Breathless & Bloodstained (The Chicago War #4) (36 page)

“It’s too bad the
restaurant isn’t open for business,” Joel noted. “It would have been nice to
have a meal.”

“I’ll save a spot
for you on opening night,” Tommas said.

Joel smiled. “I’ll
see to it that you make sure of it.”

Sure he would.

Settled into one
of the many tables and chairs in the middle of the room, Tommas watched his
rival from across the way. Abriella, poised as ever, sat pretty and quiet
beside her brother. The men around them, the major players in the Outfit,
watched the scene unfold with rapt attention and closed mouths.

Thankfully.

The less issues
this meeting was met with, the better.

Tommas took note
of the people sitting at various tables with their people. Theo DeLuca had
brought along a couple of guys Tommas recognized from the DeLuca crew. Damian
had asked for two of his men to tag along and help with checking Joel’s men and
to watch the outside of the restaurant. Adriano Conti, typically calm and
reserved, sat in the far corner with three men at his table and looking like
the restaurant was the last place he wanted to be.

Adding the couple
of men Tommas brought, and the guys who tagged along with Joel, the restaurant
was full.

“I’d like to get
this over as quickly as possible,” Joel started to say, glancing up at Tommas.

“As would I.”

“Good. Semantics,
right? That’s what this whole thing is. We’ll get the main point of it all out
there for everyone to know what’s going to happen. We’ll decide which Capo and
territory belongs to you or I. Simple, Tommas.”

It could be.

Tommas didn’t believe
it would be.

“Separate the
organization into two entities,” Tommas said, drumming his fingers on the
table. “That’s what you wanted.”

“Yes.”

“What about the
Commission? They’ve only got enough room at the table for one boss from
Chicago.”

Joel shrugged.
“Our business hasn’t been tied to New York for years ever since the little
disagreement we had with the Marcellos. Terrance kept his seat at the table simply
for show and to be up-to-date with the happenings of the other families. It’s
an unneeded process, in my opinion.”

Tommas disagreed
entirely. The Commission was hugely important for building allies in other
families, having a line of communication across the continent with other
organizations, and some of their work was still tied up with places like Canada
and Las Vegas.

What was Joel
trying to prove?

“Someone needs to
be at the Commission,” Tommas pointed out. “It’s not unneeded, as you said. It’s
vital for all of the families to have that direct line to one another, Joel.”

“Then go to it,”
Joel replied flippantly.

Go to it
…

Tommas’ gaze cut
to Abriella, who was also watching her brother curiously. He wondered what, if
anything, she might know about her brother’s plans.

“I’ll go,” Tommas
said.

“Good. The crews.
Let’s break it up here and now.”

“DeLuca and Rossi
crews are unquestionably mine,” Tommas said.

Abriella’s brow
furrowed like she wanted to say something, but her lips pressed into a thin
line like she was forcing herself to be quiet. She glanced between the two men
at the table, waiting on her brother’s reply.

“Of course,” Joel
finally said. “I wouldn’t assume differently.”

In the corner of
the restaurant, Adriano Conti cleared his throat. “What about my crew, don’t I
get a say in who I prefer to work under?”

Tommas chuckled at
the sight of Joel’s narrowed gaze.

“We’re family now,
Adriano,” Joel said. “It would do you good to remember that.”

Adriano scoffed
quietly. “When you begin treating me and my wife like family, then I’ll give
you respect back, Joel. My crew goes to Tommas, but it won’t go to you.”

“Well,” Tommas
drawled quietly, bringing Joel’s attention back to him. “What do we do about
that?”

“Take him,” Joel
spat. “He’s fucking young and useless, anyway.”

“He’s a fantastic
Capo.”

“If you think so.”

“I know he is,”
Tommas said calmly, refusing to feed into the rage brimming in Joel’s eyes.
“How he’s managed to keep out of this entire war for the most part showcases
exactly how good of a Capo that Adriano can be. Any man would give their left
arm for a man who desires nothing more than peace on his streets and money in
his boss’s hand.”

“I guess I don’t
see it the same way, old friend.”

Joel was hitting
his breaking point already. That was the thing about Joel Trentini. He could
only pretend for so long, and then his anger diffused like a damn bomb.

“That leaves you
with what?” Tommas asked. “Only your crew, huh?”

“Keep in mind that
my territory dominates on shipping the products that the other territories
sell, Tommas.”

“And we’ll pay
accordingly for the privilege until we can figure something else out.”

“That works for
me,” Joel said.

“What else is
there?” Tommas asked.

Joel lifted a hand
and gestured toward Abriella. “You asked for something at our last meeting.
I’ve given it some consideration, and thought you might want to chat about it.”

For a moment,
Tommas’ throat thickened at the possibility of what Joel might be talking
about. It didn’t help that his lover met his gaze from across the table with a
deadness in her stare—something he’d never seen from her before. It was like
for that brief second, she’d dropped from time because she didn’t want to be
there at all.

“A marriage?”
Tommas asked.

Abriella wet her
bottom lip and looked down at her lap. The muscles in her arms jumped like she
was squeezing the purse in her lap for all she was worth.

 “Yes,” Joel
confirmed. “If anything, it would guarantee a peace of sorts between us. Family
and all that nonsense.”

Nonsense was
exactly what it was. Joel cared nothing for family or what the word meant.
Family was only useful to him if he was capable of using it to hurt someone
else or for his personal gain.

Tommas wanted
Abriella more than anything.

God knew he would
have her.

He would.

