Matteo looked at the footage and agreed with his father.

Carmine was working with the Castellaris.

The bastard didn’t know that they had cameras covering the neighborhood. He thought that switching cars four blocks down would keep him safe, but the video was damning.

“They want a million dollars in small, unmarked bills,” his father told him. “And they want you to deliver it. Alone.”

It was a setup. They both knew it.

“You should know that I’m not paying. Chances are, the money will disappear along with you and Dante. I’ve got every resource searching for him and one good lead that we’re checking out now. I called in the team already. The helicopters are standing by, ready to go once we have visual confirmation.”

He might refuse to pay the ransom, but he was willing to spend that much or more to bring Dante home. There was plenty of nighttime left for a stealth strike. The family used the same team of mercenaries, comprised of former special forces, to handle things like this. The Castellaris wouldn’t know what hit them until it was too late.

“Thank you, Pop.”

“Once Dante’s been reacquired, I’ll deal with Carmine. He’s dead to me, but his mother….”

Isadora was the oldest sister, born next after his father. They were close when they were young. Real close, until she married Stefano Botturo. Her loyalty was to her husband now. If Carmine got what was coming to him, it was gonna fucking tear the family apart.

“Carmine’s wife is from Salerno,” his father mused. “If there’s a problem with immigration, he’ll need to go with Becca. And stay. It’s not what he deserves, but I have to look at the bigger picture. Surely Isadora will see that it’s better to be exiled than dead. Of course,” he added darkly, “I won’t predict how long Carmine will last once he’s there. Hit on the wrong woman, seduce the wrong wife…. Eventually, it will happen. We know this. He can’t help himself.”

Pop had always blamed it on the bloodline. Carmine’s paternal grandmother was a Castellari. While the Viscontis controlled the area north of the Ohio River in Illinois, the Castellaris were supposed to stay south of it, in Kentucky.

The Castellari women tended to be early bloomers. The men thought with their dicks from the cradle on. But that didn’t mean shit when it came to Dante. His son was a pawn in a larger game. And pawns were easily expendable.

If anything happened to him, Beth would hate him.

Worse, he’d hate himself.

At least Constanza was with him. He wasn’t with strangers who didn’t know that Tigger was his favorite toy or that he liked listening to Vivaldi and Italian pop ballads by Raf. That he loved squash and hated kale and the only milk he would drink came from his mother’s breasts.

Fuck.

Matteo shook himself when emotions threatened to take hold of him. They were a weakness that he couldn’t afford if he wanted to survive.

He looked at his father, wondering what must be going on inside his head. The poor guy looked like he’d aged five years overnight. “What can I do?” he asked him.

His father stroked his chin. “Nothing for now. We think that we know where they are. I’m waiting on confirmation before responding to the ransom demand. Until I hear something, go upstairs. See to your wife. This kind of thing is hard on a woman.”

Normally, he would have waited with his brothers. Marco and Tony were still here from the wedding. Val had come just ahead of him and Beth. But Pop was right. He should see to his wife.

He had told her to take a bath. Knowing that independent streak of hers, she would want to stay up and wait for news. But she was bone tired. Exhausted from the wedding and a night of kinky sex. Just in case her body overruled that stubborn head of hers, he opened the door noiselessly to keep from waking her.

Sure enough, she was dead to the world. She lay on her side of the bed, hugging a pillow with her eyes closed. The thick crescent brush of lashes failed to hide the redness around them. Her nose was ruddy, too. Add the tear stains on her pillow, and it looked like she’d cried herself to sleep.

He wished that he could spare her this. He wished that he could promise that it would never happen again. But when the Castellaris took Dante, they had essentially declared war. Chances were, Kentucky wasn’t enough for them. They wanted Illinois, too. There was no way that they would get it without a fight.

Mob wars were ugly. They could drag on for years, with heavy casualties on both sides.

Things were bound to get worse before they got better.

Working as quietly as he could, he found his black fatigues and combat boots and dressed in the en-suite. When he was done, he sat in a chair and watched Beth sleep.

A soft rap on the door twenty minutes later made her jerk awake. Shoving himself to his feet, he went to answer it.

“What?” Beth asked, failing to mask the fear in her voice.

“Nothing,” he told her. “Go back to sleep.”

Val was standing in the hall. When he opened his mouth to speak, Matteo signaled him to hold it. Once they reached the stairs, they were far enough away from Beth for Val to fill him in.

“Dante and Constanza are being held at a rural location an hour from Paducah. The Castellaris use an old tobacco barn for drugs and guns moving through the pipeline. Constanza and the baby are in there, too.”

Sons of bitches.

Matteo’s long stride ate up the distance to his father’s office. He was surprised to see Marco and Tony there. His rock star brothers usually turned a blind eye and kept their distance from the family’s dirty business. Living under the media’s microscope, it was better and safer for everyone.

Matteo looked at his father. “How soon do we go?”

“Fifteen minutes. The chopper’s ready as soon as you and Val get to it.”

Both brothers knew the drill. Rendezvous with the team, watch from the background, and let them do their job. Everyone was armed, but it was rare for guns to come out. These men were silent killers. Blades and garrotes were their weapons of choice.

Matteo nodded. “I’ll meet you out front in five. I need to tell Beth that we’re going.”

She was pacing the floor by his trophy wall, hugging herself and rubbing her arms, struggling with anxiety that he was only going to make worse.

“Hey.” Reaching, he took hold of her shoulders and squeezed them. “I can’t give you details, but we’re going after Dante. Val’s waiting for me downstairs. We’re leaving now.”

Beth pressed her fingers to her lips and burst into tears. “You found him? You know where he is?”

Smart girl. She didn’t ask for details, just confirmation. Pop had been right about her. She was definitely a keeper.

