Reign (The Italian Cartel Book 3)

by Shandi Boyes

Dimitri

  Our arrival in New York doesn’t occur unnoticed. No sirens, flashing lights, or armored trucks some law enforcement officers need to get their point across are seen. Just a single Maserati Quattroporte parked halfway out the hangar my private jet is crawling toward.

  Our flight was scheduled to land in the middle of the night to ward off unwanted eyes. I should have realized that wouldn’t fool Henry. He’s been snuck up on too many times in the past to take the news the Italian Cartel is in town lying down.

  From what Smith unearthed over the past twelve hours, the takeover bids Henry has faced during his thirty-year reign lost him more than revenue. It cost him the very thing I’m endeavoring not to lose—his family. There’s just one difference in our stories.

  Henry could see his son if Henry, Jr. would look past his twenty-nine-year absence. He doesn’t understand his father gave him up to protect him, nor does he see the regrets and mistakes on Henry, Sr.’s face like I do.

  He feels abandoned.

  I could tell him he got lucky when it comes to cartel families but considering my father’s endeavor to reclaim a kingdom he has no right to reign is the reason for his family’s downfall, I doubt it would do much good.

  I’ve just got to pray Henry, Sr. is more approachable than his son. His war is with my father, and although I bear his last name, I’m nothing like him. My daughter comes before anyone as does Roxanne.

  When I hit Henry with the motherlode of information Smith’s stumbled upon from returning Grayson’s hack, he’ll have no choice but to side with me. Gangsters don’t play fair in general, but when it comes to family, just like me, Henry has no trouble laying all his cards on the table. He is fierce and impenetrable, and if I didn’t believe he’s governing a realm he didn’t earn, I could see myself emulating him.

  Alas, I can’t reach the pinnacle of success without taking him down.

  That alone means we will never be friends.

  A smirk curls my lips when over half a dozen red dots line my chest as I commence walking down the stairs of my private jet. Henry’s reputation usually sees him going without the fanfare, so I’m somewhat pleased I’ve rattled him enough for him to pay attention to my visit. He isn’t a fan of mine, hasn’t been since we bumped shoulders a mere second before I approached Isaac to fight in my father’s underground fight tournament years ago. To be honest, I doubt we will ever be.

  “Dimitri, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Henry’s voice is a mix of accents. It’s as unique as the cartel leaders who used to run this sanction. It’s pitched with superiority, but there’s a snippet of hesitation that reveals our industry has worn his patience thin.

  He isn’t the only one feeling a little overwhelmed. I feel so haggard, I often have to remind myself I’m not as old as believed. Henry should have more wrinkles than he does. I’ve been chasing my tail for two years. He has notched up more than ten times that amount, so why the fuck hasn’t he given up yet?

  Because his family is safe, fuckface.

  Yours isn’t.

  Not having the time nor the interest to work through the honesty of my inner monologue, I get to the point of my interstate visit. “I’m here regarding your brother, Liam Gregg, or as you knew him, Liam Gottle, the second.” When Henry’s jaw ticks like he’s fighting not to signal for me to be taken down, I talk faster. “Rumors state my father was part of the operation to take him down—”

  “It wasn’t an order to take him down. His family was brutalized, and his wife and daughter were scared half to death.”

  I nod, agreeing with him. There’s no denying the truth. I read the reports on the Gregg home invasion during our flight. The men who entered their house were paid for a standard hit. The fact Wren, Henry’s sister-in-law, would spark an attraction out of them wasn’t considered. Her looks changed their tactics in an instant. If it weren’t for Liam, Wren would have faced more than a handful of scratches on her inner thighs and bruises to her breasts that night, and it would have occurred in front of her daughter.

  The knowledge of their change-up is why my mood is so sour this morning. Roxanne has a spark men can’t help but acknowledge. Her spunk is potent enough to feed the ego of a dozen men, so what will happen when they realize there’s only one way to unleash her powers? Will she be attacked as Wren was but left defenseless since I’m not there to stop it?

