Page 8 of By Blade, I Love
“Leo seemed genuinely horrified when Warren shot my father,” she whispered. “And he did help me escape.”
“I think sometime before I joined the syndicate, your father told him that you were going to take over, and that’s when the seeds of betrayal were planted. He didn’t anticipate how much of a deterrent I would be.”
“It makes me so sad,” she said with a heavy breath. “My father distrusted you all this time, and you were the only one who had his back.” She gave a shake of her head. “You literally saved his life…my life…the vineyard.”
“Until I didn’t.” Because I’d been at her villa when she’d called, and I hadn’t had my weapons or gear to save her. Her house had been emptied of the guns she’d stored there, and I’d even broken in to Leo’s house but couldn’t find his stash. So I’d had to drive all the way back to my place and get everything I needed before I could come back to help. If I’d just been at my house in the first place, it might have been different.
“It’s not your fault, Wolfe.” Her eyes showed her pain and her sincerity, looking at me with the same affection she always possessed. “There’s only one person to blame here—and I want his head on a platter.”
“And I’ll bring it to you.”
I sat on the terrace around the fountain by tall olive trees in planters with red geraniums overflowing from little pots on the brightly colored tile. It was an indoor-outdoor courtyard, a place where you could sit outside without a sniper able to pick you off.
I was there alone for a while before someone joined me.
“Wolfe.” He approached me with a slight smile on his face, his hand outstretched.
I stared at him for a while before I rose to my feet. “Uncle Marco.” I gripped his hand and shook it.
“You look good.”
“I always look good,” I said with a smirk.
“Still the same arrogant son of a bitch, I see.”
“Some things never change.”
He gave another smirk before he sat in one of the other cushioned armchairs. He wore a black bowler hat with a buttoned-up linen shirt and brown jeans. “So, you’re back in the game, huh?”
“I never left the game—just changed teams.”
He gave a slight nod. “You’re on the right team now.”
“It’s a temporary position. When Icarus is gone, so am I.”
He grabbed his pipe and lit up before he got the smoke going. “We’ll see.”
“You don’t believe me.” I cocked my head as I looked at him.
He crossed one ankle on the opposite knee before he looked back at me. He drew in the smoke before he released it as a cloud. “I’ve heard this story a hundred times.”
“What story is that?”
“You fall in love with a pretty girl and think it’s time to settle down.” He pulled the pipe out of his mouth and let it sit between his pinched fingers, his arm resting on the armrest. “And you fuck and fight and maybe pop out a kid or two, and then the haze fades. The love is still there, but the excitement and addictive rush that she’d replaced from Cosa Nostra ends. And then you chase it once more. So you end up back here, a little older anda little wiser, back to the life you swore you’d leave behind. It happens every time.”
I stared at him, my fingers curled into a fist and tucked under my chin.
“This isn’t a job you do. It’s who you are. And you’ll always be Cosa Nostra.”
I watched him breathe in the smoke from his pipe as the water continued to splash the tiles of the fountain. It sounded like a waterfall in the background. “I’m going to avenge Don Mancini and return the syndicate to its rightful owner. And then I’ll serve her in whatever way she wishes.”
“And even if all of this works out for you, do you want your woman in that kind of position?”
I nearly took his words as an insult. “I would never let anything happen to her.”
He gave a shrug. “You probably said the same thing about her father, and he got a bullet in the brain.”
Now, that one really did feel like an insult. Like I was the one who’d failed him, when he’d failed to heed my warnings. No matter how I proved myself to him, his perception was always steeped in doubt.
