The Bastard’s Betrayal by Katee Robert

Chapter 16

Dante made it in and out of the store in record time, the small box with the Plan B tucked safely into his jacket. The few people in the aisles had all seemed remarkably normal, but that didn’t stop him from keeping his head on a swivel. His odds of finding Rose still sitting in the SUV were about fifty-fifty. She seemed to take the stakes seriously, and she would want these damn pills, but she was also resourceful and loyal to her family. She might put herself at risk to try to escape.

He didn’t run back to the vehicle, but he moved quickly, scanning the parking lot all the while. Dante was a few cars away when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Too fast to be a normal shopper. He pivoted and headed in that direction, following the instincts that had kept him alive more than once.

Then he heard the quiet Russian cursing and started to run.

He veered around a box truck in time to see a dark-haired white man grab Rose by the throat and slam her into the ground. Dante crossed the space between them in the blink of an eye, moving so fast, he barely registered the decision to take the first step before he had his gun pressed to the stranger’s temple. “Release my woman. Now.”

“Ah, the Italian.” The accent confirmed what Dante already expected. This was one of the Russian Romanovs. The man didn’t look at him. He just kept gripping Rose’s throat like he wanted nothing more than to crush her. He could do it. He could easily do it before Dante pulled the trigger.

True fear licked through Dante, but he forced any trace of it out of his voice. “Take your hand off her neck. Next time I ask, it won’t be so nicely.”

The Russian seemed to consider that for a moment and slowly eased his hands off Rose. He didn’t move from where he had her pinned to the ground. She coughed, the sound raspy and painful. The sensitive skin of her neck was bright red; it would bruise later. But she was alive, and that was all that mattered. Rose didn’t rub her throat. She just glared at both of them. “Dante Verducci, meet Casimir Romanov.”

Fury washed through him, overwhelming his fear. He’d heard of the Mad Wolf. Who hadn’t? He was the fucking boogeyman of the underworld, the man mafia parents scared their children with before putting them to bed. He was the reason Lorenzo had never tried to fully remove Kirill Romanov and his family from LA. The Russian Romanovs might be distant cousins, but they took that sort of thing seriously. The last family that tried had been wiped off the face of the earth.

The fact he was here, going after Rose instead of Dante, was a bad sign. It meant her suspicions were correct and Jovan’s people were only too happy to use this as an excuse to remove the thorn in their side and teach Dmitri Romanov a lesson in one blow. “I don’t give a fuck who he is. I’m going to take great joy in skinning him alive before I crush his throat like he tried to do to you.”

Casimir gave a dry chuckle that sounded like someone had already done damage to his vocal cords. “You will try.” He shrugged, apparently unconcerned about the threat of Dante blowing his brains out. “You will fail.”

Dante didn’t dare look away, even to check to see if they were drawing attention. “Up.”

Casimir rose slowly. He was a few inches shorter than Dante and built leaner. Much like Dante himself, he was dressed in a nondescript pair of jeans and a plain black T-shirt. Nothing to mark him out of place the way an expensive suit would. Nothing to draw attention to him at all… Except for the fact he was attempting to murder Rose in the parking lot of a fucking Walgreens.

If Dante shot him here, there would be questions. The Russians didn’t give a fuck about that because they would catch the next flight out of California and never return to this area. They didn’t need local connections to smooth things over or money to grease palms. Dante did. More than that, he only had connections in LA. They wouldn’t extend to this little town in Northern California.

They had to make this go away, but they needed to do it quietly. He spared Rose a glance as she struggled to her feet. “Your head?”

She touched it gingerly and winced. “I’m fine.”

She sure as fuck wasn’t fine, but he wouldn’t be able to tell the extent of the damage until they were alone and he could check her over. “The SUV, Rose. Now.”

“Okay.” She nodded slowly and started limping in that direction. Fucking limping.

Dante grabbed Casimir by his throat and drove him back several steps to slam him against a nearby box van. “You have bad luck, friend. You should have stayed in Russia, but now you’re destined for an unmarked grave on foreign soil.”

The man’s lips curled, just a little, and something feral lit up his gray eyes. “Nyet, I do not think so, Dante Verducci.” His gaze flicked over Dante’s shoulder and even though he damn well knew better, he twisted to look.

A black sedan flew down the main street, going far too fast, and slammed on their brakes in the middle of the street. He caught sight of a large dark-haired white man behind the wheel, and then Casimir punched him in the stomach and Dante had to focus on the danger closest to him. The Russian moved too fucking quickly, slamming into him and bearing them both to the ground. The gun went flying beneath a nearby car. Damn it.

Dante tried to flip them, but for being a relatively small guy, Casimir managed to keep him pinned. And then he started punching, methodically wailing on Dante’s face and head. Dante got his arms up as best he could, but his head rang. The stranger in the car had better be one of Rose’s many relatives because if it was another Russian Romanov, they were in deep shit.

Hewas in deep shit regardless.

Between one punch and the next…the blows stopped. He slowly lowered his arms to see Rose standing behind Casimir, looking like an avenging angel with her dark hair whipping around her face and a gun in her hands. Where the fuck had she found that?

She snarled something in Russian, and Casimir responded in kind. Through it all, his expression never changed from the vaguely bored one he’d worn since Dante first saw him. Another man stepped up next to Rose, a gun held down by his side. He, Dante recognized from his files on Rose’s legion of family members. Grady MacNamara. Her cousin by way of her mother’s sister, Sloan.

Casimir rose slowly and stepped off Dante. He glanced down, eyes holding no emotion whatsoever, before turning his attention back to Rose. “A delay. This changes nothing.”

“Mozhet byt, mozhet I net.” She shrugged. “You won’t be around to worry about it either way.”

