*Giovani*
I looked at Olivia, alighted with the sa righteous anger I felt in myself. I’d so rarely seen her angry, and even more rarely angry at soone other than . The emotion made her glow, bringing a glimr to her eyes and precision to her movents. My mind strayed to the mory of her standing up, naked and completely confident she could talk into letting her into this room. Then, it strayed a little further to the fact she wasn’t wearing any underwear.
I ran my thumb lightly over the back of her hand and wished I could scoop her up, drag her back to the room, and take advantage of that knowledge. She was always beautiful, but she was brilliant when she was standing up for herself. I could watch her do that forever.
Gabriele cleared his throat, and I cut my eyes in his direction. He raised a mocking eyebrow, and I knew he was asking if I was really going to go have sex instead of focusing on the important mission at hand.
I steeled myself, squeezed Olivia’s hand one more ti, and let go. He was right. I had to be the Don right now.
“Carina, we need to talk details. Can you—”
She bounced up out of her seat. “Say no more. I’m going to go tell Dahlia. She might even be happy enough to forgive for waking her up.”
I smiled at her. “Good luck with that.”
She circled around the desk to press a kiss to my lips, and it took all my willpower not to deepen the kiss and take her right over my desk. She’d been perfect in the eting, and now she was leaving without complaint. I couldn’t have asked anything else of her, and it made love her even more.
She had been right. She knew what she could handle. And, unfortunately, I knew what I could handle, so I broke the kiss quickly before she could overwhelm .
“Thank you,” she murmured.
I stroked a thumb across her cheek. “Always.”
She nodded at Gabriele, a small blush rising to her cheeks as though she’d just rembered he was there, and stepped out of the office, closing the door behind her.
“So,” he started, a teasing grin twisting his lips.
I waved my hand. “Not now. We’ve got a raid to plan. I’m sure you know more than you said.”
He nodded. “So. First, Dmitri will be arriving at the safehouse the day after tomorrow. Rinaldo thinks it’ll be soti in the afternoon, but he’s not certain.”
I exhaled in one big gust. “Not a lot of ti to plan the perfect raid. I’m glad you woke .”
“I don’t expect there will be much sleep waiting for any of us in the coming days,” Gabriele said.
“Anything is worth it to ruin the man who killed Vincent and the others,” I replied.
My second-in-command nodded, and despite his deferential posture with his hands behind his back, I suddenly saw the brawler I’d grown up alongside. He’d been vicious when we were younger. But then, so had everybody who’d survived.
He cleared his throat and beca the older man who’d risen in the ranks beside again. I couldn’t shake the feeling we’d need the brawler to get through this unscathed.
“Alright, what do we know about the location?” I asked.
“Rinaldo pumped the man in charge of securing the location for info, and it looks tough. The safehouse is up in the Chianti Mountains, with only one road in and out. We haven’t been able to get anybody up to scout, but it seems like access is going to be a hassle.”
I nodded. “Can we get a helicopter in ti? Being able to drop in from above should solve so problems.”
Gabriele sighed. “Probably, but there’s another issue. Dmitri seems to take this ti away from the city to et with big-na partners, and that ans the place will be crawling with security–easily fifty or more made n, and that’s before we account for the partners’ own forces.”
I ran a hand through my hair. If I only wanted our best guys—and I did—we couldn’t match that. And the mountain stronghold would give them the advantage on approach, helicopter or no.
“Any other bad news?” I joked.
Gabriele smiled ruefully. “Rinaldo said Dmitri was insistent this one had to be perfect because he was holding a very special party there.”
I laughed bitterly. “Nothing in this life is ever easy, huh?”
When the words slipped from my lips, I realized they applied to Olivia as well. We’d had to fight and struggle to get to where we were, but I wouldn’t give up a single mont of it. Well, perhaps a few of the monts where I’d blown up at her and had to grovel. But beyond that, every disagreent, every scare, I’d keep everything to be sitting here knowing she was in this house, and she loved .
Gabriele nodded. “How do you want to approach this?”
I sighed. “I said I wanted our best, and I an it. This has to go perfectly. If a single fish slips the net, we’ve got to hunt them down. I’m not leaving a brick of this organization standing.”
“I’ve already got the calls out. Earliest everyone can be here is eight PM tomorrow, so I’ve scheduled a eting for then.” He began pacing back and forth. “I’m optimistic that we can get eyes on at least the local area before he arrives, if not the house itself, but that’s gonna an pulling so lower-ranked guys up or spending energy we need for planning.”
I tapped my desk. “Send Alessandro and Tallon. I want them for the hit, but they lack the experience to be extrely valuable during planning stages yet. That youthful exuberance has to be good for sothing.”
