Devil You Know: A Dark Mafia Enemies to Lovers Romance (The Diavolo Crime Family Book 2)

by J. L. Beck

  I wave at the map. “How long have you been tracking his phone? And why?”

  Soo levels me a look. “Because your brother has been acting strangely. He’s never where he’s supposed to be these days, and he completely missed helping plan the event tonight. Now I guess I see why. He’s been busy.”

  He has a point. Leading up to Celia’s auction, I’ve barely seen Lucas, the last time being when I caught him and Celia together in my office. The image of her touching him shoots a new hole in the tattered remains of my control.

  “What can we do about this mess? Can you remove his fake leads so we can see where he’s been?”

  Soo shakes his head. “No, I can’t. We need more data to layer over this. It might help us narrow down his authentic movements better.”

  I fist my hands at my sides. “What kind of data? My patience is wearing thin.”

  “You think he’ll hurt her?”

  How can I possibly know what’s inside my little brother’s head? My brother is an enigma. He hides his pain, his rage, beneath layers of broken glass. There is no reaching him unless he wants you to reach him.

  “I don’t know. She represents revenge, and maybe he thinks he can get to Ricci on his own by using her?”

  I brace my hands on the edge of his desk and grip the sturdy wood tighter in my grasp. “Help me, Soo, because if he hurts her, I’ll fucking rip him apart. I’ll tear this goddamn town to the ground if that’s what it takes to find her.”

  No doubt sensing how close I am to snapping, Soo doesn’t respond to that but goes in another direction. “Let’s say he doesn’t plan on hurting her. What do you think he wants with her then? What can Celia give him that required him to take her first, that he couldn’t get out of her at the house during the time she was locked up there?”

  I’d kept my brother away from her the best I could while she’d been my guest. Since the first night, he’d made it clear he wanted to kill her. In fact, had I not walked into that cell when I did, he would’ve snapped her neck. My heartbeat races against my ribs, and the blood swooshes in my ears. I have to find her, and standing here looking at fucking computer screens will not give me an answer. I strip my suit jacket off and throw it on Soo’s counter. Then I roll my sleeves up to my forearms, grab the bottle of liquor, and walk out.

  Of course, he follows me to the car and climbs into the driver’s seat as I take the passenger side. “Where are we going?”

  I take a swig of the liquor, letting it burn a path of angry fire down my throat. “To the house. If you can’t get answers from his movements, we are going to see if we can get some information from his bedroom. And if that doesn’t work, I know at least one safe house he keeps in the city for when he’s drug running.”

  Soo pulls away from the warehouse after a quick text to some of his men to clean up the space and lock everything down.

  I stare out the window, cradling the bottle in my lap, but I don’t drink any more, no matter how tempting it might be. The drive is the longest twenty minutes of my life, and I spend the majority of the time with my thoughts circling around if Celia is dead.

  Could I kill my brother? Would I? When we get to the house, I leave the bottle on the side table. If—when—we find Celia, I can’t be drunk off my ass. Especially as I rip my little brother to pieces for taking what’s mine.

  I march down the long hallway to his room, where the door is cracked open. Using my foot, I send the heavy cedar door back against the wall and survey the room. It’s clean, which is strange considering how unkempt the man usually is. Soo dives right in, digging through drawers and under his mattress. Not all that surprising. The entire place is spotless, like he barely even lives here, and I guess in a way he doesn’t. My hands clench into tight fists involuntarily. The rage simmers low in my veins. No, this isn’t where he would keep something he doesn’t want me to find.

  I walk out of the room, and it only takes a couple of seconds for Soo to be on my heels. We head down to the garage, and I make a straight shot to the motorcycle he loves more than anything else in the world. Soo gets there before I do, maybe to ensure I don’t destroy it.

  “Check the seat. He’s probably got something we can use in there. If he wanted to hide something, it would be in there or at one of his safe houses.”