  The thought makes me sick. It honestly makes me the most unhinged I’ve ever been, and it’s heard in my voice when I growl out, “You have every right to go after the men responsible for hurting your family, but you won’t get anywhere if you continue chasing the wrong fucking sanction.”

  “Your father—”

  “Paid more than his share to fund the joint operation to take you down!” My roar reveals more than half a dozen snipers are dying for Henry to make a hand signal, but I act ignorant over a two-decade-long injustice as much as I am my inability to find Roxanne and Fien without the help of my enemies. “But he felt your wrath, licked his wounds, then sat the fuck back down. He hasn’t moved since, yet you’re still facing the same issues you had when he wanted your throne.”

  My teeth grit when the last half of my sentence comes out with a jut from a gun being forcefully pressed to my head. I don’t need to sling my eyes to know who has stepped up to the plate before Henry has finished swinging his bat. His big head causes enough of a shadow on Henry’s face to know who he is, much less the flick of Rocco’s safety switch when he returns Kwan’s gamble with one of his own.

  Rocco doesn’t care if his retaliation will get him killed. He’d rather respond to an act of intimidation than take it up the ass like I have the past two years.

  Following his lead, I say, “You’re chasing the wrong crew.”

  Henry brushes off my statement with a wave of his hand. “Says the man too stupid to realize he’s doing all the legwork of a man undeserving of his time.”

  “I don’t work for my father.” After a stern glare at Kwan, warning him we’re seconds from a brutal bloodbath if he doesn’t stop digging his gun into my head, I add, “Everything I’ve done the past two years has been for my daughter.”

  Henry tries to hide the shock of my confession, but the mask slips over his face too quickly for me to ignore. I’ve heard he isn’t as hard as his fierce reputation. I would have never believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  “Her name is Fien. She was born here, of all places, exactly twenty-two months ago, forcefully delivered by the very man you’ve been sheltering for years.” I hold up the first photograph taken of Fien. You could coo at how cute she is if it didn’t also show a bloody and cut-open Audrey on a stained mattress in the background.

  Once I’m certain Henry understands Fien’s delivery was nothing close to ordinary, I show him an image taken only days earlier. Even though no fight whatsoever is seen on Audrey’s face as she’s led out of the back entrance of Slice of Salt, the family crest on both Rimi’s ring and his neck are undeniable. “I’ve been paying to keep her safe ever since.”

  When I gesture for Smith to move forward, Henry signals for Kwan to stand down. The goon with a head the size of a watermelon hesitates for a second but eventually does as told. All good foot soldiers do. Although Kwan is like family to Henry, he’s still aware of the repercussions if he ignores his direct order.

  “We have information that leads us to believe Rimi’s crew is relocating to the New York region.” After opening up the laptop Smith hands me, I log into the event Rimi has tickets for. “He purchased tickets to this event.”

  “I am aware,” Henry interrupts, his voice somewhat off. It isn’t brimming with anger, but it is full of distrust. Can’t say I blame him. I don’t trust anyone, much less people with the same last name as me. “Permission was requested to attend. We have eyes on the proceedings.” His eyes stray to Kwan during the last part of his comment, falling on a tattoo that looks oddly similar to the Castro family crest.

  Although suspicious as to why Kwan is wearin
g a crest for an entity that isn’t his, I continue with my endeavor to make Henry see sense through the madness, aware time isn’t in my favor. “Permission I doubt you’d give if you understood the real reason Rimi is here.”

  I click on the only file on my desktop. Aware Henry never takes anything on faith, I had Smith install everything onto a device we don’t plan to see again. Henry would hate for his fuck-up to be broadcasted to his enemies, so I’m confident Smith’s prototype laptop will be destroyed by the end of tonight.

  “Milo Bobrov ran down your brother and sister-in-law, but he wasn’t acting alone—”

  My teeth grit when Henry interrupts. “David Crombie orchestrated it. You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.”