He nodded. “I’m sure they’ll be pleased to get out instead of waiting around. Alessandro really has been a good asset since his kidnapping.”
I chuckled. “Of all the things you can say about a cousin–but you are right. It’s too soon to be thinking like this, but maybe he’ll get his shot at the Don seat after all soday.”
Gabriele stopped pacing and peered at . “That’s the first ti I’ve ever heard you ntion giving up your seat. You’re not going soft on , are you?”
A denial sprang quickly to my lips, but sothing made hesitate. In Tuscany. Olivia and I had talked all night about the future we saw for ourselves, and none of it involved being shot down in the line of duty. My family needed , and Alessandro was still far too green to be allowed the sort of control my position offered, but for the first ti since I’d accepted Jas’ offer, I was sort of thinking about an end to my ti here.
“Not soft, Gabriele. Just starting to get a little old,” I answered.
He pursed his lips like he didn’t quite believe .
“I’m not giving this up any ti soon, don’t worry. Where else would I get the excitent of mountaintop helicopter raids?” I smiled.
Gabriele t my smile with one of his own, but there was a pensive slant to it. I was about to ask what he had on his mind when he began pacing again, and his expression reverted to normal.
“We still haven’t solved the manpower problem,” he reminded .
“I am well aware,” I huffed. “We could take out the road to limit reinforcents, but then we risk trapping ourselves and preventing Dmitri from arriving in the first place. We don’t have nearly enough ti to get our guys into their security force. We could try poisoning his guys to incapacitate them, but I’m not certain we could do it subtly enough not to spook Dmitri.”
I leaned back in my chair, feeling the worn leather creak under my weight. How many Dons had sat in this chair planning how many raids? I needed their smarts and their luck now.
“Maybe spooking is exactly what we need,” Gabriele offered.
I crossed my arms. “This is the slipperiest enemy we’ve ever faced, and you want to give him reason to be suspicious?”
He shook his head. “Not for his life, and not for his safehouse. You’re right; he’s slippery, and being as slippery as he has been requires resources... not just Russo and whatever strings they’re pulling but manpower.”
I nodded slowly as realization dawned. “If we scare him soplace else, he’ll divert n there. He has no idea we even know he leaves the city, much less that we’ve got the address for his next soiree. In fact, if he thinks we’re hitting a lesser target, he might just get cocky in his mountain getaway and let his guard down.” I slamd a hand down on my desk. “You’re a genius, Gabriele. Thank god I’ve got you as my right hand and not so moron who goes around hiring students to leave notes.”
Gabriele smiled. “A discussion of targets might be better left for a room with more heads than just ours. I know most of our n have a particular hit list of Dmitri’s underlings they’d like to see at their feet.”
And Dmitri himself topped mine. I’d been dreaming about seeing his blood splattered on the floor, knowing he could never reach or Olivia again. In my wildest fantasies, I stretched his death out for days and weeks, extending the torture for as long as he’d had his boot on our necks.
But in this mont, the violence didn’t seem paramount. I wanted him to suffer as much as possible for as long as possible, but more than that, I wanted a long, safe life with Olivia away from him. And the brutal death of the old Zaytsev was what called Dmitri’s fury down on us in the first place.
Gabriele had already accused of going soft. I had much to think about before I committed to letting a man like Dmitri live.
I fought back a yawn and looked at Gabriele, who was starting to sway on his feet. “I will do so thinking, but I agree, the rest of this is for our best and brightest to solve together.”
He nodded sharply. “As Olivia said, I will be pleased to have this over with. We have suffered too many losses and dark days.”
“Too many,” I agreed. “Thank you for bringing the news we needed to fix things once and for all. The bodies in Eterna will rest easier thanks to you.”
“Sleep, if you find the ti,” he said as he turned for the door.
“And you, brother.”
On the threshold, he hesitated and turned back to . That sa pensive look overtook his face, and I knew I was going to learn what he had held back.
“If you love her enough to let her into these conversations,” he said slowly, “perhaps it may be ti to begin thinking about a more serious commitnt.”
I looked at him, and all the armor of my second-in-command folded away to show the old friend underneath. He hadn’t seen happy in a while, I realized, and he liked how happy she made , how she made the tension in my shoulders release and helped keep my temper in check.
On the heels of that realization ca a second one. I had been thinking of a future with Olivia for so ti now. A future where she was a permanent fixture in my life, in my bed, where we settled down together and had all the babies we dread of. That future tied my tongue about staying Don and had hesitating to kill an enemy.
I leaned back in my chair. “Way ahead of you, my friend.”
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