You don’t waste any time.”
“I want to be the one to kill Sal.”
There’s a long, drawn-out silence, and then he laughs, but it’s humorless. “You either have a fucked-up sense of humor, or you’re not as smart as everyone says you are. If you wanted to challenge me, the smart time to do it would’ve been when you still had my sister.”
“I don’t want to be don. I only want to be the one who ends him.”
De Rossi shakes his head. “You know that’s not how it works. I have to be the one who does it for my claim to be uncontested. We don’t have time for a protracted struggle for the throne.”
“We put you, me, and Sal in one room and lock the door. When the door opens, he’s dead, and we tell everyone you killed him. No one will question it.”
He scoffs. “You make it sound so easy. You’ve got it all figured out, huh? But it seems you’ve forgotten that Sal isn’t just anyone to me either.” His eyes darken. “He killed my father. Exiled me from my home. Repeatedly put Mari in danger. It’s personal for me too, and there’s no way in hell I’m going to give up the pleasure of choking that fat throat.”
I realize then that he won’t do it. “I thought you were a man of your word.”
“You know what you’re asking for is beyond unreasonable. If you wanted to kill him so badly, you should have done it by now. Why didn’t you?”
“Like I said, I have no interest in running the clan.”
“You could have killed him and left the clan behind. Let someone else deal with the consequences.”
“I’m not the kind of man who makes a mess and expects someone to clean it for him. Enough people have already died because of Sal. If I’d killed him and left behind a power vacuum, a war far bloodier than the one you caused would break out.”
De Rossi scoffs. “When did you become such a fucking humanitarian? Don’t tell me you give a shit about the men we do business with.”
“I don’t. But I give a shit about people like Martina—innocent people who were born into this life. I don’t want those deaths on my conscience, De Rossi. I waited for an opportunity that would allow me to do this cleanly, and reasonable or not, I’m getting what I want.”
He looks at me like I’ve lost it. “I already said—”
I would push him harder on keeping his word, but it won’t be enough. I need to add more to the bargain. “What’s your plan? Have you gathered the support you need?”
He considers me with narrowed eyes and then stands up and walks over to a pour us some whiskey. “Not yet.”
“I know now why Moretti and De Rosa backed out of the meetings. Sal told them he had a lead on Martina. This must have happened after Polo got in touch with him.”
“Yeah, well, he’s definitely not getting her now. But our progress has slowed, no matter how we try to push it along. There’s hesitation.”
I take a glass from him and take a sip. “You need me, De Rossi. Things aren’t going the way you thought they would. Sal’s managing to hang onto his support because you haven’t been a presence in Casal for many years. Sal’s got a lot of flaws, but at least everyone knows what those flaws are. You, on the other hand, are a mystery. No one likes the unknown.”
“That’s why I’m negotiating with all of these people in person,” he argues.
“Yes, but building a relationship takes time, and you’re running out of it. You can’t afford to play the diplomat any longer. This situation calls for a dictator.”
He sits down across from me and scratches his chin, appearing to think it over. “Bend the knee or else… I didn’t want to involve mercenaries in internal clan business, but I don’t have enough firepower without them to make do on that kind of threat.”
“You don’t need to threaten their lives, just their money.”
His eyes flash with intrigue. “What are you proposing?”
Something I told myself I’d never do.
I can reveal to him all of the secret stashes I’ve put in place for the families.
If I do this, my reputation is done.
No one will ever trust me again, but… Fuck. It’s worth it. If I was willing to give Mari away for this, what’s another sacrifice?
“Most of the families keep a large portion of their personal cash and valuables in secured storage facilities I designed. I know where they’re located, and I’ve built backdoors into the security systems.”
The slackening in De Rossi’s expression tells me he understands the implications of this. “So you have access to the clan’s riches,” De Rossi mutters.
“Not everything, but a lot of it. Say the word, and I can lock it all down. There’ll be panic, and it will be enough to turn the tide in your favor.”
He sinks backward into his chair. “And all you want in exchange is…”
“To be the one to kill Sal.”
He swirls his whiskey inside his glass, and then looks up and meets my eyes.
“Deal.”