Page 41 of Captive Bride: Armani
Then again, he doesn’t have to be a user to be a participant. Illegal drugs are a serious source of income. Women, too. And weapons. His distaste for those industries is no guarantee he’d refuse to profit from them. Oh, God.
Juliana gives me a sympathetic smile. “How haven’t you figured this out yet?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble, my eyes tearing up. “They’re cagey, and they’re paranoid about taking precautions. They meet in secret and they hide everything they do, incredibly well.”
Sergio slaps a hand on the table, rattling plates, sloshing wine over the rims of glasses.
“Enough with the excuses! You’d better start paying attention!” he roars.
My heart lurches into my throat, fear paralyzing me. Not because of Sergio’s anger, but because those bad things Armani talked about earlier…what if they live inside Armani, too?
“Shh, it’s okay. Tell us about the shipments, and we’ll intervene,” Jules says soothingly.
I give them the warehouse numbers, blotting my tears with my cloth napkin. Sergio storms out afterward with his armed guards, leaving me and Juliana to finish a meal that I can’t even stand to look at anymore.
I’ve been a fool. I need to stay focused, quit playing house with Armani, and stop losing sight of the fact that if the Bellantis can do shit like this, they’re the greater of two evils.
They need to be stopped, at any cost.
15
ARMANI
“Armani!”Dante yells across the hall into my office. “We’ve got a fucking situation.”
Before I’m fully out of my desk chair, he appears in my doorway, radiating tension.
“What happened?” I blurt, hand already on the butt of my gun.
“Fire at the docks. Arson, it looks like.”
I feel the blood drain from my face. “And the warehouses?”
“We were the target,” Dante confirms. “Marco’s getting a car. Let’s move.”
Grabbing my phone, I check for missed calls as I follow my brother out of the Bellanti offices, a few bewildered employees staring at us as we quickly stride past them. Dante rarely loses his cool, and I doubt most of these people have ever seen him looking anything but calm and collected. Ruby, our loyal longtime receptionist, gives me a curt nod, silently communicating that she’ll nip any watercooler gossip in the bud while we take care of things.
Marco is waiting in a blacked-out SUV in the driveway. Dante and I climb in, and Marco floors it before the car doors are even closed, gravel shooting out from under the tires. I shove my phone back in my pocket, disgusted. Eyes and ears all over Napa and I don’t have a single missed call or message about a fire? These fuckers worked fast, whoever they are.
Not that there’s much doubt in my mind who’s responsible.
“What’s the status?” I growl at Marco, grabbing onto the armrest as he skids onto the freeway onramp with a squeal of rubber. “Jesus, and try not to kill us on the way there.”
Dante glances at me from the passenger seat, a wry smirk on his face. “C’mon, man. Baby bro is a big shot race car driver, what’d you expect?”
“You’re the one who asked me to drive,” Marco shoots back at Dante.
Dante scoffs. “Yeah, because you were the only one not in the office today, per usual—”
“Enough,” I cut them off. “Marco. Status.”
“Frederica called,” he says, all the humor gone from his voice. “The fire originated in warehouse 114, then all our shipping containers went up in flames one by one on the dock. Two were empty, one was full, one was still being loaded.”
“How much inventory is lost?” I ask. “What’s the bottom line?”
“Eh, I don’t—”
“Fuck that, what about ourworkers?” Dante interrupts, voice taut with concern. “Were there any casualties? We can make more wine, for fuck’s sake.”
