Chapter Five
Lorenzo
Matteo looked like shit. There was no polite way to put it, he was black and blue and beaten all to hell and he looked like shit. Not the usual chipper, cocky son-of-a-bitch I knew he was under all of those cuts, but worn-down defeated and empty.
But he was standing. And that was a start.
"God, that's a face I haven't had the misfortune of seeing in years," his deep, jovial voice rumbles toward me and Nadia as we enter his room.
"Good to see you too, you old bastard," I jab back, folding my arms across my chest when we come to a halt a few feet away from him. "You look like shit."
He attempts to smile, but it comes across as more of a grimace through all the swelling. "You do too, you little fucker." A ripple of laughter passes between us both as I reach over to take his hand in mine and shake it firmly. "My family?" He presses, a nervous frown pulling his brows down. "No one has told me anything since I woke."
"Safe, for now," I nod to him, letting my face relax into a gentle smile, "but I have no doubt they will be anxious to see you."
His brow scrunches further. "Will they be able to?"
"We can arrange something," I promise him with a nod of my head. It's a small action, but it seems to make all the world of difference knocking Matteo back to the edge of his bed with a strong exhale.
Nadia shifts behind me, clearly uncomfortable to be in the middle of our conversation, and I move ever so slightly to let her beside me. There was something in her stance that had me checking the room over. I couldn't see any immediate threat but I trusted my girl and her instincts.
I should have realised this meeting wouldn't go as smoothly as I would have liked. Matteo's eyes dart past me and to the glowering assassin behind me and I have to hold back my smirk. Ever calculating how she needs to be perceived by people, ever-shifting and changing to suit.
"I don't believe I know you," Matteo says, tilting his head inquisitively, inviting her to answer his unspoken question.
"No," she responds sharply, more Reaper than Nadia, "I don't believe you do."
I place my hand gently on the curve of her back, feeling her press into my palm. "Matteo Colombo, Nadia Regarzza," I introduced them both, letting Nadia decide how she wanted to be perceived by him. We would discuss her need to be feared later, for now, I would let her do whatever she needs to get through the day.
A flash of recognition shoots over Matteo's face. "The famed Reaper," he mutters in impressed awe. "I'm impressed, Leo," he smirks at me, "Didn't think you'd have the balls to deal with the Devils."
I scowl at him, unimpressed. My little devil however seems to enjoy his dig at me.
"He doesn't," Nadia chirps back, patting me on the shoulder as I shoot her the dirtiest glare I can manage whilst holding back a smirk. She sees and chuckles lightly in return. Oh she was going to pay for that.
"I hate to be the one to break up a reunion," Giovani cuts in, entering the room behind us, "And I'm very aware you are still recovering, Mr Colombo," he nods respectfully to the beaten man before us, "but we need any and all information you have on the Russians as soon as possible."
My second in command moves to stand beside Nadia, facing Matteo, blocking him in without making him feel crowded in a move we curated effortlessly between the two of us.
An air of caution always clung to Giovani which made our suspicion easy to cover, because Gio was always suspicious, and in this case we needed him to be.
"Dante has said," the other don grimaced. Giovani's eye twitched, clearly not liking his non-answer. Alarm bells were ringing in my ears at his avoidance and I never ignored my intuition, it had yet to fail me. Following nadirs trepidation and the news that we had received that morning my every instinct was telling me something wasn't right.
From that morning, we knew one thing for certain: Matteo had been conscious for two days. Giovani had discovered that fact before they left on their mission after checking in with one of the overnight nurses, who clearly hadn't been clued into whatever scheme Matteo was conducting. The poor woman had no idea what can of worms she had opened by informing Giovani of how surprised she was no one had been down to see Matteo since he had awoken.
No one had alerted us to his state. Which means he didn't want us to know, which tells me he is hiding something. I understand the need to be left alone to process, but all he had to do was ask, we could have given him the time he needed. Matteo is a Don in his own right, after all, his wishes are to be respected at all costs. So that continues to beg the question: what is he hiding from us?
