Page 38 of Vengeance

“Right,” she says getting up to grab the clothes left out for her before running to the bathroom. She pauses before closing the door and says, “You’ll wait for me. Right?”

I don’t really have time to wait at all. But I suppose I owe it to her mother who took my family in, no questions asked, even knowing it could lead to her being taken away from her own. Guess I’ll be adding the only heir to the Uccello-Bianchi empire to my list of people and things who can’t wait.

“Right.”

17

Viper

The thing about our quick escape here is that I’m in hostile territory no matter how gracious the Fantonis appear to be, I have a bunch of people who need to be protected, and I don’t have the men to do it.

So when Sabino Fantoni decides that he’s allowed me long enough—less than twenty-four hours—to get settled and that he wants to meet with me, I have little choices for how to use the people I have.

Eileen is coming with me. She has to even if she’s the only one I trust after myself to keep my children and Dele safe. That leaves Dele’s two guards. In the end, I decide to leave one of them with Dele while she’s currently under sedation and put the other one on guard in a room with Lady, Leon, Velia, and the baby, who is being cared for by a maid that Eileen hand chose from the staff. Apparently one that had a hand in raising her and who she trusts the most to not betray us in the event that the Fantonis decide to cut their losses with me.

Reluctantly, I also give Lady back the gun I took from her. It’s a lot to ask one man to protect three eight-year-old’s and a newborn. So if one of those eight-year-old’s has the guts to shoot someone, why not. I’ll fight Dele over it later when she finds out.

With everyone I have to worry about as secure as they can be, I get dressed in a suit that Sabino’s people provided for me and make my way to where we’re meeting with Eileen flanking me.

I enter the brightly lit room overlooking the beach just a few miles away. Unsurprisingly, sitting around the table are all men in their expensive suits. There’s only one chair empty. At the end of the table all the way opposite Sabino. It signifies that I’m the one with the least power here. But as far as I’m concerned, it’s the head of the table and they just don’t know it yet.

“Adrian,” Sabino says.

“Mr. Fantoni,” I say curtly and then glance at what’s presumably my chair before looking up at him. “We’re going to need another seat. For Eileen as my chief advisor.”

Everyone pauses and then discretely looks toward Sabino.

“We don’t allow the women in the room when matters of business are being discussed.”

“She’s my chief advisor,” I repeat simply. “She needs a chair.”

It’s a clear challenge to his authority. He knows it. I know it.

It’s his house. His conference room. He has most of the power. Technically, I should cede to his rules. He wants to abide by outdated traditions of patriarchy? That’s his right in his house. But I also know that even at a disadvantage, even with Sabino holding most of the cards, he doesn’t hold all of them. He needs me too. The question is, will he pick this battle?

In the end, he nods to a guard at the door. They leave and return shortly after with another chair that I direct them to put to the right of my chair. Eileen and I both sit at the same time.

Sabino glances at Eileen. She nods respectfully, and just that gesture throws him. Despite the revelation that Eileen is his niece and a Fantoni, she’s still on my side. Or at least, it appears that way to Sabino. But he can’t be sure. That uncertainty is definitely unsettling him. Just as my insistence that she gets a seat at the table next to me.

“I’m sure Eileen has filled you in on why you’re here,” Sabino says.

“She has. But I’d like to hear it from you.”

Sabino smiles. He thinks I don’t trust Eileen. He thinks he can use that against me. He thinks I have no clue what I’m doing and that they can manipulate me. And maybe that would have been true a decade ago. But I’ve spend a decade under his lying, scheming brother long enough to know how to get them to do exactly what I want them to do without them being any the wiser.

They give me the same spiel that Eileen first gave me before she spilled the rest of her family’s secrets to me. That they’ve been trying to find a way to take down Stephen Pray since he betrayed them. That after years of searching, Eileen noticed me and told them I could be an asset. Then he sells me all the things he could offer me in return.

I pretend to be interested as I sip on the coffee that’s been provided. Nodding when appropriate, but otherwise not paying much attention. All I need to do is for them to confirm what Eileen has already told me and what they think I’m not smart enough to figure out and that I don’t have the leverage to use against them.

“So. What do you say?” Sabino asks.

I could drag this out. String them along and have entertainment in the process of getting what I want. But Dele should be awake soon. And I want to be there when she does. So I cut to the chase.

“What it sounds like is that you all need me a lot more than I need you.”

That’s not true. I’m going to need them to get back across the Atlantic ocean to make a move against Pray. But they don’t know that.

“Not from where I’m standing, Blake.”

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