Page 73 of His Savage Vow
“I’ll get everything we need and see you soon. Goodbye, Maximo.”
“Bye, Leonard, talk to you soon.”
As soon as I disconnect the call Constance steps out of the bathroom. She’s wrapped in a bathrobe and has her hair piled up in a towel on her head.
“How is everything this morning?” she asks as she begins uncovering the breakfast plates. The color drains from her cheeks as she uncovers a platter of bacon, and the smell fills the room.
“Leonard said my mother is helping him with the funeral arrangements. He’ll be here at noon to pick us up with some armor. Are you okay? You look like something spooked you.”
“I’m fine,” she grits out through clenched teeth before picking up a glass of orange juice and sipping at it. “It’s nerves. My stomach’s been off all morning.”
I nod in understanding. “After my father passed away, and I first took over the family business, I used to have a terrible time eating. Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to stomach anything for days.”
“Then you understand.” She gives me a wan smile as she picks up a piece of toast to nibble at a corner. “So, Leonard is going to bring vests? Those things are so uncomfortable; the way they compress my breasts is aggravating. Still, I’d rather have it and not need it, then not have it and get shot again.”
I snort as I pick up a slice of bacon and devour it, suddenly realizing I’m ravenous. As I dig into the plates of food, I look at Constance and remind her, “Don’t forget what I said. You stay in the truck. I’m going to park it so that if things go sideways, you just have to press the gas and drive straight out of there. You don’t look back. You head back to the house. Do you understand me?”
Her lips press in a thin line of discontent. I’m not sure if it’s for my words, or if it’s still just the food offending her. Either way, she eventually gives me a curt nod.
I don’t believe her, of course. Not for a second. And thatvery willfulness is one of the things that I wouldn’t change about her even if I could.
The junkyard looms before us, rusting towers of twisted steel and flattened cars. To anyone else it’s scrap metal and rust. To me, it’s a graveyard that’s buried more enemies than any cemetery in the city.
The on-site supervisor opens the gate without question when Leonard pulls up and beeps the horn. He knows better than to ask what this meeting is about.
Constance sits in the SUV beside me, her body full of tension. She’s too quiet. I can practically feel her anger humming beneath her skin like a live wire.
“Park so we’re facing out towards the gate,” I instruct Leonard before turning my attention to Constance.
“Remember what I told you. You stay here, in the driver’s seat. If everything goes well, you’ll join me once the Volkovs are secured. If it doesn’t, you get the hell out.”
“And you need to be careful.” She grips my arm tightly and pulls me over to her for a kiss. “I know you have a plan, but these people are dangerous…”
I interrupt her with another kiss. “So am I, firefly,” I whisper against her lips. “Now, watch my back and see why I’ve been on top of the family for all these years.”
Just before 2 p.m., a white Bentley Bentayga pulls through the gate that I ordered the supervisor to leave open for our guests. The windows are too heavily tinted for me to make out who is inside, but I have no doubt that this is Il Diavolo Bianco himself.I brace myself to leap back into the Escalade at the first sign of trouble, but the Bentley cruises right past us and into the junkyard. It prowls through the stacks, going back and forth across the yard until finally pulling up by the row of trucks Enzo’s surviving crew arrived in earlier. There are a dozen men with me, none of them openly carrying a weapon, but all with pistols close at hand. A moment later the smiling devil, Salvatore Bianchi, throws open the passenger door of the Bentley and steps out with his arms spread wide in greeting.
“Maximo and Leonard too! I apologize for being overly cautious, but my associates were concerned that your choice of locales might be some sort of ambush. You’ve certainly brought quite a few people with you. You’re not planning anything drastic, I hope?”
As he pulls his phone out of his pocket and sends a text, his driver gets out of the car holding a security wand. Another of his associates opens the rear door and steps out, this one holding a laptop computer that he opens on the hood of the Bentley, before pulling up a window that appears to be a conference call.
Salvatore’s driver makes a show of waving the wand over himself, the man at the computer, and then Salvatore himself, before finally turning to me. “We’re here as mediators. We’re not armed, as you can see.”
“Am I supposed to find that reassuring? Where are the Volkovs, Salvatore?” I demand.
“Maximo, please ask dear Constance to step out of the truck. She’s an important part of our discussions, after all,” Salvatore says as he smiles at me.
“No, I don’t think so. And I’m only going to ask politely one more time. Where the hell are the Volkovs? If this is an ambush, if you’ve double-crossed me again…”
“I never double-crossed you.” Salvatore’s smile falters ashe waves at his man who has been working on the laptop. “The Russians fed me the same lie about the Chinese moving in on your turf, and I passed it along to you. I was embarrassed when I realized what they had done, and for my part in any of this unpleasantness, I apologize. I never could have foreseen things getting so far out of hand. Now, Frank, is everything ready for the meeting?” he asks as he turns his attention to the laptop.
When his man, Frank, turns the laptop around on the hood of the Bentley to face all of us, I nearly laugh out loud. It’s a goddamn video call. Not what I expected.
Several faces fill the screen. I recognize Alexei Volkov immediately, and a moment later, another of the men, a Bratva elder named Sergei Ivankov. There are others I don’t know, who may have even been dialing in from Russia. These are cold, impassive men whose power stretches across the ocean, and who have brought war to my home.
“Mr. Luciani,” Sergei begins speaking in a heavy accent. “We extend our condolences. The exuberance of our associates… it has created misunderstandings. This was never meant to escalate so far.”
A misunderstanding. That’s what they fucking call it. Murder. Fire. Betrayal. All just a misunderstanding? It’s complete bullshit.
