Page 70 of Of Murder and Matrimony

At the back of the building, one of the men was busy pulling out first aid supplies and doing his best to patch up the injured. I checked in with each man, thanking them and assuring them they would have what they needed to recover from their wounds. None seemed to need a hospital. Or Olesya.

Not ten feet away, a black tarp covered a motionless human shape. I swallowed the lump that threatened to choke me and squatted next to the plastic, flipping the corner back and revealing a face too young to be caught in the crossfire.

“Who was he?” Cosimo asked, crouching next to me.

“Donato’s little brother,” Filippo answered, inclining his head toward a man who knelt with his hands in his face, surrounded by other soldiers. “He wasn’t made yet. Shouldn’t have been at the warehouse.”

The soldier’s silent grief was like a punch to the gut. I forced myself to look at the dead kid again, to memorize the face of a young man who had given his life defending my family.

I cleared my throat. “How old was he?”

“Seventeen,” Filippo provided.

“Fuck.” A fucking child. I covered the body and stood, brushing my hands off on my suit pants as if I could wipe the weight of death away. I turned to the man in charge of the warehouse. “Take the body to the mortuary. Visit his parents and send our sympathies. We’ll cover all the funeral costs. Let them know he snuck in and died in an accident on the loading dock.”

“Yes, sir,” the man answered.

There was nothing more for me to do. I motioned for Cosimo to join me outside. I couldn’t breathe in the acrid stench of gunfire and the explosives the Russians used to blow in the front door. Stefano and Filippo followed at a distance, their guns drawn in anticipation of another threat.

“Do your sources know anything about this?” I asked my brother when we’d stepped out into the cool air of the early morning. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly dawn.

Cosimo raised his brows, his face tight. “Sorry, I didn’t have a chance to touch base with them while I was rescuing you.”

“Right.” I ran a hand through my hair, the frustrated action mussing the style. I kicked a rock across the paved lot, scuffing my leather shoe. “How the fuck did they know I was going to be here?”

“There must be a leak somewhere,” Cosimo concluded, his face darkening. “This was a supplemental shipment, so it wasn’t on the regular schedule. Only the men in the warehouse and a select few others knew it was arriving tonight.”

My blood boiled at the implications of having a mole in the organization. Life in the family was better than many jobs, with security and retirement. My men were paid well and well-cared for if anything happened to them. We even took care of their families should the need ever arise. I knew the heart of man was fickle, but I couldn’t stomach betrayal, especially from within.

“Interrogate them all,” I ordered as I approached my SUV. “Find the traitor.”

“I’m on it,” Cosimo assured me as I climbed in. He held my stare until I slammed the door, and Stefano pulled out of the lot.

I stared blankly out the window on the ride home, trying not to process the night’s events in the presence of my men. The familiar tightness gripped my chest, and my pulse picked up with every passing mile.

When we reached the house, I dismissed my men and entered the quiet dwelling, all the occupants still asleep, utterly oblivious to the carnage in the warehouse. I wouldn’t wish that knowledge on them. Well, maybe my father, but he’d seen his share of skirmishes as he worked his way up in the family. Now he let others do the dirty work.

Sleep was impossible, so I trudged upstairs to my office, discarding my suit jacket on my chair, and stood before the window, watching as the sky lightened with the promise of dawn. A dawn that one boy wouldn’t open his eyes and see. I couldn’t get his face out of my head. It would no doubt haunt my dreams in days to come.

Emotions swirled inside me, heavy enough to take my breath away—regret, anger, sorrow, longing. All feelings that would make me weak if I embraced them. I clawed at my tie, yanking it off my neck and unbuttoning my white dress shirt, trying to relieve the constriction in my throat.

My heart sounded like gunfire in my ears, blocking out the sound of the birds outside. I pulled the curtains closed and whirled away from the window, unable to face the rising sun, stuck in the night's memories.

At first, I paced, trying to walk off the unbearable tension crawling underneath my skin, pulling my lips into a disgusted sneer at what was happening to me. It was too much. I had to stop it, had to purge those emotions from my system so I could breathe again.

I fisted my shirt and pulled, popping buttons off as I ripped it open, shrugging off the torn fabric and letting it fall to the floor. My fingers shook as I fumbled with my belt, finally forcing the leather from the buckle and pulling it free from the loops. I wrapped the leather tightly in my fist, leaving the silver buckle free. Bracing a hand on the corner of my desk, I swung my arm, arcing the belt over my head and lashing it across my back.

The sharp metal bit into my flesh, and I growled at the pain, embracing it. That was what I needed. Pain. I wound up again, and the metal clanked against my shoulder, narrowly missing my face. I could feel the welts rising as I closed my eyes and continued striping my skin, bruising myself, no doubt splitting scars in places.

On the next swing, I didn’t feel the leather. Instead, a pained whimper filled the air. My eyes snapped open, finding Olesya at my side, the belt wound around her forearm, a buckle-shaped welt forming on her ivory skin, vividly red even in the dimly lit room.

“What were you thinking, mia piccola fantasma?” I whispered hoarsely, removing the leather from her arm and tossing it to the floor like a venomous snake. Gingerly, I checked her superficial wounds, my chest aching as I felt the raised welt.

“You didn’t hear me call out to you,” she choked out, tears filling her eyes. “I had to stop you.”

Olesya’s fingers drifted over the raised skin of my back, and my wife shed tears for my pain. “Why?”

“Sometimes the pressure is too much.” I didn’t know how else to explain it; that writhing, desperate thing inside me. “I have to let it out. I have to lead the family, but I’m trying to stop a war I didn’t start, and I can’t save everybody.”

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