Page 38 of Knot Made to Break: Part Two

I stared at the flames dancing in the fireplace, their reflection warping in the glass as I thought about the four names. The four suspects. We’d combed through our ranks, looking for any dissension, comparing schedules, looking for motives. Most of our men were solid, but these four… Fuck. We’d bled with these men. Fought beside them. Trusted them.

And now one of them was feeding us to the wolves.

“If it is Alec,” I said slowly, “he’s been playing the long game. Pretending loyalty to Emilio all these years.”

“He was never loyal to Emilio,” Dimitri said. “He was loyal to the seat Emilio held. To the power that came with it. He doesn’t respect us. He doesn’t think we’ve earned it.”

“He’s not the only one,” Marco added. “Esposito’s been circling like a vulture, too. Still thinks the old ways were better. And Greggs and Bernardi are still too new. Too green to trust fully.”

“Call it a gut feeling, an instinct, or the fact that I’ve been doing this too damn long already,” I said, “but my money’s on Alec.”

Tommas pushed off the mantle, the movement sharp. “Agreed. And the second we confirm it, I’ll put a bullet between his eyes.”

Dimitri’s voice cut through the air, direct and firm. “No. Alec goes to Emilio.”

That hit like a punch. I blinked. “You’re serious?”

“He trusted him,” D said. “Letting him handle it sends the message we need. You betray this family, the old guard or the new, and you pay. Publicly.”

Tommas exhaled slowly, obviously trying to force his anger down. “Yeah. Okay. I get it. Save the rage for Rocco.”

“Exactly.” Dimitri’s gaze swept the room, making sure we were all on the same page. “We stay alert through every op. No assumptions. If we’re wrong about Alec, or if he’s not working alone...”

I didn’t need him to finish. My jaw clenched. “Then Kit’s still in danger.”

Marco nodded. “Which is why we should move her. Somewhere remote. Somewhere no one knows about.”

“You want to pull her from the penthouse?” I sat forward, blood rising. “She’s safe here. We’ve secured every inch of this place.”

“I want her breathing, Gio,” Marco said evenly. “That’s all I give a shit about.”

“I get that. You think I don’t? But splitting our resources weakens us.”

Tommy cut in, voice tight. “She doesn’t want to leave. She said so. You saw what happened last time we tried to move her. She doubled-down and decided to remodel instead.”

Dimitri folded his hands together, brows furrowed. As the leader of our pack, it was his call. “We stay. But we change the rules. Triple her protection. And one of us is with her, always.”

We all nodded.

It wasn’t a vote.

It was law.

Marco exhaled, staring at the cherry of his cigar for a long moment. “Fine. We don’t move her for good. But what if we get her off the grid during the ops? Somewhere quiet. No eyes. No risk of a leak.”

I paused, then nodded. “That’s not a bad idea. If one of the drops gets hit, we don’t want her anywhere near the fallout. Especially if Rocco uses the opportunity to make a move against Kit.”

Tommy’s arms stayed crossed, but his tone softened. “Only if it stays between us. No outside detail. No drivers. No chatter. No one but us knows where we’re taking her.”

Dimitri didn’t answer right away. He dragged a hand through his hair, jaw tight, eyes locked on the fire like it held the answers he needed. I knew that look—he was running the numbers in his head. Every route. Every risk. Every goddamn scenario.

“I’ll think about it,” he relented, and we all knew that was as good an answer as we’d get for now.

D didn’t make decisions easily. Not when the weight of them sat solely on his shoulders. I didn’t envy him the responsibility.

I knocked back the rest of my whiskey, the burn nothing compared to the acid sitting in my gut. “You know what keeps me up at night? Not the blood. Not the bodies. It’s knowing someone we trusted sat across from us, drank our whiskey, smiled in our faces… and sold us out.”

Marco tapped ash onto the tray. “Trust is a fucking luxury.”

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