Chapter 9 Trusted Allies

◆ MILES ◆

◆ Italy ◆

"What now?"

"He's livid. He's going to kill me this time."

Okay... Death threats at eight in the morning. Great.

Just commonplace for anyone in the trade, it seemed. Sleepless and enduring another headache, I opened the garage door to let in a seething Niccolo.

Between the two of us, I had often been the unpredictable one. The one with mood swings, temperament issues, familial grudges, and so on.

Except for that time when he tried to piss off my father by blackmailing me, Niccolo was my total opposite: he often behaved more maturely. Level-headed. The type who would think rationally before making a move. More in control of his emotions.

Until now. The guy looked like he just walked out of a horrific crime scene.

We stepped inside my garage to hide from the bodyguards and have some privacy. I knew something drastic and probably unlawful happened just judging by how Niccolo looked right now. I scanned the unmistakable trail of blood on his clothes; there were dark red stains on his wrinkled clothes. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to get my imagination brewing.

His baggy eyes and filthy shoes told a story, too. Wrinkles and dirt soiled his shirt and jeans, but neither was too dark for anyone to miss the patches of dried blood on the hem and along his pant leg.

Small red stains grimed his fingertips. Niccolo's scowl eased as he leaned against the wall of my cold garage. His chest moved visibly as he tried to steady his breathing, fists clenching at his sides.

"Remind me who we're gossiping about?" I mumbled, trying to keep my tone casual and light. I wasn't the poster boy for calmness and levelheaded behavior, but I had to try to wind him down first in order for me to know what really happened.

Niccolo ignored my question and kept glaring at the ceiling. "I'd rather do time but I won't think twice if Ilya tells me to shoot him in the head this time."

"Good morning to you, too." Great. Now he was talking about Ilya again, and the Russian mobs' plans to eliminate every single one of our clan members sometime in the near future.

"Your father's just fucking obsessed." Niccolo glared at the gray-painted walls, his voice and tone loud and full of ire. He swore out loud after a tense silence stretched into a moment of me just watching him try to control his ire.

I stayed put beside the light switch, deciding to hold in a caustic response to let the guy vent.

"He's gone insane."

"More than usual?" I smirked.

"Everything's gone tits up since that greedy psycho entered the picture. At least tell me you're planning something."

"But why's he going to kill you?" I forced a grin to let him know he need not be losing his temper if he wanted to talk to me about something important, especially if it involved my soulless father and whatever it was that left dried bloodstains on Niccolo's clothes. "Fuck did you do this time?"

"He found out I've been spying on him and Leandro." Niccolo scoffed. "The drug trafficking, I can tolerate. Sure. It's easy money, alright. But now he's smuggling teenagers in and out. Like fucking contraband." He clenched his fist and sighed out loud. "Talk to Ricchar. You gotta do something about it-fast."

"I'm trying." I sighed. The past weeks, I hadn't actually been that involved in the family business. I just couldn't find a weighty reason to still care about what my family had been doing behind closed doors.

Some days it almost felt like, even if I tried multiple times to right their wrongs and tell my father to quit dealing with the mobs, I wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. He and his money-drunk compadres wouldn't step out of the trade anytime soon-that much I was sure of.

Nothing was going to stop them from trying to dominate the network of organized criminals here in Europe and declare themselves to be the top of the food chain. Some people got off on just knowing they owned people and countless lives. It wasn't a matter of loyalty or attention; they just liked the idea of being in control of everyone around them.

It was why I made the decision to discourage Mykaela from talking or meeting up with Ilya again. She certainly didn't need that kind of bad influence and violence-magnet, big-time criminal paternal figure in her life, even though the man was in fact her biological father. I just hoped she would follow my advice this time.

"Simmer down." I grinned faintly at Niccolo, minding his escalating outburst and evident frustration.

"Your girlfriend almost got killed because of his piece of shit business partner and he's still kissing that psycho's ass like nothing happened."

Leandro Tomassini. Once again, the bastard was ruining everything I had planned. I would never forget that day I almost shot the guy in the head multiple times for hurting Mykaela. Hurting people despite having no valid reason was a pastime for that nutcase.