  He spins away from me, his steps slowing when I add, “Rimi Castro organized both the raids that terrorized your family and Liam and Wren’s death. He’s playing you for a fool.” He looks like he wants to kill me, but I carry on, unfazed and unscared. I’m already living my nightmare. It can’t get any worse than this. “Why do you think Kirill returned stateside after all this time? Even he has heard how much you love sucking Rimi’s dick, and he wants in on the action.”

  For an old guy, Henry has a lot of strength in his hits. He punishes my ribs with an unrelenting left-right combination before he slams my back into my private jet’s shell that feels as cold as ice.

  I don’t retaliate to his brutal clutch of my throat. I’m too busy laughing at the whitening of his gills when Smith plays a recording he found buried deep in the Bureau’s database. It’s a private conversation between David Crombie, a former associate of Rimi’s, and an undercover agent, Phillipa Russell. It exposes just how long Rimi has been playing both sides of the field and exactly who he took down in the process.

  After Henry releases me from his grip, too shocked to continue with his aggressive stance, I swallow down some saliva, hopeful it will ease out my next set of words. “Rimi nagged and nagged and nagged Milo to seek vengeance on Liam for the time he served in a state facility away from his family. When he finally got through to him, you thought you were safe from carnage.” I shake my head like I am disappointed I’m not the only gangbanger one step behind his enemies the past decade. I’m not, but I am happy for Henry to believe I am. “You got slack. You thought it was over, then they hit you with everything they had.”

  “I took care of Crombie,” he seethes through clenched teeth.

  I nod, once again agreeing with him. Crombie was found dead in his cell within an hour of him being arrested. “But you left the main hitter out at the plate, unconcerned about your curveball.”

  When Henry tries to deny my claims, I hit him where it hurts. Unlike my father, it isn’t his hip pocket. It’s his niece, Melody Gottle, the only surviving member of the renamed Gregg family. “You did good. For years, your enemies thought she was dead. Then Crombie couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”

  He snatches both the recent photo of Melody out of my hand along with a ransom drop the Feds are currently in the process of organizing. “Rimi doesn’t even have Melody at his mercy, yet her billionaire fiancé is willing to pay one point five million dollars to ensure it never occurs.”

  This is what Alice meant when she said they had a big payout to collect. Rimi won’t stop at one ransom. He’ll continue demanding money until Melody’s fiancé stops handing over the funds, then he’ll kidnap her for real. Guaranteed. It’s how I would handle this if it were my operation.

  I think all my Christmases have come at once when Henry mutters, “If this information is legitimate, what do you want for it?”

  Being owed a favor by Henry is priceless in this industry. You can’t put a dollar amount on it. However, I can, because there’s something I want a shit ton more than money.

  I want my girls back, and right here, right now, it feels as if my wish is about to come true.

  Good things take time.

  Bad things bring justice.

  With Henry’s help, I’m about to serve Rimi Castro a little bit of both.

  20

  Roxanne

  “Does it have any charge?” I ask Audrey while peering at the cell phone she snuck in our room in the middle of the night.

  I’ve been dying to see what she had up her sleeve for the past sixteen-plus hours, but with the man the women call ‘Maestro’ popping in and out of our room all day and night, now is the first chance I’ve had to speak to Audrey without an audience.

  The women still watch us from afar, unmoved by my speech yesterday that an army has never won a war with only one soldier. They don’t trust Audrey, and nothing I say will alter their opinion about that.

  I can’t say I blame them. If Audrey has had access to this device the entire time, why the hell didn’t she use it to seek help?

  My heart drums against my ribcage when Audrey nods. Its frantic wallops double when she slips the device out of my hand, fires it up, then shoves it back into my lap. Her hands are jittery like she’s panicked out of her mind we’re about to be killed.

  If we’re caught with this device, I’m confident we will be.

  After gulping down a quick breath to settle my nerves, I log into her phone. It isn’t one of those state-of-the-art ones with apps and gimmicks. It’s retro, funky, and only has ten percent charge remaining. Fuck it!

  Needing to hurry, I push out a little abruptly. “Where are your contacts?”

  Audrey peers at me with her big eyes out in full force but remains as quiet as a church mouse.

