Page 61 of Spice and Revenge

Leonardo

“I want you to tail my chef. Ensure she's safe, and keep me updated on her whereabouts,” I say gruffly into the receiver.

“Yes, Don,” Matteo, one of my men, grunts on the other side of the line. Fabio raises his eyebrow at me.

“Sure, she's just your chef?” he teases.

I’m about to speak when my phone rings again. Glancing at the screen, I see that it is Vito.

“You need to come to the port pronto, Don,” Vito’s voice fills my ear. “Pedro left you a message.”

I clench my fists, my insides rolling with anger.

“What’s the matter?” Fabio asks as he takes in the expression on my face.

I sigh. “It seems Pedro is finally calling for a war,” I say before walking towards my car.

The drive to the port is one of the fastest I’ve driven in my life. In a few minutes, I arrive, parking my car by my warehouse before stepping out.

Five dead bodies greet me the moment I step into the dim warehouse interior.

“What is this?” I growl, taking in the bodies of young men arranged on the floor.

“These guys shared a studio apartment downtown,” Vito steps forward, joining me. “They were slaughtered at home...”

Vito’s voice fades into the background as I take in the person lying in the middle, particularly at the deep, bloody words engraved on his naked chest.

YOU ARE NEXT.

“I checked them all out. Just regular Joes, except this one,” Vito explains.

“What's his deal?” I demand.

“He's a defector from Cuban territory in Florida. Betrayed Pedro. Thought he'd be safe here since Pedro should have no access to our turf.”

Viscous anger rolls through me, threatening to spill. “Is that all you have on him?”

Vito gestures to one of the men behind him, who brings out a phone and hands it over to me. “Found this on him. I hacked it open, and we were trying to find more information on him before you came in,” Vito says.

I scan the phone, my heart lurching at the last dialed number.

Lorena.

Can’t be her. There are probably a thousand and one Lorena’s in Sicily. But then I see the saved contact, and at the display picture he saved the number with.

Lorena. My Lorena.

Confusion hits me hard, like a brick. How does she know this man? What business could she possibly have with him?

I go to their text messages, and as I scroll upward to the older texts shared between them, I recognize the same messages I’d read from Lorena’s phone while we were in New York. Thelittle boyI teased her about.

Now, I wish I’d killed this man myself.

“This is a warning, Don. Pedro's infiltrated your turf, he probably has men here waiting to fulfil his every command,” Vito's voice brings me back.

It’s hard to focus on what he’s saying while my mind tries to put the pieces of what's going on together. The message Lorena received after we’d had sex last night, her sudden request for leave this morning.

If Maximo, as I’ve learned from the text messages shared between them, ran from Cuban territory in Florida, does that mean…

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