Merciless Vows by Faith Summers

34

Lucca

Aiden stands when he sees me approaching. He was sitting on the little picnic bench. From a distance, he almost looks like a normal guy; a guy who might be taking a break from a late-night stroll by the beach.

Once closer, you can see he’s not normal. The lamppost casts a bright light on him, illuminating his military build, dark brown hair cut into a faux hawk, and neatly trimmed beard.

The hard, authoritative expression on his face is what you’d expect for a Pakhan of a notorious Brotherhood. One just as vicious as my own.

Aiden is a few years older than me and the youngest Pakhan I know. Our fathers were friends, and that friendship extended to us.

Off in the distance are two guys standing by motorcycles. I can’t see their faces from here, but I know who they are.

The taller one is Maksim, Aiden’s cousin, and Sovientrik. The other guy is Erik Markov, his new Obshchak. He has the same role as me to my Pakhan, but unlike me, he’s their tech guy.

I return my focus to Aiden and drop my gaze to the envelope in his hands.

We shake hands when I get up to him, and we sit opposite each other on the bench.

He sets the envelope down on the wooden table between us and leans onto his elbows.

“Must be bad if you came,” I state.

“It is,” he answers. “Gibbs found some serious shit. I came myself because I understand the Bratva implications that will ensue once this shit hits the fucking fan.”

My nerves scatter with the anxiety I feel—each ending piquing to know what he found.

“What did he find, Aiden?”

He opens the envelope and pulls out the images of the men I sent Gibbs. He then takes out some paperwork, which I can already see is a fuck of a lot more than what Jon and I were able to find.

He slides out one more image, though, of an Italian man I instantly recognize.

“You look like you know him,” Aiden points out.

“Marcus Russo,” I fill in and grit my teeth. “One of the most powerful bosses in the Sicilian mafia.”

Aiden nods and moves out the images of the other two Italian men I’d seen with Raphael. “Yes. And these two are his associates in the Italian government who do similar shit to Raphael.”

“Fuck.”

“We haven’t gotten started yet. This guy,” he says, pointing to the Mexican guy. “He’s part of the Mendes Cartel, and their trade is organ trafficking on the black market. Raphael has been funding their cartel with that business for many years. Long before he was even governor, he practically owns them, and they do his bidding.”

So that’s what’s been going on. “He funds them while the Bratva backs him.”

“The Bratva was a steppingstone. Lucca, I also have evidence he’s been embezzling money from your Pakhan’s bank for over ten years and doing insider dealing with the stocks and securities. He’s also been liaising with Marcus to buy shares under a fake company name.”

Now my fucking temper flares. I’m responsible for taking care of the bank. How the fuck did he get past me?

“How did he do this?”

“The managers at the bank. I got the intel with names. But something’s missing. Something doesn’t quite add up, Lucca.”

“What makes you think that?” To me, this is it. It’s enough and more than what I could have hoped for.

“None of these guys are your undisclosed recipient. We found emails on their system to the same undisclosed recipient all going to a location in Italy, Campania. So that makes me think there’s a bigger fish. It makes sense, too, that there would be because Raphael has it good with the Bratva. He would only risk that and his life for something bigger.”

We stare at each other, and something clicks like I knew it all along.

“Something bigger than us and what we can offer him,” I surmise.

Aiden nods. “Exactly. That’s as much as we were able to get. I can hack most things, and I have the best working with me. If that’s all we can get, it means that’s all there is on paper. The rest can only be found out by digging through the shit.”

“Thank you for this, Aiden. It’s a lot. I don’t know where to start looking through shit, though, if you can’t.”

“Gibbs found details on a rogue leader in their Cartel. They thought they killed him, but he’s not dead.”

“What did he do?”

“Talked to the feds. Raphael found out and sent his men to kill his family and everybody he knew. The guy’s off-grid, but Gibbs thinks he can find him. It might take a week or two. We thought someone like a leader would have the missing link we’re looking for or be able to guide us to it. And he might help us, especially if they wronged him.”

“He might. And Gibbs thinks this might take a week or two?” That means it could be after the wedding.

“Yeah, if not before. You know he has his ways. So, you can wait until then to carry out the rest of your plans. However, I have a more serious talk I need to have with you, and it’s the other reason why I came.”

When his jaw clenches and lips thin with displeasure, my stomach knots. He only takes that tone with me when he’s about to tell me something I won’t like.

“What is it?”

“Raphael’s activities affect me too. There’s money missing from my bond and securities account and an easy million gone from some of the other accounts held with the bank that my father would have set up before he died. It’s my duty to raise the alarm, Lucca. This man’s crimes are beyond any vendetta you have against him. The punishment for this is death by an execution squad, not just for him. His family too, as in his daughter.”

Fuck.

I see.

How foolish of me to have forgotten.

As if I didn’t know the code we live by. I know it, it’s just that in my time of being Merciless, nobody I know has been stupid enough to do shit like this.

Then again, it’s top-secret shit we wouldn’t know if we hadn’t employed men like Gibbs who can do the fucking impossible.

“And you know who would have to pull the trigger, don’t you?” he adds cautiously.

Me.

The answer is me.

I would have to kill him, and her too. Aria.

It’s come to this again. I’m supposed to kill her again. Same problem, different reasons this time.

I would be required to line them up side by side and kill them.

Execute them.

I press down hard on my back teeth and meet his intensive gaze seeing with total clarity why it was him who came out here to meet me at this late hour.

“When are you going to do it?” I say when because even though he might be my friend, he’s a Pakhan too, and men like him will follow the code to the end of the earth.

“I would do it right this fucking minute, but I assume two years ago when you called on me for help to rescue his daughter, it had to be because she meant something to you,” he points out, and I straighten up at the memory of how he helped me. “In ten days time, when you marry the girl, she will be yours—your wife. Your family, no longer tied to him, no longer entitled to the same punishment as him. In ten days time, Gibbs might have more information we can add to the bigger picture, and since this journey started with you, it should end with you. So, the answer is I’m not saying anything. I’m leaving it with you.”

I dip my head with reverence, but reverent is the least of what I feel. I can’t remember the last time I felt this grateful for anything.

“Thank you, Pakhan.” I return my gaze to him, and he shakes his head.

“Don’t call me that, Lucca, this is us as friends. I’m trusting you with this, so please don’t let me down.”

“You know I won’t.”

“I do. Be careful, friend. It looks like you have a weakness. People will use it against you.”

He’s talking about Aria, and I won’t bother to argue the obvious. Not with a man I can call a friend.

He’s right to tell me to be careful. I have to be because I have to become a liar now, too, when it comes to Damien.

He’d want Aria executed.

He’d want me to kill them both, and with a song in my fucking heart to show where my loyalties lie.

Raphael’s crimes are so immense I’m sure Damien’s duty to the Bratva would overshadow his desire for owning Cervantes. He’d see it as an atrocity on Raphael’s part because it is. Raphael not only killed his son and his family, but he used our Brotherhood too.

If I went to Grigori with this information, it would be the end of Raphael De Marchi indeed.

I have everything we’ve been looking for, for the last three years to avenge Timothy and his family.

It’s right in my hands, and instead of following my sense of duty and loyalty, I’m choosing her again.