Page 34 of Sacred Blood

And at the center of it all stood Gabriella Calabretta.

The irony wasn't lost on me. For years, I'd successfully avoided becoming entangled in family business beyond patching up the occasional bullet wound and lecturing my brothers about seeking medical attention before they were halfway to death.

Now I was sitting in the war room voluntarily.

Worse, I cared.

Every new piece of information felt personal.

Every lead.

Every threat.

Every unanswered question.

Because somewhere along the way, this had stopped being about organized crime and started being about Gabriella. That realization should have concerned me far more than it did.

Our large overhead screens had a picture of Gaby front and center. Could one bratty nurse really be the catalyst that brought down the mafia families? A marriage to the daughter of even a small Italian family in Canada gave the Russians a foothold on this continent. If we were unable to stop their spread, then there would be war on multiple fronts in a dozen countries. The death toll would be extremely high.

The worst part was, we didn’t dip our toes in the same pond scum with them. We didn’t engage in human trafficking. We stuck mostly to shipping, gambling, and underground clubs for our questionable business practices. Legally, we had casinos, bars, and restaurants all over the country, not to mention our wineries in Italy and California, and our pharmaceutical investments.

Gaby stared out at me from the center of one screen and, almost as if manifesting her, my phone pinged with a message from Vincent.

Sorry, sir. Your presence is required immediately.

That didn’t sound like Vincent, unless he’d been possessed by the ghost of an English butler since the last time I saw him.

Explain! I typed and hit send.

She got a hold of my gun and threatened to blow my brains out unless I summoned you.

I swore under my breath, glaring at her picture on the screen. What could be so important that she threatened to kill the man assigned to protect her?

“I’ll be back later,” I announced. “I have to run and check on someone and then head to the hospital to check in on a few patients.”

The guys didn’t even look up but waved me off. Since I could be at risk, Romeo had finally gotten his way, and I now traveled with a bodyguard. Paulo was in the car, ready for me when I arrived.

“To the safe house,” I ordered and sat back with my phone, scrolling through urgent emails from my secretary, Rita.

I quickly typed that I’d be arriving in a few hours to check in and tucked it back in my suit pocket.

The city blurred past the window as Paulo navigated traffic. Ordinarily, I would have used the drive to review patient files, answer emails, or prepare for whatever waited for me at the hospital. Today, I found myself staring out the glass instead.

A week.

Seven days since I'd left Gabriella at the safe house.

Seven days of security updates.

Seven days of guard reports.

Seven days of telling myself that distance was necessary.

Every morning, someone sent me a summary of her activities.

She ate. Slept. Argued with the guards. And demanded a phone. Then argued with the guards again.

The reports should have been tedious.