Page 68 of A Seed Of Peril
“The puppeteer. Who is it?”
“I just fucking told you!”
“Dante’s slow, and the others were too low in Vincent’s chain to carry any real power. None of them, not even you, could arrange and execute a formidable plan that clean. You’re all pawns, otherwise you’d still be ghosts. So, I’ll ask you again—who. Is. It?”
“I’d rather be dead,” Nico scoffed.
Rolling his eyes, Dominic prodded Nico’s stomach with the head of the taser and put him through his longest round so far. Nico’s face reddened. His body clenched as he made tight, strained sounds. The moment it stopped, he gasped, his chest heaving as if life was blown back into his bruised and battered body.
“Son of a bitch,” Nico breathed as he stabilized himself.
“You’re in too deep,” Dominic reminded him. “Even if Ididlet you go, your grave’s already dug. Whether it’s one of us or your boss, it’s over. Do the right thing, Nasuti. Save your family.”
Scoffing, Nico said, “You can’t save them. No one fucking can.” He looked down at himself. “He’ll find them. He finds everyone.”
A tense silence hung in the air for far too long for my comfort.
“His name is Vladislav… Vladislav Aleski. He controls all of Russia with an iron fist.”
My stomach dropped. My heart raced. I got out of the chair as fast as I could in a panic, standing close to Dominic. Loosely hugging myself, I shakily asked Nico, “What does he want?”
Turning his head toward me as he talked, Nico explained, “Your savior over there took out one of Vladislav’s biggest suppliers of young girls—cost him close to a billion. With that much of a hole in his profits… Yeah, he’s pissed.”
It couldn’t be. Oh, my God, it couldn’t be. How did we not see it? Dominic was wrong; Vladislav wasn’t done with us just because he killed Hector. No, he wanted more. More blood on his hands. Our blood.
“We all got hits?” Dino wondered. Nico nodded. “How much?”
“Twenty million… Each.”
This couldn’t be happening. Fuck. My palms moistened with sweat.
The rest of us looked at each other. We knew this mess was too big for just us to clean.Could the other families help us? Would they be enough?I paced, my throat parched.
“Call it off,” I blurted out of panic.
Nico’s cheshire grin made my blood run colder.
“I can’t.” He looked at Dominic. “You’rethe ones that seem to be in too deep.”
“Who can?” Dominic asked. When Nico stayed silent, Dominic backhanded him hard enough, I was surprised it didn’t break his neck. “Who!?”
Spitting out blood, Nico said, “Sweet talk Dante for that because I don’t fucking know.”
Dino threw his hands in the air, walking away aimlessly. “Great.” His arms flopped back down at his sides. “Another fucking goose chase.”
“He can’t be far, Santiago.” Dominic pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling hard.
“Why don’t you talk to Luigi,” Nico suggested, his smirk returning.
We all froze, rooted where we stood.
Luigi… Our Luigi?
”Excuse me?” Dominic questioned as if trying to grasp what we all clearly heard. “Luigi Filippo?”
Nico Nasuti’s silence was our answer.
“What about him,” I demanded as a statement rather than a question, clenching my jaw and flexing my fingers into tight fists at my sides. I approached Nico, ready to go off. Memories of my threatening incidents replayed while I thought about the shootout. Nico had goons he paid to scare me and put everyone on edge. They tried—and failed—to throw our family completely off course.