Page 82 of Corrupted Heir (Mafia Kings: Corrupted 1)

Chapter Thirty

Dominic

“Everyone doing okay?” I asked while I stared down at an egg I hadn’t touched. I pierced the yolk, and it oozed out. “Because I’m going to need you on top of your game today.”

“Si,” Leo huffed, rubbing the back of his head. “Had a bit too much to drink yesterday.”

I shot my head up, eyeing Leo. Drinking after what had happened yesterday? What the hell had they been thinking? But Leo cocked an eyebrow, and I shut my mouth.

Leo knew I would have been tossing back shots right alongside him not so long ago. I nodded in acknowledgement and took a sip of my espresso.

“What Tony did was an attempt to weaken us,” I said. My jaw clenched hard, and I was forced to pause. “And he was successful, not because of the money or the product we lost, but because of the message it sent. We looked weak, vulnerable.”

The words tasted like bile in my mouth.

Dante sighed. “It’s bad.”

“It’s not the end of the world.” I tried to reassure him, but it sure as hell felt like the sky was falling. “Our family has been hit by worse. The only difference is this enemy has vengeance fueling him. We’ve got to hit him hard in hopes of evening the playing field.”

“You sure?” Leo asked. He had lost some of the color in his face, and I couldn’t blame him. He’d suffered plenty at the hand of enemies in search of vengeance.

“We need to hit hard to show we’re still strong. We need to send the message that nothing can shake the Lucas. Not ever,” I said. “Now, I’m going to need both of you to get your shit together. No more binge-drinking for now,si?”

I downed the rest of my coffee. It was nine in the morning, and I already needed a drink. Maybe Dante and Leo had the right idea.

“Marco had some of our rats lurk in the shadows last night. The Novas are receiving a few weapon drops along the coast of his territory. Marco’s got some old friends who can help. Ah, speak of the devil.”

Marco stepped into the room and took a free seat beside me. He greeted the others with a nod before unrolling a map on the table.

“It’s too dangerous to set foot inside Brooklyn,” Marco began. “It’s his territory, and he has men everywhere.” Marco looked each of us in the eye. “It’s risky enough that I got them in there to get this info, so we have to make this worth it.” That was the longest sentence I had heard him say in years. He cared about this as much as we did. I clapped him on the back.

Marco showed us the routes we would take to get to our destination, pointing at the map with the tip of a pen. “It’s about a twenty-minute boat ride to Coney Island, where he’s receiving his package. We’ll have to take the long way around to Jamaica Bay, where we’ll set off from Breezy Point. Make sense?”

We all nodded.

“Thank you, Marco,” I said. “Now, for the fun part: We’re going to wreak as much havoc as possible. There are five boats coming in and out, and our sources say that he likes to have all the shipments put together before sending them off deeper into Brooklyn. So, we have to be patient, and take it all out at once. There’s no doubt he’s receiving his armaments to be prepared for when he tries to take us down. We pull this off, and we’re on equal footing. We fuck this up…” I left the thought unspoken.

We all knew what was at stake.

“Understood,” Dante said.

“Boss,” Marco said quietly. “We could hit them even harder. There’s a warehouse just off the shore…”

“Absolutely. Yes,” I agreed before he even needed to continue. “Anything we can do to fuck that bastard’s day up.”

***

The surface of the water was blanketed in a layer of liquid silver. The moon was full and low tonight, like a spotlight shining down on us. It was a good thing, though, because without it, we’d have been going into this blind. Five speedboats bounced up and down on the gentle nighttime waves, awaiting our entry.

This was like any other job, but I couldn’t shed the sensation that there were bars closing around us with every passing second. It was an unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling to want to turn this boat around. If something went wrong, how quickly would he retaliate? Would Fallon be caught in the crossfire?

We had been waiting here for an hour already, and the mini army behind me, standing at the ready, was growing restless. Some of our most trusted and skilled men were joining us tonight, but they didn’t have much patience. They wanted to shoot some people and blow shit up, not wait out in the cold for hours. And if we were doing this, I sure as fuck wanted to get a move on too.

Chapter Thirty-One

Fallon

Dominic had kissed my lips and promised to come back to me, and then he’d left with at least half a dozen weapons on him; in holsters across his back, around his chest, and at his ankle. Just like Dante and Leo, just like Leandro and all the other men who’d gone with him.

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