If it weren't for her choice to not press any charges and after her forcing me to just let it all go, I would have immediately ordered our best hitman to get rid of Leandro. Rid this world of another abomination. Too bad my father practically worshipped the psychopath and his clan of money and power-driven elitists who only lived for themselves.

In his defense, Leandro probably couldn't find a more willing and useful "business partner". No one had dared to approach him with a business proposal, as far as I knew. Considering Leandro's uncertain status in the world of organized crime and his infamous short fuse, I doubted the other Italian mob bosses took him seriously.

"Your father's got balls, I must say. First one to try to do lucrative business with me." That's what Leandro had told me while he was tentatively signing the dotted lines of that revised contract. As if the guy actually gave a crap about what that piece of paper said.

Well, I knew it was merely for formality, because weeks before that contract signing, I could already tell he and Pappa had secured a deal that would be mutually beneficial for their business ventures.

"I'm just done with his shit. Pathological liar." Niccolo swore again with a bigger scowl etching dimples on his cheeks. He only swore this much whenever he was genuinely irate, or scared and anxious.

Pappa Stefano must have threatened to actually kill him this time. Not just torture him for hours to show dominance. Then perhaps my cunning father blackmailed and threatened Nicco to try to control him for the rest of his life. For most of the time, anyway.

Of course Pappa would do that to Niccolo after he got caught spying on our clan. To keep his enemies closer...that kind of bullshit. Plus, Niccolo had abilities they constantly made use of in the family business.

"Wait. Ilya talked to you again?" I stared at the guy, curious enough.

Because of his above average tech and surveillance skills, Niccolo could still talk and meet up with his former boss without my father ever suspecting a thing. But maybe...Pappa had found out about Ilya planning something big again?

"You said Ilya stopped contacting you."

"Yeah. For a while. Because Erian finally paid him a visit and Ilya thought the guy would be his errand boy again." Niccolo shook his head. "That's his thing. Just wants someone he could boss around. Manipulate till he can't anymore."

As I listened closely, I chewed on my lower lip, recalling that day I had found out about Ilya's true identity and family background. The guy had actually been a protected informant before he got sucked into the world of organized crime, perpetually seduced by the allure of immense power and the promise of immeasurable wealth.

"What can we do? For now?" Niccolo looked to me again. "We gotta talk to Ricchar. Soon."

I sighed. "I'll figure somethin' out."

"There were kids in the container, Maxim." Niccolo sighed out loud and hit his forehead with his fists, looking more distraught and sounding morally dehumanized by what he just witnessed. "Those fucking Tomassinis, I swear-they're just monsters."

His anger and remorse convinced me of his innocence, but, I also shouldn't jump to conclusions, act on impulse, or hatch a plan in haste. First, I had to make sure Ricchar and my mother had nothing to do with the Tomassinis' atrocious crimes-Leandro, his father, and his uncles, especially-before we hashed out a course of action with Ricchar.

Insurance. I had to figure out the best possible way to put those cold-blooded criminals behind bars, without risking my whole family's freedom in the process. In all likelihood, they weren't innocent but I had to look out for them, too. "Just don't do anything drastic. Stop tracking them for now."

"Lorenzio's been trying to contact you." Niccolo glanced at me, but with a less irate expression now and a monotonous voice that told me he had calmed down a bit.

"Why?" I wondered, curious as to why Enzo would want to talk to me again. So, it was Enzo who had been leaving me messages a couple hours ago. Why did he need to talk to me? I thought he wouldn't want anything to do with me after I tried to beat him senseless at the hospital when Mykaela was still here in Italy.

What now? Did the guy file a lawsuit or something? I frowned at the possibility.

Why else would he talk to me again? I already got his batshit brother to sign the revised contract, as my father had instructed. Did Pappa need me to take on more corporate kiss-assing duties and personally deal with the Tomassinis again?

Fuck if I had to meet with Leandro another time, to discuss business or anything that required me and the guy staying in the same space for more than a minute. I swore at the thought. I might do something that would actually shove my soul straight to hell this time.

"Give him a call." Nicco walked past me and let out a loud sigh. "Sounded urgent."

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