Savage Lover: Chapter 16

I’m planning the robbery of the Alliance vault.

If I were to make a to-do list, it would have about eight thousand items on it.

A robbery succeeds or fails in the planning stage. Dante used to do all the planning for the armored truck heists. My big brother is smart. But I’m smarter.

Yeah, that’s right. I’m not just a pretty face. I’m a fucking Moriarty underneath. So this robbery is going to be planned down to the tiniest detail, with contingencies, and contingencies for contingencies. In the end, I’ll walk out of that bank with eight figures of loot and zero evidence left behind. And I hope to do it all without firing a single shot.

I’m not opposed to violence. Actually, I rather enjoy it. But there’s no elegance in a smash-and-grab. Not to mention way too much chance of catching a bullet yourself.

I want to rob Raymond so cleanly that he has no idea who took the money, or where it went.

This kind of strategizing requires a clear mind. I’ve laid off the drinking and smoking. I’m even sleeping eight hours a night.

And yet . . . I’m not experiencing that mental clarity I need.

For one reason alone: Camille.

I’ve known this girl most of my life. I never thought about her at all, unless she was standing right in front of me. So why in the fuck is she popping into my head twenty times a day?

Every time I’m sitting still, poring over stolen blueprints from the bank, or trying to make up a list of supplies, there’s her face, swimming in front of my eyes.

Every time I pick up my phone to call one of my soon-to-be-accomplices, I get the itch to call her instead.

I keep thinking about her hands, touching my face so gently as I came back to consciousness. I think about those huge dark eyes that seem to speak directly to me even when she’s not saying a word.

I never thought she was pretty before.

Now I wonder how I could have been so blind.

Everything about her is lovely, when you look close enough. The shell-pink beds of her fingernails. Her small, round ears peeking out from all those wild curls. The little line between her eyebrows when she frowns. The natural glow of her skin, without makeup or glitter dusted all over it. The slight pink flush under her brown cheeks. Those expressive eyes, so dark and yet so brilliant. Sometimes looking at me with fury or disdain. Sometimes amused, even though she doesn’t want to be. And sometimes, sometimes letting slip something more . . . Sadness. Fear. Worry. Or longing . . .

You have to look close to see any of those things.

But once you do, it makes other girls seem flashy and overblown by comparison. Even at the bank yesterday, Bella was dolled up to the nines, in an outfit that probably cost five figures. And all I could think was that she looked cheap and fake next to Camille. The lacquered nails, the pushed-up cleavage, the bleached hair, the shiny new purse the size of an atlas . . . it was all too much. I just wanted to look at the single curl falling down over Camille’s forehead, and the way she brushed it back with one slim little hand.

Jesus, I sound like a lunatic.

I don’t know what’s happening to me.

Camille doesn’t even like me. Why should she? I’ve been a total ass to her. Nothing personal—I was just being myself. But I’m not a good guy. Not boyfriend material. I’ve always known that. I’m selfish. Impulsive. Easily offended. Chasing after whatever I want and then hating it as soon as I get it.

I don’t think people can change. And I don’t know how to be any other way.

And yet . . .

For once in my life, I wish I were different.

When I laid next to Camille and kissed her, I actually felt happy for a second. I felt connected to her. I felt like she opened up her shell just the tiniest bit, and so did I, without worrying that the other person was going to stab us in our most vulnerable place.

Then it ended, and I don’t know how to get back there, because I don’t know how it happened in the first place.

I pick up my phone once more, finding her number. I got it from Mason, who got it from Patricia.

I could call her. I could ask her out on a date.

But the idea of me sitting across the table from a girl just reminds me of my stupid lunch with Bella. I hated that. It was so fucking fake.

I set the phone down again, scowling.

Dante comes into the room. I’ve got my papers spread out all over the ancient oak table in the dining room. We never eat in here anymore. We used to have family dinners, when Aida and Seb were still here. Now we mostly eat at the little table in the kitchen, where Greta doesn’t have to walk so far to bring us the food. Half the time our meals don’t even overlap—Greta just keeps the food warm on the stove.

I kinda miss those family dinners. I think the last one we had was the night of Nessa Griffin’s party. We all ate up on the roof, under the grapevines. We could see fireworks breaking over the bay.

That night changed so many things. Aida wanted to crash the Griffins’ party. I agreed. We had no idea what would follow, from that silly little impulse: Seb’s star ripped away from him. Aida married against her will. An alliance with the Griffins. A war with the Braterstwo.

It’s not that I want things to go back. But I wish you could know when a moment will change your life forever. I wish I would have enjoyed that dinner a little longer and not been in such a hurry to get up from the table.

“What’s all that?” Dante grunts.

He’s dripping with sweat, having just come in from a run.

My brother was already a beast by the time he was sixteen, and he’s only gotten bigger since then. I think he spent most of his time in Iraq working out on base. He came home the size of a half-grown bull. Now he’s a fucking Kodiak.

I hear him in our basement gym, grunting and straining. We’ve got an ancient set of barbells, speckled with rust. Dante slings a couple of giant chains around his neck, then he does push-ups and pull-ups and dips until his muscles are bulging out in places that people shouldn’t even have muscle.

“You look wrung out. Have you tried getting a girlfriend instead?” I ask him.

