Emma pushed herself up. “You’ve already decided what you’re going to do, haven’t you?”
“Just this second lying here with you, so stop giving me those sad eyes. We’re going to run to someplace where I can see a rabbit coming at five miles.”
Emma’s eyes widened at the admission, and she didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re running? I’m not going to hear about this for years to come, am I? How in your weakened condition I made you do something you’ll regret until hell freezes over, since that’s what I wanted to begin with.”
“This isn’t running because I’m afraid. It’s running like a small rooster from a big bird with a very sharp beak on its tail. Did I ever tell you that story?”
“Will I like it?”
“Better than that, little girl, you’ll learn something too.” She patted Emma on the butt, and Emma moved closer. “Dalton once told me…” Cain began.
Outside, her plan was set in motion, and it would bring them one step closer to finishing a tale she’d one day use to teach her son when it was his time to lead their clan.
Chapter Seven
“Well?”
“I want those bitches to suffer, so I’m going to blow their lives and everything they hold dear to shit. I’ve already taken care of the club and the lawyer’s office—got a few more to go. My guy’s getting the supplies together to finish the job.” Gino Bracato sat across from his father Giovanni’s desk and was so angry he spit as he spoke.
He’d made a serious mistake when he let his guard down after his father had kidnapped Hayden Casey. With Cain in the hospital, all of them had expected Emma to roll into a ball and wait for someone to save her. So when she had Gino’s baby boy kidnapped to use as bait to get her own little bastard back, it’d been like a bat to the face he didn’t see coming. Touching his son was one thing, but Emma had also humiliated him by leaving him to wait in his underwear while his father made the deal for his release.
At Emma’s order, Cain’s men had taken him out of his mistress’s bed and held him, his brothers, and his son hostage in exchange for Hayden. On the way out, he’d seen his men knocked unconscious, which he’d rewarded with a trip to the bottom of the river.
“Careful how you carry this out,” his father Giovanni screamed. “We don’t need any more heat from the feds or otherwise.” He was confident there were no bugs since they’d swept the room just before the family meeting. “And you…” He pointed to his second eldest, Michael, next. “What the fuck happened?”
“The shooters didn’t expect that kind of firepower at the bitch’s house, Papa. We thought with her in the hospital, the muscle would be there taking care of her.”
Stephano Bracato sat back and listened to the rest of his family argue over their mistakes. He was slowly taking over the drug trafficking in the city and along the Gulf Coast. If he took advantage of this opportunity and his volume grew big enough, he could break away from his father and his brothers.
“My problems begin when the four of you start thinking,” Giovanni screamed.
Michael and the youngest son Francis cringed a little when their father’s voice kept escalating.
“We have to finish this before Casey wakes up from whatever the hell is wrong with her and mounts a counterattack. I’m too close to finally taking control and driving all the other families out. No more fuckups.”
“Do we have your permission to pick them up and take care of them permanently?” Gino asked.
“You see a clean shot, you take it.” Giovanni pointed his index finger in Gino’s face. “Do you understand me? I don’t want anything fancy. I know Emma took your boy and caught you with your pants down, but I want you to put that behind you. Emma got her kid back, and you have Little Gino. That’s the end of it.”
“But, Papa—” Gino tried to sound pathetic.
“You screw this up for me and I’ll cut you off.” Bracato stood up and left the room, expecting to be obeyed.
Stephano, lounging on the sofa, watched the whole encounter and knew his brother Gino wouldn’t back away so easily. When Gino had married the girl their father had approved of and had a child not long after, his three bothers just slapped him on the back and smiled. Gino could have control of the family if it meant keeping the old man off their backs.
“What’s your plan?” Stephano asked Gino. “I know you, and I know that blond whore embarrassed the hell out of you.”
“She and our old man may think that she’s gonna die from a bullet she’ll never see coming, but I’m not in a generous mood. I want more than anything to fuck that little slut over and have Cain watch me make her scream.”
“Gino, you just heard Papa,” Francis warned.
The anger in Gino boiled over onto his youngest brother. Grabbing him by the neck, he slammed him into the wall. “You gonna go running and tell like you did when you were four, you little pussy? Reach down and make sure you got some balls, Francis, and if you do, start acting like it. Papa hears one word about this conversation, though, and you won’t have to worry about them ’cause I’ll cut them off myself.”
“Let him go,” ordered Michael, who always figured he would gain control of the family when Gino’s mouth got him killed. “And it might do you some good to listen to him.”
“Fuck off, all three of you. If you don’t want to help me, then fine. I’ll take my men and get it done myself. Come with me, though, and I’ll think about giving you each a turn with her.”
Outside, Giovanni walked the length of his dock and jumped onto a boat moored at the end. Four men jumped in with him, and a fifth waited on the dock and cast them off.