“Rose.” Grady’s deep voice cut through the tension. “You can’t shoot him.”

“He’s a threat.”

“We are in the middle of a public parking lot with no fewer than three cameras catching at least part of this. You shoot him, things get messy.”

Her finger hovered on the trigger, and Casimir tensed, the tiniest reaction. Finally, she cursed and took a step back. “Get out of here before I change my mind.”

Dante held his breath as the Russian considered her, him, and then Grady. Finally, he shrugged. “Now or later. Makes no difference to me. This only ends one way.” He turned and walked away without another word.

Dante started to get up, but Rose turned the gun on him. “Nyet. Stay where you are.”

The betrayal seared through him with more violence than the actual bullets she shot him with three months ago. She’d told him over and over again that she wanted him dead. Of course, the last four days wouldn’t change anything, not for her.

But she didn’t shoot him.

She passed the gun to her cousin and took the zip tie he produced from somewhere. Grady kept his gun carefully pointed near Dante’s head as Rose knelt next to him. She grabbed his hands and fastened the zip tie around them in a practiced move.

“Rosa—”

She leaned down, nearly close enough to kiss. “This is your get-out-of-jail-free card, Dante. Stay in California. Find someone else to fuck around with. Get married and have those babies you want so desperately. If you come after me again, I will kill you.” She lowered her voice. “I won’t have a choice.”

He might laugh if he weren’t so fucking frustrated. “You’re it for me, amata. There’s no one else.”

“Find someone else,” she repeated. She rose to her feet, only slightly unsteady. “If you’re smart, you’ll find your way out of the zip tie before the Mad Wolf circles back. Goodbye, Dante.” She turned and walked away.

Grady glanced at her retreating back and then crouched next to Dante. “You have five families between Boston and New York howling for your blood because of that stunt you pulled with Dmitri and Keira’s little princess. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll listen to my cousin.” He pushed back to his feet. “If you step foot in New York or Boston, you’re dead.”

He was turned away and strode to Rose, tossing an arm around her shoulder as he guided her to the sedan he’d arrived in. Within seconds, they were gone.

Dante took a slow inhale and then jerked his wrists apart, snapping the zip tie. He climbed to his feet, head spinning a little, stopped to dig his gun out from beneath the car it’d landed under, and made his way back to his SUV. Casimir Romanov was nowhere to be seen, which was just as well.

As he pulled out of the parking lot and headed down the street, a single cop car careened into the parking lot, lights flashing. Typical. Too little, too late. He kept himself chained to the speed limit as he headed south, leaving the town behind. After fifteen minutes, when no one pursued, he dialed Matteo.

“Si?”

“I’m headed back, but I’m not staying long.”

His cousin snorted. “So, things either just blew up in your face, or you’re bringing back a bride. Cute.”

“Something like that.” He touched his jacket. The Plan B box was still there. Fuck. In the chaos, he hadn’t thought to hand it over. Not that Rose would have taken it while she was zip tying his fucking wrists together. Despite himself, he smiled a little. Three months ago, she would have shot him in the parking lot and to hell with the consequences. The fact that she didn’t, the fact she warned him away from New York?

Yes, his woman had feelings for him.

She should know better than to wave a red flag in front of a bull while telling it not to charge. Likely, she meant every word, but Dante had never been closer to what he wanted. He wouldn’t be deterred now.

“You’re out of your fucking mind.” Matteo sighed. “Lorenzo wants to see you. Now. I’ve put him off as long as I can, but he’s one step away from calling for your head. You better get back here.”

He didn’t want to, but if his uncle was working himself into a state over this, it would mean more trouble on the back end. Better to deal with it now. He sighed and checked the navigation. “I’ll be back in eight hours or so. He’ll have to wait until then.”

“Fine. Your funeral.” Matteo paused. “You going to have her with you?”

“No.”

“She alive?”

“Si. We’ve gone our separate ways. Temporarily.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.” Dante picked up speed. “Have the jet fueled and ready for me. I won’t be staying long once I deal with Lorenzo.”

Matteo sighed again. “You can’t keep going after this chick, cugino. She shot you, and now she took off the first chance she got. Take a fucking hint.”

If you come after me again, I will kill you. I won’t have a choice.

The first time she’d threatened him where it sounded actually reluctant. If that wasn’t progress, Dante didn’t know what else to call it. He could work with progress. “Mind your own business.”

“You are my business, asshole. If you get yourself killed by one of the Romanovs or Capparellis or… Jesus, the list just goes on, doesn’t it? That woman has connections with families across the eastern seaboard. You keep fucking with her, you’re going to get all of us killed.”

“You didn’t say shit when he sent me over there to scope her out, and you sure as fuck didn’t say anything when I told you my plan.”

Matteo cursed. “Yeah, motherfucker, because my father ultimately makes the calls right now and because you were obsessed as soon as you met her. I figured you’d get her out of your system and move on. I didn’t think you’d decide to marry the bitch.”

“Call her a bitch again and you’ll regret it.”

His cousin huffed out a breath. “That’s what I’m talking about. You don’t get your head turned. Not by anyone. What the fuck is going on with you, Dante?”

“She’s mine.”

The silence stretched out between them for nearly a minute before Matteo finally found his words again. “You’re not going to change your mind, are you?”

“No.” He and Rose were inevitable. She knew that in her heart, or she wouldn’t have let him live this time. She was just too tied up in her family shit to see things clearly. She let her head overrule what her heart wanted, and while he could respect that she stuck to her guns, there was no fucking way he’d let her marry that bastard Romeo Capparelli. “She’s mine,” he repeated. “And as soon as I deal with your father, I’m going to go get her.”