Everything felt off with Matteo, the trust and ease he once had with us no longer seems to be there, he's on edge, skittish. Understandable after all he has been through, but considering he asked to see us and has so far been very un-useful in giving us information, I would say Giovani's hunch would be correct.
"I take it you've been informed of everything then?" Nadia asks, her head tilting to the side as she studies him. She's clocked on to our plan, the subtle good-cop bad-cop we have placated by her innocent curiosity act. Clever, clever girl.
"I have," Matteo swallowed, "I can only apologise. She's a good kid, smart too. I'm sure she will be fine."
"We can hope," Giovani grumbles, frown growing.
"It's why we need your help," I admit, scratching the back of my neck in discomfort. Nadia shifts her attention to me, the twitch in her eyebrow enough to tell me how amusing she's finding my act. "We've had a complete blackout from Dom and Alex. Nothing has come through from them and we are fairly certain nothing is getting through to them, either."
"Shit," he swears, hand coming up to cover his mouth, then his neck. "Do you think..." his voice trailed off as his eyes flickered to Nadia. The look had my jaw tightening immediately at his implication and I had to force myself to relax it.
"That the devils have something to do with it?" I ask outright, not bothering with subtlety on the matter. His implication directly impacts Nadia, no matter how it's sugarcoated or twisted. "I have a lot of thoughts, and that was one of them but I don't believe so, no."
Nadia shakes her head. "No, not possible. There was only one person who would be able to conduct something this wide and he's dead." The pain in her voice isn't hidden, and neither is the twist of her features as she thinks back to Michael. I can't say I'm sorry that he's gone but the look on her face makes me ache for her.
"What can you tell us about the Russian's operation then?" Giovani asks Matteo pointedly.
Matteo sighs heavily. "Very little, unfortunately, I wasn't exactly kept in the loop." The wince on his features is genuine.
"I'm sorry we didn't get to you sooner," I admit through a murmurer.
"Not your fault, they made it pretty difficult to do so," he responds with a halfhearted shrug, his focus elsewhere, "I heard."
"It was actually Nadia that figured it out," Giovani tells him, eyes shooting to the assassin beside me and I could have sworn that was a compliment he just gave her.
Nadia seems to realise it too, looking at him in confusion before she shakes her head. "Hardly," she mutters.
"Then thank you," Matteo says softly like his breath had been knocked from him. "I owe you my life."
Nadia shuffles uncomfortably yet again. "No, please," she splutters, "You don't. Just tell us what you do know and you can consider the debt paid."
Never did I think I would see Nadia humble or uncomfortable over someone owing her anything, but clearly this was new for her. I would be lying if I didn't say I enjoyed this side of her.
"Alright," Matteo nods, eyes still distant. "Ivan has some kind of contact within our ranks, I don't know who and I don't know where, but I know they're high up enough to know about drops and collections for all of our shit as well as movements."
That confirmed our fears of a rat. "We figured as much," I confirm, "We have feelers out on one of my men currently."
"Nico," Matteo rumbled lowly before looking surprised.
"You heard?" Nadia asks, her brows drawing closely, clearly as suspicious of how he got this knowledge as I am.
Matteo coughed. "It was hard not to," he admitted quietly, "My men have been chittering about how he lost his child, his partner and his trust all in the space of a week."
I fight back my urge to narrow my eyes at him, forcing my face to remain impassive. The knowledge of what Nico has faced shouldn't be public yet, but perhaps we've done a worse job at keeping it hidden than we originally thought.
"We aren't sure it's him," Nadia cautioned through a deep, steadying breath. She has been waiting for this to come up in conversation, unsure of how to approach it. I can see it in the way she shifts her weight from one foot to the other, that uncertainty.
All of us turn our attention to her and those depthless brown eyes found my own, searching my face for permission to continue. She doesn't need it, but I oblige with a small almost indiscernible nod encouraging her to continue, curious about her thoughts on the matter. We hadn't spoken much about Nico since the incident, but it was now apparently the time to discuss him and the situation at hand. I wasn't happy about it, I didn't know where I stood on the matter and I knew that made me a weak leader showing hesitation when I should have shown no mercy.
