Page 44 of Captive Bride: Armani
“Do you?” Dante says. “I’m not convinced. When you said you were going to test her to see if she’s a mole, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
This isn’t what I had in mind either, but I’m not about to admit that. Giving Candi the tour had unexpected consequences, that’s all. Expensive ones.
“There are a lot of moving pieces in play,” I start to explain.
“For fuck’s sake!” Dante interrupts. Then he takes a deep breath, reverting to his usual cool exterior. But I know he must be boiling over inside. “Let’s not pussyfoot around. Fucking Brunos did this. I know, you know, we all know. Meaning they’ve set aside the ceasefire, and fuck the consequences. So. We need to consider ourselves back at war now.”
For a moment, all of us are silent. Marco looks like he’s in shock. My adrenaline kicks in.
We’re back at war with the Brunos.
I never trusted those bastards when we made the truce. I’m surprised it took this long.
Marco starts cursing again, in Italian now, pacing away from us as he pulls out his phone, I’m betting to call his wife—Sergio Bruno’s niece, who has no love for her estranged family.
“I’m not keeping Frankie in the dark anymore either,” Dante continues. “I’ve been keeping the Candi thing to myself, but she needs to know everything now. I have to keep her and the baby safe. I’ll give you a week to clean this up.”
“My plan isn’t failing, it’s just off-track. It’s still going to work,” I insist. “Trust me. And for Chrissakes, don’t tell your wife what’s going on. Not yet, okay? I just need another week.”
“Fine. One week,” Dante repeats with a scowl, and then turns and walks away.
“It’ll be sooner,” I call to his retreating form, with a confidence I don’t feel.
God, I hope I can turn this shitshow around. And fast. It’s clear that my brothers have lost faith in me, but I don’t need their permission to do what I need to do, and calling things off with Candi isn’t going to happen. This is the nature of war, is it not? Things don’t go as planned, your enemy makes an unexpected move, and suddenly you have to pivot.
But no matter how much I try to mentally bob and weave, I can’t lie to myself—this is all my fault. I’d willingly brought Candi here, walked her through every last detail of our shipping operations. I expected her to leak the intel about our imaginary operative to the Brunos, not tell them exactly where and when we’d be loading our latest shipment. I fucked up and I know it.
I also know that it’s officially time to up my game now. Time to bring out the big guns. I need to stop underestimating her.
And I need to make sure she doesn’t suspect a thing.
A little thrill goes through me, warming my blood. I won’t be waylaid by some good pussy. I’m a war general. I was born for this.
And I always come out on top.
16
CANDI
“I think I made a mistake,”I blurt, staring at the tiny sweater in my lap.
Frowning, I look over at Frankie, who is busy sorting through a laundry basket of baby clothes across the room. Her face is flushed; it’s clear she’s overwhelmed. I would be, too, with the mess inside the nursery right now.
The walls were recently painted a soothing, soft aqua and the custom-made cream-colored baby furniture is all assembled and put in place. There’s an adorable mobile with felted stars and animals hanging over the crib, and an outrageous pink ostrich feather floor lamp by the rocking chair. An upholstered window seat fills a three-sided nook overlooking the back gardens. It’s the perfect mix of sophisticated and sweet.
But boxes of baby accoutrements are overcrowding every surface. There’s a bouncy seat, a playmat, piles of plushies and toys and diapers and blankets, a rose gold and black stroller that I would definitely not be shy about pushing around town, a baby monitor…and endless mountains of baby clothes from the baby shower, all freshly washed and dried.
We’re working on folding them all now, along with burping cloths, quilts, blankets, and the smallest socks I’ve ever seen.
“Don’t worry about it. There’s no way to properly fold a sweater that small,” Frankie says with a laugh. “Everything’s going into drawers anyway. I can’t thank you enough for offering to help me. I’ve been procrastinating on organizing all this stuff for weeks.”
Setting aside a stack of little burp cloths with sheep and moons on them, I pick at some imaginary lint. “That’s not what I meant. I meant…I think I made a mistake moving in with Armani.”
That catches her attention, and her brows knit with worry. “Oh. I’m sorry. What’s been going on?”
“Nothing, really,” I say, wishing I didn’t have to lie.
It’s been impossible to shake what Sergio Bruno planted in my mind about the Bellantis. I can’t stop seeing images in my mind of scared young women being herded into those metal shipping containers, getting drugged and shipped off to a life of horror and abuse. That’s why I felt no remorse when Armani told me there was a fire at their warehouses and that their barge, inventory, and shipment got destroyed.
