Chapter 96

Aldo

Back in the sprawling den of the Marcello estate later that night, I checked my phone for the thousandth time. Naturally, Ethan hadn’t texted. It wasn’t like I expected him to unearth anything groundbreaking in a few hours …

“All right, spill,” sighed Carlo.

“What?” I looked up from my phone to find him staring over at me from across the room. Arms crossed.

“You’re up to something you know I won’t like.”

“What makes you think that?” I slid my phone discreetly back into my pocket.

“You’re waiting on communication from someone I don’t know about.” Carlo’s brows tightened into a deep furrow. “Which means it’s someone I won’t like. I’m guessing … the cop?”

“Jesus.” I tilted my head back against the armrest of the couch. “How do you know me so well?”

“You got the cop involved in this?” Carlo sat up straight. “Are you fucking kidding me, Vas? You’re playing with fire, you know that, right? He’s like the most goody-good cop I’ve ever met! No shades of grey with that guy.”

I dragged a hand over my face. “I know, but—”

“No buts!” Carlo’s hand slashed diagonally through the air. “He doesn't understand our world. He sees it as bad, and he always will.”

I sighed. He was right, and I knew it. I’d always known it. Going to Ethan for help was a dangerous move at best, and likely a complete fucking disaster and death sentence—literally—at worst.

“What does Layla think?” Carlo asked, his gaze still fixed on me.

My teeth clamped together a little too hard—in a way that I know he would’ve noticed, because Carlo noticed everything.

“Vas,” he said, and it was as much a moan as a whisper. “You haven’t told Layla?”

I closed my eyes and rubbed my knuckles against the lids. “She’s been so busy with work, and then this clinic project, and Vanessa … I didn’t want to worry her.”

“Worry me with what?”

I jerked upright and spun on the couch to face the doorway. And there, like she’d been summoned, like an angelic vision of blonde hair and blue eyes and pursed lips, was Layla Marcello.

I sighed and slumped back on the couch. “Come sit with me.”

She crossed the room on silent feet, her face serious, lines of worry creasing her forehead. I wanted to smooth them away. Kiss away the concern turning down the corners of her mouth.

I knew I couldn’t do either.

Instead, I was going to do the opposite. “The small problem I mentioned earlier … it’s getting worse. And I’m getting no closer to solving it.”

“No,” Carlo muttered. “So your genius of a husband turned to your cop friend for help—”

“You went to Ethan?” her brows clenched deep in confusion, or maybe concern. “Why? You know he’s not going to help you.”

“This new problem …” I sighed. “His name is Michael Rossetti, and he’s unlike anything I’ve ever dealt with before. I can’t get a lead on him, much less an edge. He plays by his own rules.”

“So, what, you figured you’d start playing by the cops’ rules?” Carlo asked, voice rife with disbelief. “You really think for one moment he won’t come for you if he thinks can get the upper hand?”

“Aldo,” Layla murmured. “Who, in Ethan’s eyes, is the bigger threat? Some shadow vigilante who thus far has targeted Mafia men … or you?”

Her words hovered between us like pale specters.

Vigilante.

Why hadn’t I seen it before?

Maybe Michael Rossetti wasn’t an up-and-coming gangster looking to dethrone me or take my territories, seize power in little snatches and grabs. Maybe he was some kind of vigilante … a man who thought he was doing good?

A man like that wouldn’t be universally hated. Wouldn’t be seen as bad or evil—might even be seen as a boon to the city. A superhero in real life. Batman come to life.

Ethan wouldn’t see it the Batman way, of course. Wouldn’t be any more on Rossetti’s side than mine—he was a man of the law—but when it came down to it, Layla was right.

Ethan wouldn’t label Rossetti a hero, but I’d never be more than the vilest villain in his eyes.

“We don’t know what Rossetti’s game plan is,” I insisted. “Just because he’s targeted me thus far, doesn’t mean he won’t get a taste for violence and tear the whole city apart.”

“We have no idea what he’s after,” Carlo muttered. “He’s a weasley bastard.”

“Exactly!” I snapped my fingers. “You think I want to join forces with someone as dangerous as Ethan? No. Fucking no. But this is something we can’t handle alone.”

Carlo let out a frustrated sigh. “And when Ethan’s done with Rossetti, he’ll come for you. You think he’ll just walk away after this?”

“Of course not.” My jaw felt like it was going to snap under the tension. “But I’ll figure something out by then. I always do.”

“Sure.” Carlo’s voice went soft, and when he met my gaze, I knew what words would come out next. “Are you sure this isn’t just you idealizing him because he’s your older brother?”

The room fell into tense silence as we all weighed the heft of those words. They sat heavy on my chest, on my shoulders. In my heart. Was I idealizing him—hell, idolizing him, even—because I couldn’t stop seeing Matteo?

I dug a hand through my hair. All I wanted, all I truly wanted from this life, was to offer my son the future he deserved. One free from all this shit—the power plays, the fear, the chaos. The blood.

And I’d been on a path to making that happen.

And then Michael Rossetti had popped out of the woodwork with plans of his own. Thrown everything back into bloody chaos.

Somehow, every step I took towards that future in the light seemed to drag me further back into the shadows.

“Do you have a better idea, Carlo?” I asked finally. “A way to pin Rossetti down?”

Carlo shook his head, slumped back against the cushions of the couch. “No,” he said finally. “No, I don’t.”

So I turned to Layla instead. Her eyes glistened with worry, and her mouth was set in a tense, terse line. But she, too, shook her head. “I don’t know what to think of this Rossetti.”

“Me either.” I knuckled my eyelids again, like maybe that could somehow banish the worry, the lack of sleep, the constant stress of this hard life. “But one thing I know—if we’re going to survive, all of us, and come out on top, we’ve got to be together.”

My gaze hopped from my wife to my best friend, my second-in-command. Both of them stared back at me, their expressions hard, stony. But they wouldn’t argue with that, because in that, at least, I was right.

“You know I’m with you to the end,” Carlo sighed. “Until we figure out something better.”

My gaze fell to Layla. “I need you beside me.”

“Aldo.” Her jaw flicked with tension. “This isn’t a good idea.”

“I don’t have any others.”

“And what happens when Ethan turns on you?” she asked, her eyes flashing. “Will you be able to do what needs to be done if he goes sideways?”

My chest clenched so painfully tight, it almost choked me. Could I do what needed to be done? Could I kill Ethan—Matteo? My brother? Could I take his life to save my own, my wife’s, my sons?

The answer came to me without further thought. “Of course I could.”

And it would sit forever on my soul like a black mark. But they didn’t need to know that. They didn’t need to know all the weight of my sins, the ugly scars inside me.