Page 73 of Lie to Me

“We’ll see,” I grunt in response to his earlier question, purposely ignoring the rest of his statement. My family still doesn’t know the entire story of what went down between me and Sloane, and I’d rather keep it that way. I don’t need to hear about how much I fucked up when it’s already on my mind every second of every goddamn day.

“That’s it?” Luca asks, clearly wanting more information from me.

“That’s it.”

He sighs in exasperation before stepping up to me and grabbing my shoulder, keeping eye contact with me the entire time. “You’re my little brother, Marco. You can tell me anything, talk to me about anything. I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t come to me in the past and that you’ve spent all of these years in pain without me even noticing. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better brother, but I’m here to listen now, whenever you’re ready. I love you, brother.”

A lump forms in my throat as my previously dead-hearted brother speaks. Izzy really has changed him for the better.

“Love you too, man,” I murmur with a nod, and he steps back, seemingly pleased with the interaction.

“Good. Now let’s go fuck up the guy who seemed to think he could mess with you and my soon-to-be sister-in-law.”

I shake my head wordlessly, but a grateful smile pulls at my lips.

It’s around a forty-minute drive to Dario Costa’s home and we’re mostly silent during the ride there, both of us anticipating what’s to come.

Luca because he thinks this is a fun time, me because I’m itching to get this shit over with, but also because I’m wondering what happens afterwards.

Will things be weird between me and Sloane since she’s been living with me, and she’ll be free to go back to her apartment? Will she realize that reconciling was a mistake once we don’t have a cloud of danger surrounding us and bringing us closer together?

All I can do is hope like hell that she’ll see what I’ve always known: that me and her are fucking made for each other.

“We’re here,” I grunt as we pull up outside of a three-story house in a gated community. We got in easily, thanks to our connection with the Rossi brothers.

There are another two cars behind us filled with our men just as a precaution in case we need back-up, but from everything Izzy has dug up, I doubt they’ll be necessary.

“You sure this is how you want to do this? It could get messy,” Luca says, and I roll my eyes.

We decided to have it just be the two of us who break in and…surpriseCosta. We’ll have our men stay outside, waiting for a message if we need them.

“Let’s finish this,” I grunt and step out the car. Luca follows closely behind me as he sends a message to Izzy. The locks on this guy’s house are all electronic, no physical keys required if you have the pin. We don’t have the pin, but we do have my sister-in-law who can hack her way into anything.

“It’s done,” he says and pockets his phone as we walk up the steps to the front door, as though we belong here. We don’t want a neighbor spotting us and calling the cops for trespassing if they think we’re up to something, so it’s best just to act like we belong.

Luca opens the door and heads inside first. The place is so dark and quiet, it’s almost eerie.

“Are we sure he’s even here?” I whisper.

“We’re sure,” Luca mutters back to me before making his way through the house. We had studied the blueprint Izzy acquired on the jet, so we know exactly how to find the master bedroom.

Our steps are silent as we wander through the home and reach the room he’s in. Luca presses an ear against the door before shrugging and pulling a gun from his waistband. I do the same and swing the door open, both of our weapons pointed towards the bed. Though the action was pointless, because Dario Costa is still fast asleep where he lays.

“Well, that was a little fucking anti-climactic,” I mutter and Luca snorts.

He sighs before approaching the bed and nudges Costa with his foot.

“Wake the fuck up, asshole,” Luca says. He stirs, his eyes blinking open only to widen in fear when he spots us. He sits up and scrambles back against the headboard.

“W-who are you?” the fucker asks, and I glare at him.

“Really? You don’t know who we are?” Luca asks sarcastically as we both keep our weapons trained on him, ready for him to pull something.

“No… is this about the Harlkin merger?”

I tut. “No, this isn’t about a fucking merger. This is about you targeting our family, my girl, and trying to cause a war between us and the Irish because you think you have some fucked upentitlement to the New York Mafia,” I bark. He tries to put even more space between us, but there’s nowhere for him to go.

“M-mafia?” he stutters and I’m about to lose my shit. “I don’t have anything to do with the Mafia. I knew Bianchi was the boss of it here when he was alive, but after the accident, we kind of figured it had disbanded. I don’t have any connections in New York.”

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