  Soo nods and riffles through the seat compartment. After a few seconds, he draws out a bedraggled stack of papers, scans them, and hands them to me. “This might help. It seems your brother has become quite the real estate entrepreneur.”

  Each of the five pages is a layout of an apartment in town. The addresses printed neatly in the corners. None of them is the one I know of him having, which means there are six locations we need to check.

  I crumple the pages in my hand, and a red-hot haze engulfs me. We’ll never get to them all tonight, which gives him more time to enact his plan, whatever the fuck that might be. “Who do we have out there? Start texting your sources. Get them monitoring these addresses until we find out which one is in use.”

  Soo closes the motorcycle seat and drags his phone from his pocket. I hand over the papers, and in under three minutes, he has men out watching all the listed addresses. “Do you think he would prefer one over any other?” he asks.

  I snap. “How the fuck should I know? Apparently, I don’t know a thing about the asshole,” I yell, my voice echoing through the garage.

  The rational part of my brain knows Soo is helping me, that this isn’t his fault, and yet he’s the only safe outlet to this anger consuming me right now. But it’s not just anger, it’s fear, and I hate it. I hate it so much. Fear has zero place in my life, and somehow the idea of something happening to Celia sends it into overdrive.

  “I highly doubt he’ll hurt her, at least until he gets what he wants,” Soo announces, his voice calm and even.

  I advance on him. “And what if hurting her is what he wants? He’s just as much a monster as I am. As you are,” I spit. “What stops him from putting a bullet in her head? He has no control. All it takes is her saying one stupid thing.”

  A chill settles over my shoulders. What if she’s already dead, and I don’t get to—? No, I can’t even consider it. Or a lot of people are going to die tonight, starting with Lucas.

  With Soo out of the way, I stalk to the motorcycle, sitting in the corner of the garage, and kick it hard enough to knock it over. It scrapes against the concrete, and Soo lets out a huff behind me. He’s always loved Lucas’s motorcycle, and this one is my brother’s pride and joy. I can’t get to him at this moment. I can’t rip his fucking head off his body, so I’ll take it out on the closest thing he loves, this fucking bike.

  I stomp on the custom lever seat, bending the metal, warping it as it bounces between my shoe and the concrete.

  Since it’s metal, there is nothing else I can do to it, but I enjoy staring down at the warped metal. Even if it’s not ruined, he’ll have to do some work to make it rideable again. If he’s alive once I’m done with him.

  Soo clears his throat. “You good man?”

  I spin and glare. “Do I look fucking good? I’m about five seconds from finding the nearest loaded weapon and stalking the streets until I find her.”

  Instead of arguing, Soo holds his hands up in surrender. “I get it. You want to find her. You’re worried about her. Like I said, I don’t think Lucas will hurt her. I think more than anything, more than revenge even, he wants answers.”

  “Answers to what?” I stare down at the addresses again and stalk to the nearest SUV. Soo climbs into the driver’s side, of course. It’s his own way to exert control in our partnership, plus he fears for his life when I drive.

  “Your brother is a walking fucking question mark. Your opposite. Where you’re resolved, he’s unsettled. You made yourself a Diavolo when you lost family. He’s still that little boy watching his mother be slaughtered and needing to know why. It’s not Celia he wants; it’s her father.”

  He pulls away, no doubt having already memorize
d each location on the list. I ignore his comment about Lucas because it’s something I already know. And Lucas’s disquiet has always felt like a failure on my part.

  But as we make it to the garage gate, his phone chimes. He answers, and I stare at him impatiently, waiting to find out what information he’s found.

  “It’s one of my sources. He thinks he saw your brother buying food in one of the areas he sells his product.”

  Something surges in my chest, demanding freedom. “Where?”

  “A Chinese restaurant. It’s not near any of the addresses on the list. Let’s head there and see if we can get more information. If he orders delivery to where he stays over there, then the restaurant might have the information on file.”

  He pulls away, and I squeeze the handle above the door to keep myself from venting my rage on the vehicle. When we get to my brother, it will not be good. Especially if he hurt her.

