Page 22 of Cassio (Belles & Mobsters 3)

Two.

Three.

Nothing.

She still hadn’t moved. I knew it in the pit of my stomach, she wouldn’t move.

But I still hoped.

A piece of paper caught my attention. Slowly, as if worried I’d disturb Mamma, I reached for it on the sink counter. There were stains on the paper. Red.

Glancing my mamma’s way, I read the words.

“Be worthy men to love, sons.” Her voice was a faint whisper in my head, as if she was reading me those words herself. “Your father wasn’t.”

Yes, my father was good at destroying good things and good people. Marco inherited that gene. So we’d protect our own at all costs. Bianca and the twins would be protected but so would my brother. Forty years of caring for him were hard to erase. Especially after fucking Ivan Petrov thought he could assassinate my brother. But the Nikolaev men would get him, I was assured of it. If they failed, I’d go after him. Nobody fucked with my family and got away with it.

Though I had no doubt Alexei Nikolaev would get him. His drive to finish Ivan Petrov was unparalleled.

Needless to say, the expected blow back on Luca, when the news of Benito’s death started circulating, had been an added nuance and problem to deal with. I just didn’t expect it to be so significant. The underworld found Luca’s supposed killing of our father an offensive crime and wanted to see him punished.

Over. My. Dead. Body.

From all the fucked up things men in our world did, they found killing a cruel, sick, and twisted psychopath who caused thousands of innocents’ death to be an offensive crime. It made you question their sanity for sure. We needed to clean the damn house. Yes, we were criminals, but even we should have some standards. I learned that from Nonno. People aligned with Benito, and now Marco King had absolutely no standards, except for self-absorption at anyone’s expense but his own.

I should have known things weren’t going to go down easily. Nothing ever went down easily. But as Nonno claimed,Nothing worth having is easy.

So it would seem Nonno was right. Yet again.

Standing in the middle of my warehouse on the outskirts of New York city, I eyed packages stacked up to the ceiling.

A few days earlier, I intercepted the shipment of women Marco, my cruel and sick-in-the-head half-brother, was trying to smuggle into my territory and sent them back home. In the process, I also stole his smuggled shipment of guns, AK-47s, and I was sure he was shitting his pants right about now. The men that expected the delivery of those were not tolerant of delays. It would be another strike against him.

I couldn’t deny it felt smugly satisfying to see it all here, knowing that Marco was losing his mind. I’d rather burn it all down than see him get his hands on it. But be that as it may, Luciano’s men were coming to fetch it and would move it to another location so Marco nor his minions would ever be able to locate it.

Truthfully, watching Marco squirm under pressure, waiting for Luca and I to come for him was priceless. I would take pleasure in watching him crumble, piece by fucking piece. He didn’t deserve a quick death. Marco’s cruelty surpassed my father’s. And the little prick was paranoid, so he surrounded himself with military grade protection and even had a doppelganger.

He was more than happy to dish out cruelty, but the little prick couldn’t take a punch. He was a sneaky weaselly little prick. There were rumors Marco was trying to take over Vegas with assistance of Ivan Petrov, the sick Siberian prick. I wished both of those cocksuckers would freeze their balls off in Siberia. It would be a great service to us all.

Either way, I’d never allow my brother’s nor Ivan’s expansion. As long as Luca, Alexei, or myself were alive, neither Ivan nor Marco would continue gaining power. Besides, Alexei was taking care of Ivan. Or he would - very soon. We just had to end both of them. Once and for all.

I glanced at my watch. It was a quarter to three. Luciano’s men should be here soon. It gave me just enough time to ring Alexei Nikolaev.

I scrolled through my phone contacts and dialed him up.

“Cassio.” Alexei’s cold tone crept through the line. He never bothered even with the briefest greeting.

“Marco’s working with Ivan,” I told him. First that fucker tried to assassinate my brother and now he aligned himself with Marco. Two strikes against him. The third one he wouldn’t survive.

I had a suspicion Ivan was aligning himself with Marco so he could take over. Petrov probably suspected Marco wouldn’t survive long in this world. He might even kill Marco himself. It didn’t matter; they were both dead men to me. Petrov might act like he had certain scruples, but he had none. There was nobody that could attest to that more than Alexei.

Two heartbeats passed. I could feel the temperature drop even over the phone. He hated Ivan Petrov, not that I could blame him. It was his cross to bear.

“Let’s see who dies first, shall we?” he retorted in a frigid voice without a hint of emotion before the line went dead.

I didn’t expect a reaction from him. I couldn’t recall a single time I saw even a flicker of emotion on his face. If I had to guess, it was his coping mechanism. In this fucked up world, we all had our own way of dealing with our crosses. I was nobody to judge.

Not long after, Luciano’s men came and loaded the trucks with the equipment. The warehouse was empty, just as it was this morning.

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