Page 60 of Vicious Secrets
He balances his phone with his shoulder as he scrubs his face. Meeting my eyes in the mirror and grinning at me. Butterflies dance about my stomach.
“Give me twenty, and I’ll be there.” Siro ends the call and sets his phone aside. He curses under his breath as he reaches over me for the suit.
“Are Tiff and Danny okay?”
His lips press together, and his gaze is firmly on the sink. “Yeah. Tiff wasn’t home, and Danny doesn’t live with his parents…” Siro licks his lips and hangs his head. “What the fuck is going on between the Bratva and Renzo? Kidnapping a Consigliere from his house is an act of war, but Vi said… fuck, I have to see the house for myself.”
In an instant, my hand snaps up and rubs his back. The unspoken“no signs of forced entry”lingers in the air.
“If they’ll take Renzo, they’ll take any of us. I’m not coming home until I’ve ended Renzo’s fight and all of my men are safe. I don’t know how long it will take or when I’ll be back,” Siro says as he straightens himself. He turns to face me and cups my jaw with both hands. “Don’t forget that I love you, Robyn.”
“I won’t.” Tears prickle my eyes. Siro’s still hurting from my shitty excuse for keeping secrets from him. But I know, no matter how mad or frustrated he gets with me, he’ll never dangle ‘meeting my needs’ like a carrot on a stick. “I love you too, Siro.”
He leans down, and I rise up on my toes to meet him halfway. Our lips collide. What he likely intended to be a chaste, sweet kiss explodes in a heartbeat. Siro’s fingertips press into my skin as I devour his mouth. Our lips part, and our tongues dance. It doesn’t feel like a goodbye kiss, and I refuse to allow it to turn into one.
Breaking away, I rub his upper arms as I lower my heels to the ground. “Stay safe, for me.”
Siro smiles softly and tucks a lock of hair behind my ear. “Always.”
Siro
It’sonedisasterafteranother.
Vi was right. There are no signs of the Bratva breaking in. There are signs of a struggle, and based on the amount of blood and the way it’s smeared across the house’s foyer, I don’t think Renzo’s alive.
My aunt Tiff is shaken to the core. Every syllable that comes out of her mouth jumbles with the next. She wasn’t home when the attackers showed up, but she did receive a phone call from one of them. It takes us the better part of three hours to piece together the information from that call.
Renzo’s likely death is a good riddance, but it could lead to trigger-happy chaos. I can’t have rumors flying or my Capos going rogue. For now, there is an agreement between the small team I’ve assembled to keep this attack hush-hush. Ari, Danny, Vittore, Alic, and myself try to wrap our heads around what’s happening.
The details aren’t adding up right now, and although some weird things were said to Tiff over the phone, this doesn’t feel like a threat or a taunt. It’s missing all the hallmarks of sending a message through violence.
No, this is personal.
Renzo must have let the attackers into his house. Meaning he was working with them. They attacked him because his usefulness had run its course.
Since Danny first alerted me of Renzo’s weird behavior four months ago, Ari’s kept an extra eye and ear out for any places the Bratva might be stashing bodies.
By the evening, we have a lead on where my uncle’s body might be, and I head out with Ari.
Which turns out to be a mistake.
The second we see BratvaBrodyag, our eyes grow bigger than our stomachs, and red clouds our vision. We quickly discover these aren’t the expendables we’ve gotten used to fighting over the past few months. The second one of them grabs my shoulder, the red fog of rage separates my mind from my body.
I know I’m fighting back. I know I’m taking as many punches as I throw. I know I pull a gun straight out of another man’s hands. My conscious registers each of my actions as if it’s on a time delay. At some point, my suitcoat’s stab-proof lining becomes useless from the continuous damage, and I switch it with a dead soldier’s so no one pulls me out of the fight.
We find Renzo inside the warehouse, dead from multiple gunshots. There isn’t a note or hint in sight. Just an intact dead man on concrete and a pile of dead Russians in the doorway.
“If this is you getting regularly laid, I’m going to need Robyn to—”
I slam my fist into the thin metal wall, silencing Vi’s shitty joke. The pain of my knuckles splitting barely registers over the fury blinding me. The rage isn’t fading. Every few blinks, my vision swims, and I feel underwater. I can’t go home to Robyn like this. I don’t want her to see how the wrong touch continues to bring out the worst in me.
“To stop taking one for the team,” he finishes and throws a shop towel at my head. “You’re taking too many fights head-on, Siro.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” I growl and roll my shoulders. Blood oozes from wounds on my chest and upper arms. Too much of my own blood soaks my clothing, but it’s impossible for anyone but me to know that.
“Siro, I don’t think Vegas is under attack. If reinforcements were in town, they would have arrived by now.” Alic shakes his head, and his arms cross over his chest as he studies the corpse for the hundredth time. “There’s a van packed and ready to leave out back and a second set of tire tracks nearby. Whoever led the charge is long gone. His death”—he waves a hand at Renzo—“is one they reserve for their own: quiet, merciful, and quick.”
I swallow hard and have to narrow my eyes to focus on him. “Danny, burn the bodies—discreetly. Leave your father. We’ll deal with him in the morning.”