"It makes absolutely no sense for him to go against us and put Jade at risk like that. No matter how upset he was, I know he would never harm her."
"We all thought so, too, Piccola," I say slowly, brow furrowing as I try to catch up to her thought process, interested in where she was going with this.
"That's just it though," she continues, shaking her head, "since he's been gone it hasn't stopped, information is still getting out."
I open my mouth to argue against that, but she quickly cuts me off. "We were ambushed when we went to the Russian's warehouse, a trip that only a handful of people knew about," she states, looking to Giovani to back her up. He nods with a wince and I can't help the colourful curse that stumbles from my lips.
"That doesn't bode well," Matteo mutters.
"And then the timeline of Jade being taken doesn't make sense. We were out hunting Nico down. Nico was with Piero at the restaurant when the code was input right? He was missing from the estate when his code was used."
"It couldn't have been Nico," Giovani murmurs, the realisation rocking him.
"All of the cameras had already been wiped when we got there to check everything," I admit lowly, rubbing my jaw as recount the events of that day, silently hating that I hadn't connected the dots earlier but equally thankful I hadn't gone right ahead and killed Nico when Piero brought him to us as a traitor. "It really could have been anyone who used his code."
"Clearly someone who is close enough to us that they wouldn't have a problem accessing that kind of information," Gio rumbles.
Nadia's attention returns to Matteo, a fiery determination set in her eyes with the way she took him in, akin to that of a predator weighing up its prey. "Did you get any indication whatsoever of who it was who is working for them?"
I could have sworn I watched him fold under her scrutiny. Intentional or not, Nadia was going in for the kill, that much was for certain.
"I— I—" he sputters, shaking his head, eyes wide and traumatised, swallowing, opening and closing his mouth again and again. A man drowning on land in his own thoughts. "No, I'm sorry, nothing."
"Nothing at all?" She pressed, leaning closer and closer with tiny, minute movements, studying every tiny shift in his body, so alike that of a cobra I wouldn't be surprised if she hissed. Matteo looked so small under her gaze, not at all the powerful man I knew he was. I shouldn't have been as turned on by that power dynamic as I was. "Not an inkling of anything?"
The shaking of his head grew more frantic. "They... they kept me— oh god," he choked eyes darting between the three of us before his hand covered them. "They kept me in the basement, I wasn't allowed to move. I was chained down, and it was cold and dark."
Vague. Non-specific word choices still indicated what he went through. Was it trauma? Or was he hiding something?
"Where were you chained?" Nadia asked, voice softening, that harsh intensity in her stance easing. She had him right where she wanted him. The information would pour out of him soon enough, intentional or not. "Have you had the wounds cleaned?"
Matteo clutched his arms to him, his chest heaving. He looked pained, as though he was trying to find the right words to say. He thought we were on his side, Nadia's shift in tone settled him, it seemed.
"The floor," he whispers, "I couldn't move from the floor. They told me they had killed my daughter, they told me they killed her, they said they had sent someone to kill her."
"Trained?" Nadia asks with caution.
"I— I don't know," he whimpered, "I imagined so. I pictured it, them murdering her and dragging her body down those stairs to join me. Every time that door opened I thought that was it, she was dead and they were bringing her body down for me to see."
I saw the moment Nadia turned herself off to what he was saying, steeling herself at the tone of his voice. I felt it in myself, the catching of my breath.
"We will get them to you as soon as possible," I find myself promising gruffly. "Taya is fine, I swear to you."
"My girl," Matteo whimpers feverishly, head in his hands. There was the truth we were looking for. The genuine fear. Ivan had threatened to use Matteo's daughter against him after all.
Nadia turns her attention back to me and I'm startled by the look in her eyes. "We need to move out of here," she tells me, "Quickly. This compound is getting crowded, the men are fighting and shit is hitting the fan."
Her statement throws me, my eyes searching her face for any indication of what was going on in her beautifully complicated mind.
"I have men working on setting us up in Upstate New York as we speak," Giovani tells us, arms folded over his chest.
"No offence Gio, but that's not going to cut it," Nadia says, pursing her lips.
"I don't like that you're implying I can't do my job properly, Nadia," he hisses back at her.