  “So I can look up Dimitri’s number,” I hurry her along.

  Shock blankets Audrey’s usually pretty face. “You don’t know it?”

  Her question shouldn’t jab my heart with tiny knives, but it does. I don’t even know the address of the compound I was held captive in, much less Dimitri’s cell phone number. We didn’t have that type of relationship. It was more fired by sexual attraction than communication, but since I can’t tell Dimitri’s wife that, I shrug instead.

  Audrey does a quick sweep of the room to ensure we’re without eyes before logging into the text message section of her phone. Dimitri’s texts were the only ones received by this phone, so his number is easily distinguishable.

  While endeavoring to work out how I can explain to Dimitri that his wife is still alive, I try not to look too deeply into how impersonal his messages to Audrey were during their marriage. They’re stern and to the point like he was communicating with a member of his staff instead of his other half.

  “Type something,” I grumble to myself a short time later, frustrated I’m more concerned about how Dimitri will react to discovering Audrey is alive than getting out of the situation that caused the miscarriage of my child.

  My hands shake as I type out a string of text. It’s more a business-like contact for Smith to decipher than an attempt to clutch to the final hours I can pretend Dimitri is mine. I’d rather do that face to face than via the phone his wife owns.

  Me: Tracker disabled. Ruse still in effect. Send help to this location. Battery low. Act quickly. Roxie xx

  With the tiny gray device swamped by my hands, I move to the window I was peering out of earlier today before snapping a snapshot of the landscape. Although there isn’t much to go off, I’m hopeful the preparation of the crops surrounding us will give Smith some clues to work with. It was amazing what he unearthed by looking at nothing but the satellite images of my grandparents’ estate. If he can do that again here, we may be found sooner rather than later.

  “Jesus.”

  I almost die a thousand deaths when Audrey’s cell phone suddenly lets out a loud alert. I have no clue how to silence it, so I clench it with everything I have, hopeful my squeeze will suffocate its squeals without damaging it.

  With my pulse beeping in my neck, and my eyes wide, I stray them to the door I’m anticipating for Maestro to shoot through at any moment.

  When that doesn’t occur within the next six seconds, I shift my eyes back to Audrey, wipe at the
sweat on my brow, then drop my eyes to the screen of her phone. My only just receding panic gets a second wind when I discover the reason for the noise. My message couldn’t be delivered to Dimitri’s number since it is no longer in service.

  Dammit!

  After a couple of seconds of deliberation, I conjure up a new plan of attack. Although Audrey’s phone is outdated, most social media sites were around when it was invented.

  With my heart in my throat, I snap another picture of the landscape, save it, gingerly find my way to the internet browser, then log into my Instagram account. Smith mentioned he liked a handful of my drawings when he hacked into my Instagram account at the start of my ‘arrangement’ with Dimitri. He could have been lying to ease my panic when Dimitri was drugged, but that doesn’t seem like something he would do. He’s pretty truthful, even to the point of being brutally honest.

  A ghost-like smile creeps across my face when I tap on the notifications on my Instagram page. Excluding clients, I don’t get many interactions on my posts, so I’m certain the eight likes in a row are from Smith.

  After following him, I prepare to send him a message. I could put the details in a post, but Maestro unknowingly mentioned two nights ago that I’ve been under surveillance for a while, so I don’t want to run the risk of my social media accounts being monitored.

  I have an almost identical message typed out when the faintest giggle steals my attention. It didn’t come from inside the room. The women and children here have no reason to smile, so I don’t see them releasing a giggle of pure joy. Furthermore, this was a babyish laugh, one I’m certain came from a toddler.

  With my mind focused on anything but my freedom, I scoot toward the window before peering outside. It takes scanning the overgrown grass surrounding the ranch three times before I spot the cause of the extra flutter in my neck. Fien is sniffing wildflowers near the rickety verandah I was marched up three nights ago. Her giggles are from the petals tickling her button nose. She screws it up, tosses her head back, laughs, then goes back for another whiff.