Page 99 of Corrupted Temptation (Mafia Kings: Corrupted 2)

I resisted the urge to glance around and struggled back to the conversation at hand. “What were you doing with a dead body?”

“I told you I don’t envy what Nico’s going to do, and I certainly didn’t envy what he did to that one.”

“He killed a man… because of me?”

Gabe nodded. “‘Killed’ is the pretty way of putting it. Heavy, right?”

All this time, I’d thought Nico was off doing whatever dangerous thing he had planned, but he’d been trying to find me and killing people in the process?

“Gabe, do you think…” I had to swallow. “Do you think he’ll get here in time?” It came out like a strangled whisper.

Gabe nodded without missing a beat. “He’ll get here.” He stopped talking, but I could feel the weight of the words hovering on his tongue. “I just hope he’s levelheaded enough to recognize the trap he’s walking into.”

“Trap?”

My stomach contracted, threatening to heave up the meager food left in it. Suddenly, I didn’t want him to come. I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs for him to stay away, to stay safe, to stay alive.

“I’m afraid it’s no coincidence you and I are sitting here together. Though, if I have to be sitting here with anyone, I will say that I can’t imagine better company.”

“Then, why?” I asked.

“The Lucas and the Costas,bella. If you’ve got one of each, then you’ve got two families who will go to great lengths to get them back. Two families who maybe won’t mind shooting at each other if it looks like one is standing in the other’s way.”

The sound of clapping resonated through the warehouse, not close by at first, but the slow, steadyclap, clap, clapcontinued and grew louder until a dark figure loomed just outside of the lamppost light.

The clapping stopped, and the figure stepped out of the shadows.

My breath caught in my throat.

It wasn’t Diego, the crooked-nose stranger.

It wasn’t a stranger at all.

Chapter Forty-Two

Nico

I slammed on the brakes on the rough gravel road.

I could just make out the roof of the old, dilapidated warehouse about a half mile in front of me. As much as I wanted to drive up to its rusted front door and plow right through it, I wasn’t that stupid.

Berlusconi had to know I was coming. He’d planned well, getting hold of the two most important people in the world to me.

Cars pulled up behind me, stopping a few feet away and killing the engines. A few cars kept coming. Cars I didn’t recognize at first until a Maclaren slowed to a stop right beside me.

“What the hell is he doing here?” I barked.

I glanced over at Vito, but he shook his head. “Wasn’t me.”

I got out of the car at the same time Dominic Luca stepped out of the Maclaren, both of us with our shoulders back, stretched to our full height. We might as well have been on fucking Animal Planet.

I didn’t mind that I bested him by a good two inches.

Car doors clicked open then slammed shut as the rest of the vehicles behind us emptied. Every man had a gun in his hand and a finger on the trigger.

There were too many Costas and Lucas in one place. I could feel the tension in the air like gunpowder. One spark, and it would ignite.

Vito and Greta moved to stand beside me as the doors of a black Rolls-Royce Ghost opened up and Raven’s two other brothers stepped out.

---