“Yeah. There’s enough time to do the extraction while it’s still dark, but we need to move.”

She threw her arms around his chest and hugged him. “Promise that you’ll come back to me,” she begged. “Whatever happens, whatever you find….if anything happens to Dante…”

Matteo’s throat tightened. Unable to speak, he kissed the top of her head and smelled the soft scent of her hair.

“He’s okay.” He managed to push the words past a throat choked with those damn emotions that he’d sworn to never feel. “Constanza’s with him. We’ll get them out and be back before you know it. I gotta go, bella.”

Pushing against his chest, she lifted her head and swiped the blur of tears from her eyes. Her sapphire gaze met his with the accuracy of a laser sight. “If anything goes wrong…Matteo, I won’t survive losing the both of you. Whatever happens, you come back to me. Do you hear me? You come back!”

Shoving her fingers into his hair, she raised on her tiptoes, pulled down his head, and slammed her mouth against his in a desperate kiss.

“I love you,” she whispered fiercely and kissed him again.

Damn it all. Those three words broke something inside him. Matteo felt the shift, subtle but certain. He didn’t need this. He didn’t want this, but he was powerless as fuck to stop it once her words flew free. He might manage to ignore their impact, but nothing was going to wish them away, or the inexplicable truth of his new reality.

The truth was, Beth had changed him.

Dante had changed him.

He was a husband and a father, and by the Grace of God, he’d bring their baby home.

He ended the kiss and pressed his forehead to hers. “I’ve got to go,” he rasped, his voice hoarse with his own tumult of emotion. “With luck, we’ll be back for breakfast. You be good, you hear me? Stay upstairs and out of the way. Pop needs to keep focused. Having Marco and Tony around doesn’t help.”

“I will,” she promised. “Go get our boy.”

* * *

Her words became his mantra. They echoed in his head when they were taking off. They sounded in his ears when they rendezvoused with the hit squad. They flowed through his veins like molten fire when they had dispatched the soldatos outside the tobacco barn and started taking down everyone inside. Constanza and Dante were assigned to him and Val. The rest of the squad killed all but an unlucky three.

They’d soon wish they were dead when they were tortured for information.

Constanza was crouched behind a stack of crates, holding Dante to her chest and trying to comfort him. Seeing Matteo, she burst into tears and started praying in Italian.

“Here,” Matteo reached for Dante and fanned his flexed fingers. “Give him to me.”

She surrendered the baby and immediately hugged herself, almost cowering—a protective pose that he’d seen too many times, usually after one of their prostitutes got roughed up by a john. Val was better at that kind of thing. He left Constanza to him and focused on his son.

“Hey,” he said. “It’s Papa. Mama’s been worried about you, but we’ll have you home soon. Are you wet? Hungry? Give us a few minutes, and we can take care of that. It’s the first raid I’ve been on with a diaper bag on board. I’m telling you, Dante, it had better fucking be the last.”

Dante’s cries wound down to a fret, listening to the sound of his voice. The baby managed to snag his finger and pulled it to his mouth to chew on it.

That’s when he saw the bruises.

He stepped to where Val was quietly questioning Constanza and showed her Dante’s arm. “Who did this?” he asked, his voice deadly quiet. “Show me who did this to my son.”

If he wasn’t dead, he soon would be.

From Constanza’s reaction, Matteo suspected that whoever had bruised Dante had done worse to her. Fucking Castellaris.

Val helped her up and kept hold of her arm, lending her his strength. He was only a cold-blooded killer when the family needed him to be. When he wasn’t dealing out death, Val had a gift for dealing with the living. He intuited people’s motivations and understood their needs. If he hadn’t become a vintner, he would have made a good psychologist.

Val guided her towards the three survivors. Matteo was right behind them with Dante. She inhaled sharply but didn’t cringe to see the broken arm of the first man they were working over.

“Is it one of these?” Val asked her softly.

Constanza swiveled her head. Her gaze locked on the last man in line. “Him.” She spat on the ground when she said it. “He’s the one.”

“Constanza, look at me.” Matteo waited until he had her full attention before handing her Dante. “I want you to take the baby. Go back to where you were. I’ll make sure that he never touches anyone ever again, capisci? You trust me to do that, right?”

She nodded stiffly.

“One more thing. Did you see who killed Bernardo? Was it any of these three?”

“No,” she said. “No. I don’t think he’s here. I think he left with the others. We should go before they come back. Please!”

The tone of her voice had gradually escalated and was edging toward panic now.

“Val, take them back. I’ll be quick.”

Not that he wanted to rush things, but he needed to be in the air before any more Castellaris came.

The first prisoner was sitting on a wooden crate that was built to hold guns. His right arm dangled, useless, at his side. Charlie was cutting clothes off the second one, preparing to start in on him.

Matteo tapped Nunzio’s shoulder.

The team leader gave him an update. “The first one’s already singing. The second just wet himself. He’ll give us whatever we ask.

Matteo motioned towards the third captive, the man he was about to kill. “How badly do you need him?”

Nunzio sliced a surprised glance at him. “I take it, you don’t recognize your guy. That’s Luciano Castellari. Heir to the kingdom himself. He’ll die before he gives up his old man. That’s what I’m thinking, anyway. I overheard your conversation. You’ve got a debt of honor. I won’t stop you from calling it in. Have at him.”

“Can you spare someone? I need him bound to the support post. He’s not going to sit still for what I plan to do.”

J.D. did the honors, securing Luciano to one of the large, wooden poles that reached to the roof.

Matteo had more than one blade on him. He drew his carving knife from its scabbard and approached Luciano, relishing the fear in his eyes.

“Big man,” Matteo scoffed. “Fucking coward, if you ask me. Hurting women. Hurting babies. Let’s see how you like it when someone hurts you.”