All I Believe (Firsts and Forever, #10)(80)

“You overestimate your importance to me, Andy,” my brother said. He was trying to keep his tone light, but a bit of emotion crept in despite himself.

Andreo grinned a little and said, “I really don’t.” He pushed Connie’s handgun out of the way, stepped forward, and kissed him passionately, which startled the hell out of me. My brother grabbed him in an embrace, the weapons in his hands forgotten, and returned the kiss with equal passion, but for only a moment. He then shoved Andreo back and yelled, “You f*cking *! Do you really think I’m going to let any personal feelings for you get in the way of doing my job?”

Andreo’s tone softened. “If I ever meant anything to you, Tino, then you have to let my brother walk away. You know what he means to me. He’s all I have.”

“Fuck you,” Connie yelled, stepping back from him. “Fuck you, Andreo! You’re totally manipulating me right now, you *!”

“I’m not manipulating you, I’m begging for my brother’s life.” A wicked grin curled the corner of his mouth, and Andreo added, “Though I do seem to remember you enjoy hearing me beg.”

“God, I hate you,” Connie said, crossing his arms over his chest.

“No, you don’t. You only wish you did.”

My brother stared at him for a long moment. I held my breath. Finally he said, “I’m giving you one pass, just because I owe you for that time in Belfast. I’ll tell Jerry I got here too late and that you’d already cleared out. He might check, so be gone by morning.”

“Thank you.”

“You won’t get to talk me out of finishing this a second time. I have two names on my list, yours and your brother’s, and I always get the job done. You know that. Make yourself hard to find, Andy, because the next time we’re face to face, this is going to end very differently.” He turned to me and said, “See you at Christmas, Nicky. Don’t bring your boyfriend. It would upset Nana if I had to off him over the eggnog.” With that, he holstered both guns inside his suit jacket and walked away without a second glance.

“So…my brother’s gay,” Luca murmured after a beat.

“Mine too, apparently. Oh, and a freaking assassin.”

“The gay gene is strong in your family.”

“It really is. In yours too, it would seem.”

Luca nodded. Then he said, “By the way, if you ever do that again, I’m going to yell at you for a week.”

“Do what?”

“Put a gun to your head to save me.”

“Please. You took a bullet for me.”

“Not to my skull!”

Andreo interrupted, saying, “We’d better pack and head for the airport, Tino’s prone to changing his mind. Meet me at my rental car as soon as you can.”

“Alright,” I said, “but tell me one thing. What’s the story between you and my brother?”

“It’s complicated,” he said. That I could believe. “Here, take this just in case.” He handed me his gun before turning and heading to the hotel, and I checked the clip before slipping it into the back of my waistband and pulling my shirt over it.

“Come on, we need to tell Gianni and Zan what’s happening,” I said. As we hurried to their bungalow, I added, “I can’t believe Jerry sent my own brother to kill you. Well, really, I can’t believe he sent anyone to kill you, but especially my own brother.”

“I think that was very intentional, from the sound of things,” Luca said, picking up my hand. “He told your brother to kill me in front of you. Jerry wants this to be personal, he wants to make you suffer. Including your brother was probably designed to extract the maximum amount of agony from you.”

“I grew up with Jerry. He’s the person who taught me how to throw a punch and fire a gun. I wasn’t as close to him as I am to Gianni and his brothers, not by a long shot, but he’s still family. How could he turn on me like this?” As we walked, I kept scanning the beach. The light was fading fast, and I kept expecting my brother to reappear, gun drawn. It was an incredibly uneasy feeling.

“I can’t begin to make sense of people. When I think about what my own father was capable of, it makes me want to throw up. And God, look at this idiotic feud between our families! By all accounts, Mauritzio Dombruso and Vido Natori were like brothers, but they ended up bitter rivals over something absolutely trivial. We’re still feeling the effects generations later!”

“I know. It’s so senseless.”

When we reached Gianni and Zan’s hut, we caught them up to speed and Gi exclaimed, “I can kind of believe Jerry would be capable of something like this, but not Connie! How can he be a hitman?”


“Apparently he decided to follow in our father’s footsteps,” I said.

“Holy shit! I thought your dad built bridges!”

“Not so much, as it turns out.”

“Where are you going now?” Zan asked me.

“No clue.”

Zan said, “Come to the boat with us. It’s the safest place I can think of.” We all agreed to that and hurried off to pack.

I placed the handgun on the bed when we returned to our bungalow, and Luca mused, “I wonder where my brother got the gun. He certainly didn’t fly here with it, and he didn’t bring any luggage to pack it in.”