Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 126682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
“You don’t know that.” Dante’s argument is weak. “Sav has always been a clever strategist.”
“He’ll be totally outnumbered,” I exclaim. “I know him, Dante. He won’t offer up his men. He’ll never lead them into a death trap. He’s going in alone. He’s going to walk into that fake meeting, luring out Raphael, and die in there to give his men a chance to surround from the outside.”
Dante studies me with a brooding expression.
“Where are you supposed to be when this ingenious plan goes down?” I ask.
“Leading the men from the outside,” he says with reluctance.
“Exactly.” I nod several times, close to tears. “It’s a suicide mission.”
“You don’t know that,” he says again.
“How could you let him plan something like this?” I cry out.
Dante stands there stoically, compassion washing over his features. “He wants what’s best for you and Claire.”
“Getting himself killed is not what’s best for us.”
“Raphael won’t stop, not until he has everything. And God forbid the day that happens, because he doesn’t take prisoners. If he ever manages to get his hands on Sav’s territory, he’s not going to mercifully let you live. People like him don’t fuck with revenge. They don’t take chances. He’s too thorough to leave any loose ends.”
“I won’t let Saverio do it.” Inside, I’m hysterical. The fact that I manage to continue calmly is a miracle. “Saverio doesn’t have to be bait. We can attack and fall back, letting them waste their ammunition while saving ours. Then we hit them before another shipment arrives.”
“You’ll never deplete their bullets and grenades with a single mock charge.”
“But a series of attacks will. If we target them every time they’re on the move and push them into a corner, they’ll have to fight back.”
“They’ll go for Sav, and if they can’t get to him, they’ll go after you and Claire. They’ll use anything and everyone he cares about.”
I lift my chin. “They won’t.”
Dante laughs. “Don’t you get it? They’ll torture you. They’ll send him pieces of your body until he gives himself up, and then they’ll kill you.”
The thought makes me shiver. “It won’t get to that.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Needing the contact, I lay a shaking hand over the blanket that covers Claire. “I won’t let it.”
He gives me a baffled look. “How exactly are you going to wangle that?”
“I’m going to make his pregnant wife disappear.”
Dante reels. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” I square my shoulders. “I’m going to take Elena.”
“Jesus.” He puts a hand on his brow and turns in a circle as he digests my meaning. Facing me again, he asks, “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“No.” I hold his gaze, my heart thumping between my ribs but my voice remaining even. “Saverio gave up on finding out how big Raphael’s arsenal is, didn’t he? That’s why he came up with this ridiculous plan of offering himself as bait instead of planning an attack that he can actually win.”
Dante doesn’t reply, giving me the answer with his silence. After a beat, he says, “No intelligent man will go into a war unprepared. If we don’t know what we’re facing, we’ll be going in blind. That’s why Sav had to change tactics. Raphael is biding his time. Like Sav, he’s in the dark. He doesn’t know how much resistance to expect from us.
“He’s careful for now, but sooner rather than later, he’s going to grow impatient. He’s going to manage to buy intel on how weak our defenses are or, more likely, he’s going to torture one of us until he gets the information he wants. Whatever the case, he’s not going to wait much longer before he finishes what he started.”
“I’m going to get that damn inventory so that we know exactly what we’re up against, and then we’re going to do a series of well-planned guerrilla attacks that will force them to use maximum arms while we save ours. We’re going to snatch away Raphael’s wife and his unborn child right from under his nose before all of this happens. That’s the sword we’ll hold over his head.”
“He’ll come for you,” Dante says, shaking his head. “He’ll kidnap you in exchange for his wife.”
“Not if his wife tells the world she came to us willingly.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If Elena makes a video that states she ran to Sav to escape her husband, Raphael will never live down the humiliation.”
“True,” he says with a question in his eyes, scrutinizing me.
“We show Raphael the video and tell him we’ll release it if he comes after us. If that video gets out, he’ll be the laughingstock of New York City. The cartels won’t have confidence in a man who loses his own wife to his enemy.”
“He’ll kill Elena if he ever finds her.”
“Then we better make sure we win.”
“Or all of us are dead.”