“You’re one to talk,” Dante says. “At least I had one, once.”

Oh, yes. But we don’t talk about her. Unless you want Dante to rip your arm off and feed it to you.

“I’ve had a lot of girlfriends,” I say. “For an hour or two.”

Dante snorts. “Mama wouldn’t like you talking that way,” he says.

Now it’s my turn to stiffen up. That’s the one woman I don’t want to discuss.

“We don’t know what she would have liked,” I say. “Because she’s not here.”

Dante looks at me quietly, trying to decide if he should say anything else. He returns to the scattered papers instead.

“Is that a vault?” he says, pointing to the topmost diagram.

“Clearly.”

“Why do you have the schematics for a vault?”

“Is it obvious question day?” I ask him.

Dante gives a long sigh. Since his lungs are like bellows, it blows several papers off the table.

“Does Papa know about this?” he says.

“No. You know Doctor Bernelli says stress is bad for his heart. I was planning to tell him afterward.”

My father is currently out on the back nine with Angelo Marino, the head of the second-largest Italian family in Chicago. Papa hates golfing, but he’s supposed to be getting more exercise. Marino has lured him out with promises of clubhouse BLTs and pretty waitresses. In return, Marino gets to talk Papa’s ear off about how his four worthless sons can advance inside of the organization.

Papa won’t be home for hours, which means I can work uninterrupted. Other than Dante, of course.

Dante is silently looking over the blueprints, his dark eyes darting from page to page.

“This is Page’s bank,” he says quietly.

“Guessed it first try.”

“You’re planning to rob him?”

“Not him, exactly. Just whoever keeps their money at his bank.”

“You know he deals with some serious people. You’re not stealing from a bunch of doctors and lawyers.”

“That’s why I’m going to keep this one anonymous. I won’t leave a business card like I usually would.”

Dante doesn’t crack a smile.

“Raymond’s no bureaucrat,” he says. “He gets his hands dirty.”

“Dante,” I scowl. “Are we the baddest motherfuckers in the city or not? I’m not scared of Raymond Page. Or anybody else who keeps an account there.”

Dante thinks, silently.

“What’s the take?” he says at last.

“Substantial. Eight figures. And that’s not including the Winter Diamond. I think Kristoff stashed it in the vault. Nobody knows except me.”

The St. Petersburg Bratva liberated that particular gem from the Imperial collection at the Hermitage Museum, eight years ago. I don’t know if Kristoff bought it or stole it from his brothers. But I guarantee if the other Bratva knew where it was, they wouldn’t leave it in Raymond’s hands for long.

The diamond alone is probably worth fifty million to the right buyer.

“One score. And we can fund our entire project on the South Shore.”

Dante shakes his head slowly. “That’s risky,” he says.

“Large-scale construction is one of the best ways to wash dirty money,” I say. “The Russians do it all the time.”

“You could make a lot of enemies.”

“Only if I get caught.” I grin. “Besides, we’re hardly swimming in friends right now. How much worse can it get? We’ll still have the Griffins on our side. As long as we leave their lock-box alone.”

“You’re not going to bring them in on it?”

I shake my head.

“I don’t think they’re into breaking the law in person anymore. They’ve got an image to maintain.”

“Not you, though.” Dante smiles.

“No. My reputation is about as bad as it can get.”

Dante looks over my papers again. I don’t interrupt him—there’s no point trying to rush my brother. He likes to think things over.

But his thoroughness extends further than my patience. Eventually, I say, “So, are you in?”

“No,” Dante says.

“Why the fuck not?”

He crosses his arms over his massive chest.

“Because you’re going behind Papa’s back.”

“I told you, I don’t want to raise his blood pressure.”

“Bullshit. You know he wouldn’t like it. He’d say it’s too risky.”

“Neither one of you cared about that when we knocked over all those armored trucks.”

“That was different.” Dante frowns. “We needed the money back then.”

“We need money now!”

“No we don’t. We can get it another way. Take on partners—”

“I don’t want more partners!”

“You’re reckless.”

“And you’ve lost your nerve!” I shout. “What happened to you? You used to love a challenge.”

Dante looks truly angry now. It takes a lot to light his fuse. But once you do, there’s a whole lot of dynamite behind it. He clenches his jaw, biting back what he actually wants to say.

“I used to make a lot of stupid decisions,” he growls. “Then I grew up.”

I don’t have the same self-control as Dante. I’ve fully lost my temper.

“You just don’t like that all this is my idea,” I spit. “You want to be the boss forever.”

“I don’t give a fuck about being boss,” Dante growls, turning away from me. “I wish you were mature enough to take over.”

With that, he stalks out of the dining room, heading to the back of the house to his bedroom.

“Yeah, go take a shower!” I shout after him. “You fucking stink!”

It’s not very satisfying being left all alone with my scattered papers.

But I don’t give a damn what Dante says. I’m going to do this job, and I’m going to pull it off brilliantly. I’ll sink every penny into the South Shore and triple our empire over the next five years. I’ll take us from mafia kingpins to one of the wealthiest families in the whole damn country.

The Griffins aren’t the only ones with ambition.

I may have a temper, but I’ve got intelligence and vision, too.

I’m going to make this happen.

And nothing will stand in my way.