  She better not have a single mark on her pale skin. Or I’m going to—

  I shake off the violent thoughts trying to force their way into my mind. Think rationally. He won’t be unprotected in his safe house, and I’m in no condition for strategic planning.

  As if he can read my mind, Soo says, “What’s the plan when we get there? Maybe you should let me talk, so we don’t end up having to buy a Chinese restaurant to cover anything up.”

  I glare, even though his eyes are fixed out the windshield. “Not in the mood for jokes.”

  “Who’s joking?”

  I release my death grip on the handle and rub my face. It’s sometime in the morning, and I glance at the clock. Four a.m. “Is this restaurant even open right now?”

  “Twenty-four hours, according to my source, but he’s not sure if the same workers are on duty that saw Lucas.”

  Instead of engaging my asshat friend further, I stare out the window into the dead city streets. I’ve always liked this time of morning, but now, I can’t grasp the calm it usually brings me. Not with my gut roiling, and my brain running over everything Lucas could have done to her in the hours he’s held her captive.

  We stop outside a tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurant with neon lights on the window. Soo climbs out, and I follow, but he slams the door in my face. With a growl, I yank it open and stand on the threshold, waiting.

  He doesn’t see me lingering, and that’s fine because the moment he learns what I need to know, I’m leaving his ass here and finding my brother on my own. Even if I have to tear apart this entire street to do it.

  While Soo is waiting for the manager to come out of the kitchen, I glance up and down the block. It’s not upscale, but it’s not exactly low-end either. There are a couple of new high-rises on the corner, and I’d bet good money Lucas is in one of them. He may like to play the bad boy, but the man is a sucker for his creature comforts.

  Soo’s voice drifts from the restaurant, and I tilt my head to focus on what the little old lady is saying. And it sounds an awful lot like she is saying she can’t give Soo the information he wants.

  I step into the shop, ready and willing to extract what I need. Hurting a grandma isn’t at the top of my favorite things list, but it doesn’t mean, for Celia’s sake, I won’t do what is necessary.

  Soo raises his voice so I can hear. “He’s my friend. He won’t hurt you, but he can pay you. Name a price, and the money is yours.”

  And this is exactly why he handles our logistics. My brain always goes straight to violence. Soo prefers gentle negotiation before resorting to using his fists. Even if no one can stand against him once he gets to that point.

  The woman rattles off an address, and I shove out the glass door and onto the street, already taking in the road signs.

  “Hey, man, got something for me,” a homeless man says from behind a cardboard box.

  I stare down at him and then back at the shop, where Soo hasn’t even noticed I left. The man doesn’t move as I dig through my pocket and pull out a hundred-dollar bill. Crouching, careful not to touch him, I extend the money.

  “This isn’t a freebie. It’s for a job.”

  “What do you want,” he grates out, his words sloppy.

  “A man is about to walk out of this shop. When he looks around, tell him calmly that you saw a big guy run off down the street, in the opposite direction I’m about to walk. Can you do that?”

  “Yep, I can.”

  I nod and release the money to his dirty fingers. There’s no telling if he’ll do as he’s told, but at the very least, he might buy me a few minutes from Soo.

  I walk down the sidewalk quickly, glancing over my shoulder, but Soo hasn’t come back out yet. Good. My brother and I are about to have a conversation, and I want to have it alone.

  If it ends with a bullet in his brain, so be it. Soo can see Lucas when he comes to clean up the mess.

  A buzz fills my ears as I reach the building. It has a keypad entry and locked doors. Not that it matters. I pull out a knife I keep in my pocket with a glass break nodule at the end of the handle and press it into the pristine glass.

  Lucas better hope he doesn’t have a doorman, or this night is going to get messier and messier.

  I unlock the heavy door, enter, and head straight to the elevator. As the door closes, I’m alone, and the shiny steel doors reflect my unhinged smile.