But first … first
he needed to hurt her again. Hopefully, she would see this for what it had
been, and she would understand. She would hopefully accept one last person’s
blood spilling to the ground for the sake of everyone else.

“I don’t accept,”
Tommas said quietly.

Joel’s head
snapped up, confusion lighting up his features. “What?”

Abriella,
wide-eyed and silent, watched Tommas with an understanding dawning as she
glanced back and forth between her lap and her lover’s face.

“Just as I said,”
Tommas replied with a confident smile. “I don’t accept the offer of marriage. I
don’t feel it’s necessary. There’s nothing I want from Abriella that frankly, I
haven’t already gotten.”

Abriella sucked in
a hard breath. “Tommas, don’t …”

Two words.

That was all it
took for Tommas to confirm everything he’d been wondering for the last week and
a half since he’d last talked to his lover. Her voice was raspy, and tired,
like she hadn’t been sleeping or talking all that much. There wasn’t enough
makeup in the world to hide the worry on her face, or the sadness in her frown.

“But I must say,”
Tommas drawled, standing from the table slowly, “… that I enjoyed every damn
minute of what I was given from your sister.”

Joel stood, too,
his fists clenching hard at his sides. “You’re admitting it then?”

“I have no reason
to hide it.”

“Her reputation,
her safety?” Joel asked scathingly. “Did you consider that maybe my offer was a
way to save her from shame?”

“Your offer is a
way to lull me into a false sense of security, just like everything else has
been, Joel. I’m not an idiot, but we’ll do this the way you want. I’ll let you
think that this show of separating the Outfit is real. I’ll walk out of here
stupid in love, happy in my heart, and blind to whatever is it that you have
planned next because you’ve handed her over to me. The one thing I want more than
anything is Abriella away from you and happy with me. You think you’re so much
better at this game, but you’re not. I am not an idiot. When something feels
too good to be true, it usually is.”

“You’re wrong,”
Joel spat. “I would have done this, but you’ve proven to me that you’re not
ready for this war to be over.”

“I am,” Tommas
said. “I am more than ready.”

Abriella blinked
up at Tommas from where she was still sitting. Her eyes had always spoken far
louder than her mouth did, although she was never without something to say.

Crazy
, her
gaze screamed.

He was being
crazy.

Didn’t she already
know?

Abriella had made
him this way.

“Aren’t you at all
curious why no one around us seems shocked to find out that I was fucking your
sister?” Tommas asked, smirking. “It’s because most of them knew in one way or
another, Joel. Don’t you realize that both of your sisters played you for
years?”

Abriella stood
fast from the table, her anger burning into Tommas from feet away. “That’s
enough. Stop it.”

“Why should I?
Joel has done nothing for you, Ella, and even less for me. Joel thinks he knows
everything there is to know about me, but actually, he knows very little.”
Tommas’ gaze drifted to Abriella as he said, “He doesn’t know that everything I
do is for the only thing that I want. And for those who do know me, they will
know exactly what that is, and they know that if not today, I will get what I
want tomorrow.”

Abriella was the
only thing he had ever wanted, after all. She came with a whole list of amazing
things, and a few terrible ones added on, too. He loved her all the same. A
future with her also carried the weight of expectations, now, he knew. Things
that Tommas hadn’t given much thought to before—being a boss, for one.

She knew …

Abriella had to know
it was
always
for her.

Joel’s hand
smacked the table hard. “We’re done, Tommas.”

“We’ve been done
for a long time, Joel. There’s no real offer here. Whatever you were trying to
do with me, whatever you had planned, is over.”

“There was an
offer,” Abriella whispered. 

Joel grabbed
Abriella’s arm and yanked hard. It took all that Tommas had inside his soul not
to beat the man to death with his fists.

“Shut up,” Joel
hissed to his sister.

Abriella jerked
from her brother’s grasp with a glare. “There was an offer, and my choice just
got easier.”

“We’re leaving
right now.”

“Then let’s go,”
Abriella replied.

The moment Joel
turned from the table, Tommas knew something was wrong. Abriella didn’t move to
follow her brother. Instead, she flipped open the clutch purse her father had
handed over before the meeting. It drew Tommas’ gaze down to her steady,
delicate fingers wrapping around the butt of a small handgun.

Where had that
come from?

Her father?

Why
?

“Ella,” Tommas
said. “Ella, don’t do that.”

His voice was a
breath.

Stunned, barely
there, and not even heard.

Abriella pulled
the gun out, lifted it, cocked back the hammer, and pulled the trigger. Tommas
wasn’t even sure if she aimed before she fired.

But the girl hit
her mark.

The bullet entered
the back of Joel’s head just above the hair on his neckline. A soft, fleshy
part of the head where the bullet could penetrate easier, and instantly hit the
spinal cord. The small caliber handgun wasn’t big enough to cause a major shock
on impact, but Joel still let out a gasp a second before he fell forward.

Blood pooled.

Silence echoed.

Abriella lowered
the weapon, and her hand began to tremble at the same time she let out a loud,
broken, agonizing sob. The sound alone was enough to slice Tommas’ heart open
for her. She shouldn’t have had to make that choice. She shouldn’t have needed
to hold that weapon or to pull the trigger.

Everyone seemed to
move at once, charging for the woman with the gun and to the man on the floor.
People from the outside flooded into the building at the sound of a gunshot
going off. The roar of the new people entering the restaurant and trying to
figure out what had happened was damn near deafening.

Tommas was already
jumping over the table toward his lover. In the process, he knocked whoever was
in his way to the ground. He didn’t even care. Joel’s fools would want to
protect their boss, but it was probably too late.