Page 96 of Cruel Devil

When I leave, Bella follows me out of the dining room.

Sam and Matias are at the door, both giving me unreadable expressions. “Take her outside,” I tell Sam.

Bella throws me a lingering stare over her shoulder as she trots after Sam, her big brown eyes and tan eyebrows frowning as if she’s trying to figure out what she did wrong.

It’s impossible to explain to a creature as innocent as Bella that Sergio is Satan personified.

“…thinking maybe we should run a few tests, just to make sure,” Vito is saying as I walk back into the dining room.

He looks haggard, eyes shadowed, hair unkempt. I’d say he looks hungover, but I’ve seen him after a week long bender, and he didn’t look half as bad as he does right now.

Why do I get the feeling it’s all for show?

There’s a spread on the dining room table—croissants, bagels, muffins, platters of fruit and ham and cheese—but I head straight for the coffee. I’ve become too reliant on caffeine to kick start my brain in the mornings, but I blame it on the tiny amounts of sleep I’m currently running on.

“Did you enjoy your trip to Colombia?” I ask as I blow on the black liquid to cool it down. I don’t know where Sergio went, but I should be able to narrow it down in twenty-one questions.

“I didn’t leave the country,” he says.

“Then where were you?” I lean against the side of the long, twelve-seater oak table, studying Sergio. He’s taken the seat at the head of the table closest to me and Vito, spreading cream cheese on a bagel.

“Getting our affairs in order.” My uncle’s face is a mask, but that’s nothing new.

Ever since my grandfather handed the cartel’s leadership over to my father instead of passing it to the eldest son, as was tradition, he’s become two people.

Outwardly supporting Bryan, to keep the peace and to obey their father’s wishes…and the resentful, conniving cunt I know him to be. If it wouldn’t be the biggest faux pas known to cartel culture, I’d have accused him of having something to do with father’s critical condition.

But that would be as good as suicide for someone in Sergio’s position. No one would ever trust him again, and our cartel runs on trust.

“Hope it wasn’t all business. Man’s gotta live a little too,” Vito chimes in. He’s nursing a cup of coffee too, but I’m surprised he’s not laying into the spread, especially if he’s feeling as hungover as he looks.

I guess we’re both a little off balance at Sergio’s unexpected return. It’s almost as if he wanted to catch us with our fucking pants down.

What was he hoping to walk into?

“Are you glad the walls are still standing, Uncle?” I ask, trying for casual but sounding more coy than anything else.

Sergio frowns at me. “They might be standing now, but they won’t be for much longer.”

Both me and Vito snap to attention.

Sergio takes another bite of his bagel and for once it seems he’s not just being a sadistic fuck by dragging out our meeting for no reason, but that he’s buying time to think.

“Why wasn’t I notified before you boys used cartel resources to stake out one of Mulligan’s clubs?”

My hackles rise at mention of the Irish mob’s top dog, Rory Mulligan. O’Brien might be high up in the organization, but he still has to report to the boss.

Vito looks at me, but I keep my eyes on Sergio.

I knew word would get back to him, but I’d hoped to have Nyx’s sisters before then. Now O’Brien has a contract out on Sergio, Athena and Phoebe’s lives hanging in the balance.

And the assassin on the other end of that contract is currently sleeping in my fucking bed...or trying to break down my door.

“It’s a private matter,” I say.

“There is nothing private in this cartel.” Sergio bites into his bagel, watching me, waiting.

“We were following a lead on Nyx’s sisters,” Vito mutters.

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