  I made the mistake of thinking I could live without her before, but I won’t make that mistake twice. Celia is mine, and no one will stand in my way. Least of all, my little fucking brother.

  4

  Celia

  I’m tired. So fucking tired. I lay my head on my arms as I sit at Lucas’s countertop. It’s not just that I want to burrow into bed and sleep for a hundred years. It’s a bone-deep exhaustion radiating out, sinking into my heart and mind. Will I ever be able to shake it?

  Lucas snaps his fingers in front of my face a couple of times, and I jerk away from them. “What? What do you want? Can you just let me sleep for a little while, and I’ll tell you anything you want to know?”

  He narrows his eyes at me until my own droop heavily and obscure him into a blurry man shape on the other side of the countertop. “No, we are going to finish this now. I don’t know how much time I have, and I plan to get everything I need out of you before it’s up.”

  My head snaps up at that little revelation. “What do you mean, you don’t know how much time you have? Are you going to kill me?” I hate the desperate edge to my tone. Even though I don’t want to die, I won’t beg him. At least not yet.

  He doesn’t answer my question, of course. “Don’t worry about that. All you need to worry about right now is telling me what I want to know. So, I repeat, how many people live and work in your father’s house?”

  My brain is fuzzy from sleep and, no doubt, trauma. “I don’t know. My father, my mother…” I swallow the words about my sister. No, she doesn’t live there anymore. “The chef, there are several maids, drivers, security. I can’t know how many people my father employs when I only interact with a handful of them. Not to mention what might have changed in the weeks your brother held me captive.”

  “Where does your father go when he leaves the house?”

  I gape at him and the randomness of the question. “How the hell should I know? It’s not like he tells me his daily routine. Mostly he stays at home and works out of his office. There’s a cabin he goes to every so often to fish or whatever men do in the woods, but otherwise,” I say again, “I don’t know.”

  Lucas leans over the counter, pinning me under his glare. “You better start thinking fast, or this is going to get a lot more physical.”

  While Lucas is scary, he’s not Nicolo. No one can match the raw intensity his brother exudes, and having been on the receiving end several times, Lucas just isn’t cutting it. “I understand you want answers, but I can’t tell you something I don’t know. And threatening me into what, making shit up? How is that going to help either of us?”

  He goes from stillness to motion as fast as Nicolo does, sending
a glass against his kitchen wall in one smooth swat. It shatters, and I duck my face to ensure none of the shards reach me. Where Nicolo is in control, Lucas is an F-5 tornado headed for a city. As I expected, he’s not finished. He stalks around the counter and drags my stool to face him. My entire body shudders beneath his dark eyes.

  “Where are the guards housed on your property?”

  It’s a simple question, one I actually know the answer to, and yet, I still want to lie and throw it back in his face. But I don’t. The faster he ends this, the faster he might release me. “They are mostly housed in the underground garage. There’s a sort of barracks down there, and the security team lives and works out of it.”

  If he’s happy I can finally answer something, he doesn’t show it. Oh. It was a test. He’s throwing in control questions to see if I’m lying.

  He grips the stool, and I lift my chin, determined not to cower to him.

  “And where do your parents sleep in the house?”

  It’s cute how he thinks my parents share a living space. “My father is on the ground floor near his study. My mother sleeps on the third floor near her library. Why does that matter? You’ll have a shit time getting through security to reach them.”

  He leans in to growl in my face. “No one had trouble getting in to retrieve you, did they?”

  I still and consider this. No, but they got help from fucking Marco to get me out of there. However, someone in security should have noticed the goons who carried me out of the house. The image of the dead men’s blood all over Nicolo floats to the surface of my mind, but I shove it back down. Now is not the time to let my emotional trauma take over.

  “Did you help kidnap me that first time?” I counter with a question.

  He shoves away from me and heads back into the kitchen to gulp down some water. On the outside, he might look calmer, but he’s pacing back and forth, running his hands through his already mussed hair. He’s a caged, starved lion, and I’m the dangling steak.