His man. The end of his quest for vengeance. The fucking bastard who had shaken his hand.
Something niggled at the back of Nico’s mind. How the fuck did Tony know he had shaken hands with Dante? It wasn’t the traditional greeting a man would give to a new brother-in-law. Maybe Dante passed the details of the meeting to Don Cordano who passed them on to Tony. Maybe Tony had a spy in the Cordano house. Or maybe Mia’s betrayal went even deeper than he had thought.
“What the fuck is taking Luca so long?” They had been waiting for ten minutes in the parking lot outside a bar Dante was rumored to frequent for its high-stakes back-room gambling, but so far Dante hadn’t shown.
“There he is.” Mikey Muscles pointed to Luca’s black 300C.
Luca pulled up beside them, and Nico raged as soon as Luca opened the door.
“Christ. You drive like a nonna. Go with Mikey Muscles and see if he’s in there.” This was the sixth tip they’d had about Dante’s favorite haunts, and so far, they’d struck out five times.
“On our way.” Luca gave him a thumbs up before joining Mikey Muscles in a jog across the gravel.
Nico pulled out his phone and checked his messages while Frankie lit a cigarette. “Where is Big Joe? Why isn’t he coming in? The whole fucking world is going to shit. The one person who is always on time, never misses a fucking call, is not there when I need him.”
“He’s guarding Kat,” Frankie reminded him. “He can’t be in two places at once.”
“Tell him to take her home or to Mia’s place or wherever she wants. We’re done with the fucking Toscanis. And tell him to get his ass down to the clubhouse when he’s finished. We’ll meet him there.”
He had no responsibility toward Kat any more. As soon as Mia signed her papers, the annulment would go through in one to three days, and he wouldn’t have a sister-in-law in need of protecting. Nor would he have a wife.
Nico thudded his foot into a wooden fence bordering the parking lot. He hadn’t spoken to Mia since leaving his nonna’s house except to tell her he intended to get the marriage annulled before sending her home with Luca. He hadn’t asked for an explanation, and she hadn’t offered him one. It was clear why she’d kept quiet about Dante. She wanted to protect him from Nico’s wrath. But she’d made the wrong fucking choice because Dante was a marked man from the moment he pulled the trigger. And now that Nico knew the truth, there was nowhere Dante could run, no where he could hide. Nico was going to hunt the bastard down and put a bullet through his brain.
Part of him knew he was out of control, but the only way to deal with this fucking mess was to unleash the beast or he’d goddamn implode. And the one person who could soothe his pain had betrayed him.
“Fuck.” He kicked the fence again. “Dante can’t just disappear off the face of the earth. What’s the point in having hundreds of associates and soldiers when they can’t find a single man?”
“I keep telling you, go for the bodyguard.” Frankie puffed on his cigarette. “He’s more visible, more recognizable. And he’s not the kind of man who’s going to hide. He’ll lead you to Dante and then we can whack him. Rev is like a human shield. Dante will be vulnerable without him.” He tested the wooden fence and pushed the board Nico had dislodged back in place, before blowing out a stream of smoke.
“We’re not murderers, Frankie. There’s only one man I want dead, and then I am going to try and end this fucking war. If we clip Rev, then they’ll come after our guys, and we’ll go after their guys. It won’t stop until the streets run red with blood.”
“With all due respect…”
Nico raised his hand. “I don’t want to hear it. Everyone will be hitting the mattresses now. We need to focus our efforts on finding Dante before he disappears, if he hasn’t already.” He knew Frankie wanted him to lay low—hit the mattresses, too. But Nico didn’t hide. He didn’t run. And sure as hell didn’t stop looking for the man who had taken his father’s life.
“I’m trying to protect you,” Frankie said. “Less chance of you getting clipped if the bodyguard is out of the way.”
“I don’t need protection,” he snapped. “I need revenge. We’re done with that topic.”
“What about the topic of the girl you’ve been fucking brooding over all day. Why don’t you just call her?” Frankie blew a smoke ring and watched it fade away.
“What the fuck?”
“Call your girl. Save a fence.”
Nico punched the fence so hard, his hand went numb. “She’s not my girl; she was my wife. Although it turns out I didn’t know her at all.”
“She was trying to save her shit-for-brains brother. Seems to me that’s pretty consistent behavior for her.” Frankie always seemed so calm, and yet when Nico looked in his eyes he saw nothing but darkness, anger, and rage.
“She betrayed me.”