Page 70 of Fragile Union

“I may…” Holly begins, “have posted Alessio’s number online. In a sex group.”

“What type of sex group?” Makenna asks with a smile.

“BDSM,” Dante replies, laughing his ass off. “They want Ales to dominate them.”

I close my eyes and bury my head into her hair. Careful not to jostle her. “Baby,” I murmur. “The shit you come up with.”

“It’s not fucking funny,” Alessio gripes, “the numbers are unknown. I have to answer my fucking phone.”

“Don’t piss me off, it’s quite simple,” Holly tells him. “But I want to find out who did his horn, that was fucking genius.”

“Shut up,” Ales grumbles, there’s no heat in his words. He turns to Dante. “You wanted to talk?”

Dante sighs. “Yeah, we all need to talk.”

Alessio sits up straight. His expression shutters. “What do you want to talk about?”

I glare at him; he can’t be this fucking stupid.

“I left this talk until now. Holly needed to be here too, and the women needed to grieve for Seamus. You didn’t think what went down would go without us properly fucking talking or dishing out a punishment, did you?”

Alessio growls as he leans forward, his hands intertwined. “What do you want to know?” His words clipped.

“Fucking watch your tone,” Dante warns, rising to his feet.

“Enough…” Holly says, her words sharp like a whip and we all stop and look at her. Her face etched in pain. “We have lost too fucking much. The last thing we need is friction in the family.”

“Hol…” Makenna begins softly, “this is business.”

Holly’s eyes flash with anger at her aunt's words. “Bullshit, right now, this is family business. You are not his bosses right now, you are his brother and sister, as Rome and I are. It’s time to stop with the macho fucking bullshit, it will not work.”

“Holly, I get you’re trying to help…” Dante’s words are filled with respect and warmth. He’s grown to love my wife as he has Melissa, they’re family.

“I am trying to help. Just fucking listen.” She snaps and I blink in surprise, she’s never spoken this way to him before. “You’re trying to intimidate him into talking. That isn’t going to work. Your father,” she spits the words out, “used to do the same. Don’t treat Alessio like he’s a burden or a child, instead, we need to find out why he’s done what he’s done. We listen to him without interrupting,” she says pointedly looking between Dante and me. “When he’s finished, then and only then, can we ask questions and dig deeper.”

Makenna nods. “She’s right. We’re not to treat him like a soldier, he’s our brother. Right now, this is family business. So, we treat it as we would any other family business.”

Dante sighs and takes his seat again. “Okay,” he says begrudgingly. “Ales, talk, explain everything from the beginning, let us understand what’s happened.”

“Thank you,” Alessio says to Holly and she rewards him with a smile. “When I was seventeen our father gave me a job to do. I was to infiltrate the Russian Mafia to find out if they were skimming the drugs Dad was running. I was to get as close as I could to them and gain their trust.”

Holly twists on the sofa, raising her leg from off the floor and lying it on the couch. She rests against my body, her head against my chest. I close my arms around her and listen to what my brother has to say.

“I got close to Yelena, she’s Maksim’s granddaughter, the old Pahkan’s great-granddaughter and she’s one of the Bratva’s assassins. I learned a hell of a lot by getting close to her. So much so Dad wanted me to stay undercover for as long as I could.” He glances down at his feet, the shame radiating off him. “I should have told you what dad had wanted from me when he died, but that meant I had to admit Yelena was more than a job and I wasn’t ready to do that.”

I nod, understanding what he meant. Telling everyone he couldn’t let her go meant admitting to himself she was more than what he wanted.

“So, I kept her and my task a secret. Never at one stage did I betray the family. I would never do that. Fuck, to have you even think that pisses me off. It’s been the three of us against the fucking world since we were kids. Our bond isn’t like anyone else's, I would never go against you.” The conviction in his voice is enough to make us realize that maybe we were a little hasty in not listening to him.

“I’ve found out a hell of a lot since I’ve been in with the Russians. Now Yelena’s gone, I won’t be able to get that any longer. But I will tell you Maksim is all about peace right now. He’s trying to rebuild everything his father ruined and then Dimitri. Going to war with us isn’t on his agenda because it’s a war he cannot win.” Alessio informs us. “Is he pissed, yes, does he want your head, probably, but he doesn’t have the manpower, nor the funds to go against you.”

Dante sighs. “What you mean is, he’ll probably retaliate when we least expect it. When he’s rebuilt everything.”

Alessio nods. “Yes, but if that ever happens, I have enough information on their operations that we can infiltrate those, take them over, and break them again.”

My respect rises for my younger brother. He’s obviously done a hell of a lot of thinking about this shit and made some contingency plans.

Dante sighs, resigned to the fact that we’re going to have to wait. “Okay, we’ll deal with it if it comes to it. What I want to know is, why didn’t you tell us you’d be with the Russian’s? It’s going to take a fucking lot for our men to get over the fact you were at the boxing gym.”

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