Page 68 of Surrender

Effective, but I don’t want Fox touching anybody else’s cocks.

The recording ends with Peter’s gurgling death noises.

Silvano looks despondently at me. “I guess Peter was a bit more ambitious than I thought.”

He doesn’t actually sound surprised.

“You think?” I ask acerbically. When he doesn’t reply, I sigh, getting up to my feet and dusting myself off. “Will you fucking listen to me now? Because I still have my pet assassin up there and ready to take the shot if you decide you want to keep being an imbecile.”

Silvano’s eyes flicker to the nearby empty building. “That was a pretty good shot. Poor Carlo.” He rubs his brow. “Fuck. Cristiano, it’d be easier if you were out of the way.”

“Thanks,” I say, my voice surprisingly brittle. “Glad you think so. But I’ve worked too fucking hard to just disappear into the night, and I’m not going to just lay down and die. I’m willing to work for you, Silvano, but this bullshit…” I shake my head. “I’m warming up to the idea of killing you, you know.”

“You’ll have ample opportunity.” Silvano approaches me, and I tense, keeping my gun aimed on him. He ignores me and bends down to examine Enzo. “Fucking shame. I don’t think anybody else knows our security system as well as he did.” He shakes his head and meets my eyes. “You know about half of the Cresci family thinks I’m a weak little fag, right? They’ll want a macho man like you in charge.”

“All you had to do was call him off,” I tell Silvano. I’m not about to feel guilty for Enzo’s death, not when he’d been determined to take me out, though I do have to agree it’s going to be inconvenient to find someone who knows security as well as Enzo did. But I see the bleakness in Silvano’s eyes, and I sigh, finally lowering my gun. “I don’t really give a fuck what they think, Silvano. Which is a good thing, considering they won’t see women at my side anymore.” I manage a terse smile. “Just one highly dangerous pet assassin who won’t hesitate to blow their kneecaps off if they start spouting their usual homophobic bullshit.”

I hear Fox snorting. “Does that mean I should come down now? I can still shoot him.”

“I don’t know.” I meet Silvano’s eyes. “Should he just shoot you now?”

Silvano shrugs. “Up to you, I guess. If you want to take over, you’ll have to kill me. I’m not giving you the organization without a fight.” Then he sighs. “But you’d be a better underboss than Peter ever would have been. Fucking incompetent…”

“Piece of shit,” I finish for him with a curt nod. “Yeah, Fox, you can come down. If I’m dead when you get here, well…” I smirk at Silvano. “You’re off your leash, and you can do whatever the fuck you want to Silvano here.”

Silvano laughs. “You willing to share him? Because I was serious when I had him under me. He’s very, very pretty, and his ass looked amazing all bruised up.”

Every single word out of Silvano’s mouth has me tensing up all over again, and any sense of fondness I might feel for him goes out the window. “You ever touch him,” I say darkly, “I’ll cut your balls off.” I eye him. “How did you know to call him that? Robin?”

Silvano snorts. “I knew Peter had ordered a hit on you. I figured he was the assassin after I saw his cut-up back that time at the club. Then you brought up Corbin and assassins… I talked to Peter, who was very happy to brag about how he was going to clear the way for my rise to power. He mentioned hiring a ‘robin’ for the job. What an uninspired code name.” Then he shakes his head. “Not that ‘fox’ is much better.”

“So let me get this straight,” I say, far from amused. “You knew Peter was trying to clear a path for you to gain power, and you never once thought for a moment that he was the problem?”

Silvano gives me a look. “What? No shit, Peter was up to something. But I just told you, it’d be a lot more convenient for me if you were out of the picture. I’d have dealt with Peter later. Especially since he had my father murdered.” He folds his arms over himself. “If you’d died at the party, I could have said it was a tragic misunderstanding, blamed Peter for it, and then murdered him for the betrayal. No hard feelings.”

“Good to know I’m that expendable.” I feel so bitter about the whole thing, but what else am I going to do? I could shoot Silvano here and now, end him before he can cause trouble for me down the line, but… It would cause even more problems. There’s no good solution. “Silvano… If it wasn’t for how much I respected your father, I would kill you right now. You understand that, right?”

“I could have murdered you at any point during your fight with Enzo,” Silvano points out. “But look, there’s your boy.”

I look over my shoulder, where Fox is approaching, gun at the ready.

“Fuck you, Silvano,” Fox says. “Just so you know, if you ever try to touch me again, I’m breaking all your fingers before I cut off your dick.”

I hum briefly. “I told him I’d cut off his balls. I think I like your idea better.”

“Jesus Christ, how does anybody think you’re straight?” Silvano pulls out his phone and starts tapping on it. “So, are you going to keep working for me? Or should I start searching for a new underboss? And consigliere. I was thinking Loretti for that role, by the way.”

I start to make a smart-ass retort, but I end up sighing. “Yeah. Loretti would be good for a consigliere. He’s smart, he’s got good connections, and he can be your token straight man in power.”

Silvano laughs about that. “Sure. Fuck, he’s obnoxious when he talks about his wife, isn’t he?”

I wrap my arm around Fox. “I don’t have the urge to call Fox my honey bunny boo boo bear, at least.”

Fox leans into me, but his hand is still tense on his gun. “So… no more shooting? It feels like we should shoot him at least a little.”

I eye Silvano, and for a moment, I seriously consider letting Fox shoot him somewhere—the leg, maybe or the foot. Just to remind him that I’m fucking serious about not letting him take me out without a fight. But that wouldn’t be the best way to start our working relationship, and instead, I shake my head. “No more shooting. Let’s get clean-up on this and get the fuck out of here before cops show up.”

“Yeah. You can call them. Since you’re the underboss now.” Silvano pinches the bridge of his nose. “Fuck, I need a smoke. I shouldn’t have quit. I guess a drink will have to do.” He eyes us and shakes his head. “I’d invite you to join me, but I think you’ve got other plans.”

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