Page 6 of Red Retaliation
My scowl returns as a barman brushes my designer leather shoes while cleaning the broken glass from underneath the table. I’m just about to voice my displeasure at his carelessness when I spot Del weaving his way towards me through the crowd.
Tensing, I yank the barman out from under the table by his shirt. ‘That’s enough.’
As the man hurriedly retreats behind one of the four bars in my casino, my mind scrolls through reasons why one of my inner circle has deserted their post. Aside from my brothers, there’s only two other men who are privy to being inside the nucleus. Del Carter and Steve Farrow. For one of them to be here when he should be elsewhere, wearing a look I recognize as not positive doesn’t happen unless it’s important.
My teeth chew the inside of my cheek as I reach for my replacement glass of whiskey. I’m casually sipping it when Del reaches my table. I give him the nod to sit down.
Taking a seat, he leans into me. I don’t appreciate anyone, even my best men, in my personal space, but sometimes needs must. And this is one of those times.
“I’ve just had word that Bristoni is dead.”
I blink.Bristoni? Dead?One of my arch-nemeses carking it isn’t particularly gutting, but that the bastard head of the Bristoni firm is dead andI’mnot responsible for it, is. I feel robbed. “I didn’t realize the old boy was ill,” I force myself to mutter.
“He wasn’t. It’s murder.”
Now I sit bolt upright. Someone murdered the Bristoni boss and stole my vengeance?
“And it’s not the old man - it’s the son.”
I stare at Del like he’s just dropped in from another planet. “Roberto Bristoni? Where did you hear this? That psycho has security coming out of his fucking ears. It’s got to be a wind-up.”
Del helps himself to a cigarette from my packet on the table. Anyone else doing that would lose their hand. “It’s kosher. I heard it from my scoutplaced inside the Bristoni warehouse. He got word from the inside, but now it’s traveling through London like wildfire. Someone’s gone and murdered Bristoni in his fucking bed, and it seems the wife’s been snatched too. It’s got to be a blackmail job.”
I want to punch somebody. The Bristonis will go batshit over this. That fuckhead, Roberto, had aspirations - many of which included overriding his father in wanting to tread on my toes, as well as my territory, therefore it doesn’t take rocket science to work out the eyes of suspicion will land on me.
For that reason alone, I don’t reckon it’s blackmail; it’s a setup. But by who?
Who the fuck else is trying their hand?
I turn to Del silently awaiting further instructions. “Filter the news through the ranks and put everyone on standby. This could turn into a war, and if it does, we must be ready. I’ll let my brothers know the situation.”
Fuck. I’m more than happy to wage war on those fuckers - foreverything, but we’re not quite ready. However, it looks as though that no longer matters because someone else has lit the fuse.
Slapping Del on the back, I stand up and make my way across the club to the corridor leading to our offices when I spot Oscar coming the other way. He looks agitated, so he must have already heard. News travels fast in this city.
“I already know,” I mutter, continuing up the corridor.
Oscar follows me. “I don’t know how because I’m the only one who’s seen her.”
“Her?” I stop walking.
“She turned up at the delivery door, banging and banging on it. It’s a good job it was me who fucking opened it and no one else saw the bitch. I’ve taken her to your office.”
CHAPTER
4
Arianna
I'M INSANE. Actually insane. Why the fuck am I here? Standing in the center of this room, I’m frozen. Not with cold, but with numbness, panic, anger, resolve, pain, bewilderment and more suffocating than all - sheer hopelessness at my desperation that I chose, actuallychoseto come here.
Of all the places in the world, The Scorpio Lounge is thelastplace anyone belonging to the Galvatore family would step foot in. The only time I’ve ever heard of anyone coming here is if they were lax enough to be forcibly dragged through these doors, knowing they would shortly lose their life.
No Galvatore haseverbeen that lax.
Exceptme... I’m not drugged either. I’ve come of my own accord.
Not that I personally know anything about these people. I’ve never set eyes on any of them before, but I’ve certainlyheardof them. The name “Bateman” is an obscenity, spat or hissed through the teeth by the men who’ve surrounded me my whole life. Since I can remember, all the conversations I’ve overheard from my father, his brothers, the staff and then from my husband and his family, was the same: Batemans are animals, scum, psychopaths... the lowest of the low who got their place through a mix of luck, chance, lack of morals and violence.
