Page 6 of From Italy With Love

“Drive,” I said. My throat felt tight. I didn’t trust my voice to say more.

We pulled away from the Kelley house, and I watched it disappear in the rearview mirror, heart hammering. I thought about Nolan Kelley... powerful, unpredictable, dangerous. He had made it clear that crossing him meant signing my own death warrant. His threats echoed in my skull, sharp and real as the gun he kept ready in his desk. The men in the hallway would have killed me the instant he gave the word, no hesitation, no remorse.

I thought about Giovanni’s warning. My older brother, the one I was raised to protect, always two steps ahead, always expecting me to survive on my own: You’re on your own out there.

A chill settled in my gut. Not from the cold, but from the realization that trust was a luxury I could no longer afford.

I thought about the deal. High stakes, high risk. The ports, the product sitting in warehouses, the blood and money draining out every day we waited. Giovanni’s pressure was a weight on my shoulders, but the danger from Kelley was a knife pressed against my throat.

And I thought about the fact that I’d just threatened Nolan Kelley. A man who trusted no one—with the Russians forcing his hand. Whether or not the deal went through, I’d made an enemy, and in this city, enemies didn’t forgive. Giovanni was family, but he couldn’t protect me out here. Marco was loyal, but I was the one in the crosshairs now. And Kelley was a storm waiting to break.

I opened my eyes and looked out at the New York streets, at the city that wasn’t mine, at the territory I didn’t control. The city lights blurred past, neon reflections flickering across rain-slicked windows as horns blared in the distance. The smell of exhaust hung thick in the air, and the city’s pulse hammered on, indifferent to the war brewing beneath its surface.

Two weeks.

I had two weeks to figure out if Nolan Kelley was going to take the deal or put a bullet in my head. It was a countdown I felt in my bones.

Two weeks to decide if I would make it home alive or end up another body lost in a city that ate the weak.

CHAPTER TWO

The call came on day thirteen.

I had spent the previous twelve days in a state of controlled tension, waiting for word from Kelley while Giovanni breathed down my neck about the product sitting in warehouses and the money hemorrhaging from our accounts. Every day without an answer was another day the Feds could move in, another day our competitors could undercut us, another day we looked weak.

I was staring out the window of my hotel room when my phone rang. Unknown number. New York area code.

“Valentinetti,” I answered.

“Tomorrow. Two o’clock.” It was the same muscle-bound guard who’d patted me down at Kelley’s house. His voice was flat and bored. “Same place. Don’t be late.”

The line went dead.

I sat there for a moment, phone still pressed to my ear, feeling the weight of what was coming. Tomorrow. After making me wait nearly two weeks, Kelley had finally made his decision. Whether that decision was a deal or a bullet remained to be seen.

I called Giovanni.

“He wants to meet,” I said when my brother answered.