Matteo's eyes widen at their interaction, the snapping back and forth, and I see what she has done. Leaving him open to listening to our conversation without being expected to say anything. Sharing information without actually saying anything. This information will get passed on if he's no longer trustworthy and we will know by the end of the week if Matteo isn't being as honest as he wants us to believe he is.
My little devil. Clever, clever girl, setting traps and ways for him to stumble so effortlessly. I decide I want in on her fun, why not add a little more fuel to the fire myself? Something a lot juicier.
"I'd check how you're talking to my woman, Gio," I grind out to him, adding a glare to really put the nail in the coffin.
The pause that follows is heavy and I can't help but smirk at the bemused looks I receive.
"Oh, you mother—" Giovani cuts himself off, shaking his head at me. "You have got to be kidding me."
"What?" Nadia snaps, hands on her hips as she casts a glare between the two of us.
"I can't believe you've chosen right now to lay claim," he tuts, rolling his eyes at me.
I shrug. "It was bound to happen sooner or later."
"Anyone wanna clue me in?" Nadia huffs, sick of our shit. I smirk down at her, pulling her to my side and planting a kiss on the top of her head.
"This dickhead," Giovani points accusingly to me, "just lay public claim to you."
Nadia looks up at me, fighting the smile I know is trying to burst at the seams of her perfect lips. "You're mine, passerotta," I murmur down to her, pressing a quick kiss to her lips. "There's no running away now." And I mean it, even using it as a weapon to test Matteo, I mean it with all my heart. She's mine and I'll be damned if the whole world doesn't know about it. It's time for them to know.
Matteo watches us closely, mouth agape. Hook line and sinker.
"This means I actually have to actively make you my business now, doesn't it?" Giovani mocking whines.
Nadia laughs, a sweet sound I don't think I'll ever get used to hearing, and Matteo is even more taken aback. "Ouch, that's gotta be rough," she mocks him, a devilish grin on her face at his deadpan look.
"You have no idea," my second in command grumbles under his breath, but the crease that is normally permanently on his brow isn't there.
I shake my head at the pair of them, my hand still firmly holding Nadia into my side as I turn my full attention back to the wide-eyed Matteo. "So there is truly nothing else you can tell us?" I ask cautiously, aware that my appearance in his eyes was softened by the woman in my arms.
"No," he chokes out sadly, "No I'm sorry."
"Then why did you ask to see us?" Giovani queries, arms folded, head tilted in question.
Matteo flounders for a moment, gaze flicking between the three of us. "I needed to know about my family," he states as if it were the obvious answer to our question.
"Of course," Nadia tells him softly, "Leo and I will see to it that you're re-united quickly." She reaches out to take his hand in her own, offering it a gentle squeeze of support. Such a change from the dangerous reaper she had been minutes before.
It's enough to settle Matteo, for now, but we are still left without answers.
"This isn't going to end well," Matteo whispers as he lowers himself onto his bed. "is it?"
My frown comes before I can stop it.
"The end is currently out of our reach," Nadia mutters to him, stepping to tuck him in. "we focus on how we want to start."
The Don watches her closely, searching for something he can't quite find. "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
Her lips purse, hand still grasped in his own. "Then the Russians will quickly discover why I'm known as the Reaper."
———
The three of us left Matteo to be overseen by the doctor, realising we wouldn't be getting any more from him today and moved back to my quarters to hold an impromptu meeting.
Four strides into the room and exhaustion hit me square in the face. The kind of tiredness that not even a year of sleep could fix. My body ached, worse still so did my mind, and I knew I wouldn't be able to hide it from the others for long. A huff had me collapsing into the armchair and sitting in the centre of what was a small living space, Nadia already pouring me a glass of what I hoped was scotch but knew by the look on her face was a glass of water.
Matteo hadn't been as useful as I hoped he would, but our interaction had still led to enough revelations for the day. Nadia stood just off to my left, biting her thumbnail as she looked off into the middle distance, the cogs practically audible in her head.
"Nico—" I breathed, at last taking in the magnitude of my decision to remove him from the family.
