White Knight (Dirty Mafia Duet, #2)(59)

“Yes. They’ve got a man inside.”

Dom replies with a sharp nod. “Good, then we let them do the dirty work. I’m not losing you now that Enzo’s dead. You’re my heir, Cannon. You aren’t dying today.”

The matter-of-fact reporting of Enzo’s death hits us all hard.

“What the hell happened?” I ask as Memphis stiffens beside me.

“Tore some shit open when he tried to leave. Dumbass didn’t know how to listen to his body. They got him back on the table, but he didn’t make it out of surgery. Why the hell do you think I didn’t want to be in the hospital any longer? I wasn’t going to give them another chance to try to cut me open.”

“What about Creighton?” Cav asks.

“He’s being sprung as we speak. He and Holly aren’t part of this.”

“Good. They don’t need to be.”

Dom glances at Cav. “You and your woman need to go to Creighton’s penthouse. Take Eden and Bishop. I don’t want you in the line of fire if shit goes sideways.” He looks to me. “Your woman comes with us.”

“No. Fuck no.” I bite out the reply.

Dom smiles, but it’s predatory. “Don’t think I don’t know everything that happens in this building. I know exactly who she is. Suspected for a while.”

His gaze shifts to her. “You can cover your face with makeup and change your eyes and wear wigs, but bones don’t lie. You’re still the image of your mother, God rest her soul. And I owe you an apology for what happened with your father. Gianni was a good man, a man who was betrayed by his own brother. It’s time to take out that piece of shit Giancarlo and his son GTR, because I’m done with this feud. I’m gonna watch my grandkids grow up, and the Rossettis ain’t taking that shit from me. I don’t care if they’re carted off in body bags today or locked up to rot in prison. The bad blood ends now.”

From beside me, Memphis trembles as she stares at Dom. “Did you kill my father?”

Dom narrows his gaze. “I just told you I did, girl.”

“No, not Gianni Rossetti. Leander Lockwood. The news anchor.”

Finally, there’s a look of shock emblazoned on Dom’s face, but still, I step in front of Memphis. My instinct is to protect her at all costs. I felt it that day at the construction site, and I feel it now a thousand times more acutely.

But instead of replying with a gun in her face like I expect, Dom laughs. “Fuck no. Not a chance. He was investigating me, though. He tried to be careful, but he wasn’t careful enough. A week before he died, he was watching me through the window of Andre’s, so I had my guys invite him inside.”





41





Memphis





“What?” I whisper the question as my entire body freezes.

“Yeah, I met the man,” Dom says. “He was all right. We talked for a while, and I told him what happened with Gianni. Told him the truth about what I’ve pieced together over the last twenty-some years—that Giancarlo had to have killed Regina so that Gianni would come after me, thinking I offed his wife. It was a hell of a plan to take control of the family, and Giancarlo pulled it off. I also told Lockwood I didn’t know what the hell happened to that little girl Gianni hid before coming to me, but I wondered if he did.”

Shock keeps me standing upright, even though my knees are weak once more. “What did he say?”

“He said I didn’t need to worry about that little girl, because she turned out just fine. Better than fine. She was a hell of a woman, and her father would be proud as hell, just like he was.”

Tears spill down my cheeks as I blink over and over, staring at the face of a man who saw my father before he died. Saw him and spoke to him like an equal. A man who definitely didn’t kill him, given the respect in Dom’s tone and expression.

My voice trembles, and a sob beats my words out. “You liked him?”

“I did. And when I found out he killed himself, I wondered what the fuck happened, because he didn’t strike me as suicidal.”

I shake my head, a new wave of tears breaking free. “He wasn’t. He wouldn’t.”

Dom nods. “I agree with you. Just like I knew that his daughter, the reporter Memphis Lockwood, who I looked up after the meeting, would come looking to find out what happened to him. I knew who you were the moment I saw you on that sidewalk. You’re a chameleon, but you can’t hide the bones your mother gave you, Alessandra.”

Alessandra. Hearing that name on his lips knocks the wind out of me, because I can’t argue the fact anymore.

“I knew too. The moment I saw her. Almost took my breath away,” Benny says, turning to Dom. “Today, we end this. That bastard killed Regina. You wouldn’t let me touch him for all those years, and I’m done waiting. His death belongs to me.”





42





Cannon





Memphis, who I still can’t think of as Alessandra yet, sits beside me in the back of the Escalade in her Drew Carson wig and contacts. She’s here against my wishes. I wanted her at Creighton’s, safe and sound, but she refused to let us handle this without her.

“I’ll just follow you anyway, so don’t try to shut me out.”