Page 50 of Surrender

“Okay. Who even knew about your deal?” Fox whispers to me, surveying the room. “You already took care of Dan, but I guess your other friend, Peter, might be around. And there’s any rivals you might have outside the org—”

His words are cut off by some Cresci soldiers coming in, guns out.

“Everybody, into the room! We’re locking this place down!” one of them shouts gruffly. Another one rushes over to Silvano and whispers something into his ear.

Fox reaches into his coat, but I grab his wrist to stop him.

“What’s going on?” I ask Perez, the nearest guard. “What happened?”

“Fuck, Fiore. We just found…” Perez cuts himself off and looks in Silvano’s direction. “Uh, talk to Silvano.”

“What the fuck?” Silvano suddenly shouts. Before I can step in his direction, he runs out of the room.

More guards come in, aiming their guns at us.

“Perez, come on. Whatever happened, I want to help,” I tell him. Fox is tense at my side, looking around the room nervously.

Perez scratches his beard, and after a few seconds, leans in and whispers, “Stevens went to check on the boss. He’s dead in his office. Apparently somebody stabbed him.”

My heart skips a beat. The boss. Cresci. He’s been there as long as I remember, and he was just about to retire. The timing of it couldn’t be more fucked up…

Something nags me in the back of my mind, but I can’t figure out what it is.

“Fuck. I’ll go help Silvano,” I say to Perez. “Fox, you stay here.”

Fox grimaces at me. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. We should stick together.”

“I need you to keep eyes on what’s going on in here. I can’t be in two places at once. Stay here,” I repeat before heading off in the direction I saw Silvano leave in.

The halls are bustling with more guards, but they let me pass. I’m Cresci’s consigliere. I need to know what’s going on.

I find Silvano in his father’s office, slumped on the floor. He’s staring at the pool of blood at the foot of the desk.

Don Cresci is laying half on the desk, eyes wide open and lips parted, like he’d tried to scream. His throat has been slit, and he must have bled out.

I go over to Cresci and touch his forehead. Still warm. He couldn’t have been dead long.

“Silvano.” I turn and squat down in front of him. He’s staring blankly ahead. He must be in shock.

Fuck.

I grab his shoulder, lightly shaking him. “Silvano. Silvano, you need to get up. It’s all chaos out there. We need you to go in and get everyone sorted out. All right?”

“I…” Silvano looks up at me. “He was supposed to retire. He didn’t want to go out like this. He wanted to live on a beach side property.”

“I know,” I say, letting go of his shoulder. “I know that’s what he wanted, and it’s what he deserved. We’ll find the fucker who did this and make them pay. But first, you have to step up like you know he wanted you to.”

I don’t tell Silvano his father had been having doubts about him. He doesn’t need to know that, especially right now.

“Right. Right.” Silvano takes a deep breath before standing. He pales when he looks at his father’s bloodied, gruesome corpse, but turns around to look at the guard hovering by the door. “Have Johanson send me the security footage for tonight. And… the guests are secured?” He doesn’t wait for a response, just starts walking back toward the event hall.

“Fuck,” the guard says, looking back at Cresci. “Jesus fuck. Who the fuck… I swear, none of us were slacking.”

I look at him. He looks shaken, as he probably should. The axe is going to fall on one of the guards, most likely, for failing to protect Cresci against an intruder he had to have known—or someone who had been vouched for.

Seems like that’s been particularly problematic, lately.

“Better start doing a play by play of the evening in your head to figure out where you were when it happened,” I say grimly, only to realize I’m going to have a hard time explaining where I was for the past hour. Fuck. Silvano knows I was in one of the back rooms with Fox, but it’s not like I can stand in front of a mafia gathering and tell them I was busy fucking my bodyguard, who had also tried—and failed—to assassinate me.

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