"Can be dealt with later," Nadia cuts me off, her no shit attitude making me straighten my spine. "He needs the space to recover, we need fewer distractions. We can bring him back when we have more solid answers."
"You still want to see the Oracle?" I wince, not bothering to hide my distaste for that decision.
"Why wouldn't I?" She shoots back, "It's not like anyone else has any useful information. Maybe they won't know anything about Jade, but they might be able to tell us who has been behind the security breach."
I heave a sigh and nod. "What did we get from Matt?" I ask Giovani.
"Little," he grumbles, collapsing in a chair opposite me, ankle crossing over his knee. "he knows something and he's not willing to tell us, that much is clear."
I grunt in agreement, taking a deep swig of water. "Something is stopping him from telling us everything. Fear or something else I couldn't tell. Dee?"
"Also very little," she sighs, "but we will find out soon enough if he is trustworthy with the information we gave him." She gives me a pointed look that makes me smile at her. "We still need to see the Oracle."
I pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache brewing. "And we need to talk to Dante."
"That list of yours still growing?" Nadia jokes, the attempt at lightening the tone raising a smile on my lips.
"Sadly so, passerotta." I twist to look at her. "you really think he has information?" She hesitates. "That's why you want to see the oracle," I let out a sigh in understanding, "you want to know if he is connected to Theo and the devils."
Her shy nod hurts. Her confusion and how time and time again she has been misled snapped to the front of my mind. Victor, Ivan and now Theo. She wants answers that aren't attached to more lies, more confusion and other agendas.
"Gio, organise a car for us in an hour," I tell him on a sigh, "and get Piero ready to join us." He says nothing, ever he stoic giant, and stands to leave, shooting me a warning look as he goes. A man of few words but a plethora of emotions on every decision I ever make he is well within his business to share with me. Doesn't mean I enjoy it.
"An hour?" Nadia pipes up, attention snapping to me, energy shifting to trepidatious immediately.
"Si, Bambina," I nod, ready to get on with this whole ordeal. "an hour."
I understood her need to speak to the Oracle but fuck me were they notoriously sticky. This would only end badly for the both of us, I knew already, and by the way Nadia bit her lip, she knew it too.
My little devil stood, taking a few steps towards me to close the distance. "I know you hate this idea—"
"I don't hate it, Bambina," I cut her off with a rumble, hands reaching to pull her close to me. "I'm just apprehensive."
"I need answers," she admits softly, "And if that means walking into a trap to get them, you know I will. I have done so several times this month alone."
Her dry humour raises a laugh from my throat. "I'm just sorry we can't get the answers quicker. Or another way."
"The great Lorenzo Bonanno sorry?" Nadia mock gasps, "Well I never. I really have worn you down."
"No, Bambina, you have done far worse," I chuckle, pulling her face to my own, kissing her sweetly before taking full control. The way her breath catches as I bite her lip sends me into overdrive. "You made me fall in love with you."
"What a cruel, wicked thing I am," she murmurs, her voice breathy, eyes glazing over in a way I know will only lead to trouble.
"My own personal trouble," I groan against her lips.
"We have an hour to kill, right?" She asks, equally as breathy and clearly just as worked up as I was in her presence.
"Si, Piccola," I nod, nipping at the column of her throat.
"Then, since you're refusing to rest, I vote we use that time wisely," she coo's through hooded eyes.
I grin against her sweet skin. "I couldn't agree more, amore mia."
"I love you, Lorenzo," she tells me, pulling away to look in my eyes, searching my face for the answer she knows will always be there.
"And I love you, Nadia," I tell her, straightforward and to the point, without a hint of humour. "I love you so much it hurts."
Sweet lips press firmly against my own. "That's just the bullet wound," she mummers, a cheeky grin already pulling at her cheeks.
I laugh, kissing her again and again between chuckles, tasting her smile on my tongue. "You're such a pain in the ass."
"Your pain in the ass though," she counters.
"Si, passerotta," I smile, brushing a few wisps of her hair out of her face, "my pain in the ass."
~
No thoughts, just chaos to come
All my love, Always.
Stay safe,
AB x