Page 53 of Forsaking All Others

“The problem is . . .” I sighed. “We don’t need cameras to tell us when someone is cheating. We have the best eyes in the business on this place, and they all seem to be pointing in the same direction.”

I let my words settle, watched Joey blink too much and Mario not at all. But it was Serena who surprised me, her lips a thin, pale line, dampness curling the baby hairs at her temples.

“What I don’t understand,” I said slowly, as the dealer flipped the last card on the river and revealed a diamond jack, “is why take the risk when this person already has everything they could want?”

“Who the fuck are you talking about?” Joey demanded, blotting his brow with his four-fingered left hand.

It forced me to remember a story Luigi had told me years ago about Joey; how he had lost his pinky to Dario’s favorite keris knife after Joey backed Lando instead of Dario in his first bid for control in his mid-twenties.

He wasn’t nervous because he’d done anything wrong now, but because he knew better than anyone else what it was like to cross a Ferretti.

“You wouldn’t risk everything you’ve worked so hard for unless you had guarantees from someone powerful,” I mused, flipping one of my hundred-dollar chips through my knuckles, a trick my brother Ricco had taught me as a girl. “So either it’s someone outside the Mafia entirely . . . the Bratva, maybe? The Pakhan, Maksim Aslanov, has always hated Dario.”

Mario fidgeted with his gold cuff link, his fleshy face flushed, and the Fiori brothers shifted uneasily at the name of the Russian mob boss in Chicago. Maksim had been the one to kill their youngest brother five years ago.

But Serena and Joey didn’t bat an eye.

Nor, interestingly enough, did Tony.

“Or is someone within our own Family backing you?” I continued as everyone still in the game revealed their hands. Only then did I fan my winning pair of queens down on the black felt table. “Seducing you with false promises.”

“No one would be so stupid as to go against Dario,” Michael said with an awkward guffaw. “It’s suicidal. Dario would kill him and destroy his entire family.”

“Ah, but this person might not have a family,” I corrected as I gathered my winnings from the center of the table. “Every man, or woman, for themselves.”

Serena offered me a small smile. “I think you’ve been spending too much time with your husband, Fia. You are using intimidation tactics to take all our money!”

I laughed, as she’d meant me to, and everyone else followed, the tension dissolving slightly.

I didn’t want Serena to know that she had leaped into first place as my prime suspect. Without evidence on hand, I had to proceed delicately. Maybe one of the people cheating in the casino would give her up, but I doubted it. She was clever enough to become a capo under Dario, so she was clever enough to cover her tracks.

When you were hunting a predator, I’d learned, you always had to lay your traps very carefully. They had a sixth sense for these things.

“Oh, there’s nothing funny about someone moving against my family,” I said, still smiling as I carefully arranged my chips in front of me. Tony started dealing a new hand. “There is nothing funny about what Dario will do to Tony when he realizes what he’s been up to here.”

Serena didn’t flinch, but then, she was a seasoned criminal.

It was Tony who gave up the act with a small distressed cry, pushing away from the table and tripping when Luigi snagged hold of his shirt. Tony grabbed fistfuls of chips and hurled them at Luigi, distracting him enough to lunge out of the hold and sprint for the door.

I clicked my fingers and Cerberus was suddenly there, leaping at the escaping man with the force of a bullet train, taking him to the floor, where the dog pinned him beneath his body, growling and snapping in his face. When Tony tried to hit Cerberus, Luigi was there with his gun drawn and leveled down at the prone man’s face.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” he said almost conversationally. “The lady is very fond of her dog.”

Chapter Fifteen

Dario

Everything was coming apart at the fucking seams.

The Outfit had controlled Chicago with an iron fist for decades, but in the last five years, it seemed every damn criminal organization was determined to test our authority.

I wasn’t a man who enjoyed chaos. Control, organization, and cool heads always prevailed, but I’d struggled for that control ever since it became obvious there was one faction puppeteering the rest against me. I just didn’t know who it fucking was.

The Irish were too unorganized and preoccupied with underground fighting and simple drug dealing on the streets of Chicago to even know what to do with all my power if they successfully usurped me.

The Sicilians had been complacent for years, happy to dance to the tune of my drum so long as I kept the money flowing. Fiammetta’s father had been an impossible man to replace, but we hadn’t wanted a strong, independent capo dei capi in the south. We wanted a ventriloquist dummy I could control with my hand up their ass. Felipe Malatesta was exactly that, greedy enough to take over the Cosa Nostra and smart enough to accept my control over both it and him.

The Russians, on the other hand, were smart enough and reckless enough to go toe-to-toe with me, even though I had a past and an understanding with Maksim Aslanov. We had promised each other years ago, after a woman we both loved had been killed because of the feud between our people, that we would not deliberately cross each other again. They had been steadily growing in power and influence since Maksim took power, but the last half decade had found them slowly infiltrating spaces only we had previously occupied. It was as if they had insider information, though it was difficult to believe that of one of the only men I’d ever had reason to trust. After Fiammetta’s abduction, Maksim had even proven his word was good by giving me access to Afansay’s and Daniil’s homes, so I could weed out their motivations for myself and prove Maksim free of their crimes.