The Real Italian Alphas (8 page)

Lucretia growled angrily as she watched them go.....

CHAPTER NINE

Betsy Russo sighed deeply as she leaned in to give her husband, Gabriel, a kiss good-bye. It was the last thing she wanted to be doing right then, but there was little that she could do about it. Betsy made a deal with the devil, so to speak, and she was obligated to follow orders if she wanted to continue to live.

“I hate that you’ll be gone for a whole week, and he won’t even allow me to tag along,” said Gabriel in his rich, Italian accent, as he backed away and looked at her with loving eyes. His hand came down to her abdomen, which still was not rounded, as they had just learned of their upcoming parenthood. “Keep yourself and our little one safe while you are in Switzerland, my love. I could not bear to be alone again.”

“This money is making me sweat like a pig,” she mentioned. “I really should go.”

“Betsy, the moon will come full while you’re over there,” Gabriel reminded her. “Make sure to lock yourself up tight. We can’t afford any mistakes, you know?”

“I know, Gabriel, I have done this before,” she said.

“But we didn’t know about the baby before,” he pointed out. “Somehow it seems harder this time.”

“See you soon,” Betsy said firmly, and then she turned and walked away.

Gabriel watched as his wife walked up the gangplank and into the small jet that was about to embark over the ocean and take her to Switzerland. This was about the fifth time Lupo had decided to send her there, each time packing illegally-obtained money around her body and expecting her to walk through customs so she could deposit it into the account she was using to write checks for the crime lord.

When they were first coerced into helping Lupo with his money-laundering scheme, he had never mentioned the idea of putting Betsy into such danger. But, since she did so well at the task, which was writing checks for items using funds that had been placed in a Swiss bank, one day Lupo revealed the added task, much to Gabriel’s immediate protest.

“You cannot make her do something like that, Lupo,” he had told the man adamantly.

“You and your beloved wife are only alive because I protect you from the wrath of your ex-wife and her family,” Lupo pointed out. “Of course, if she would rather face Lucretia and her four brothers who want nothing more than to tear each of you to shreds, by all means do not allow me to send her.”

“And you’ll guarantee that she won’t be harmed on these trips?” Gabriel had growled.

“I’ll send her while the moon is fullest,” said Lupo. “She will make it through customs before moonrise, and then be housed somewhere during her transformation so she won’t harm herself or anyone else. It usually goes like clockwork, Gabriel. You’ll see, there is no cause for such concern.”

In other words, damned if she did, damned if she didn’t.

As for himself, his own job here in New York was far less daunting, as it was similar in some ways to what he’d been doing before. Lupo had given Gabriel a new group of werewolves to command. They were used to offer businesses protection and to take care of business. This was a fancy way of saying they were in Lupo’s pocket. Whatever the whim or fancy of the old werewolf hidden beneath the city, his team was expected to do it.

Gabriel sighed when his cell phone went off. The cell phone that only Lupo called. His wife hadn’t even been gone fifteen minutes and already Lupo was calling. Gabriel had no idea what Lupo could possibly want this time, but it surely wouldn’t be anything pleasant.

“Hello? Yes, she just left. The plane’s been in the air at least ten minutes, Signore,” Gabriel said in answer to Lupo’s questions. “Certainly, I’ll be down there as soon as possible.”

Gabriel got into the back of his car and told Rico where he wanted to go. The other man watched him in the rearview mirror as he drove. Finally, he couldn’t help but say, “She’s going to be all right, you know. She’s done this half a dozen times now, and it’s always gone like clockwork.”

“I know, Rico,” he said. “But that just makes it worse. I’m so worried that something bad could happen to her. You have no idea.”

“Well, we’re here now, boss,” said Rico as he parked. “May as well keep taking things one day at a time.”

A while later Gabriel entered the deep cave where Lupo resided, trying to keep the frown off his face and away from the keen eyes of the vindictive man. The thought had occurred, of course, that he was only treating them this way to see how long he would be able to use them before they rebelled and he could sick the dogs on them…literally. That was just the sort of thing this particular mobster was known for.

“There you are, Gabriel,” he said as he entered. “It took you much longer than I expected for you to get here. I hope you were not dawdling along the way?”

“Of course not, Signore,” said Gabriel, somewhat affronted by the accusation. He tamped down the surge of irritation resolutely. It would never do to let him know how much he hated this. “It takes time to get out of the airport, even from the private entrance, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes, I am aware,” he said as he stood and began to pace, his hands behind his back. “I’ve called you here for a special purpose, Gabriel. I understand that there’s a bit of trouble with a shipment I’ve been waiting on in Manhattan. Now I know it’s not your usual haunt of late, and it’s normally an Alpha job, but I believe you and your boys might prove useful to them this time.”

“You want me to work with the Alphas?” asked Gabriel incredulously. “You know that they want to kill me. Why would you send me right into their den?”

“It’s necessary,” he said. “I need to determine just how loyal they are—and how loyal you are as well,” he said, stopping in front of him to look at him with an accusatory eye. “I know that you are here under duress, Gabriel Russo. I don’t care that you hate me, but I expect you to obey me anyway. A boss is only as strong as his weakest man.”

“I am not weak,” Gabriel answered, gritting his teeth.

“I didn’t mean your strength, Gabriel,” he said. “I am questioning your honor, and your loyalty.  I want to know that you will not betray my trust.”

“When have I ever given you a reason to doubt either my honor or my loyalty?” Gabriel inquired.

“You have not—yet,” Lupo agreed. “Now go. Rico has already received the instructions on where to drive you even as we spoke. I expect a report back from you within the day as to the whereabouts of my cargo, and exactly who was at fault for misplacing it.”

“As you wish, Signore,” Gabriel said with a slight bow. He turned as if to go, but Lupo held out his ring hand. With a disgusted glare beforehand, Gabriel bent and kissed the ring on the crime lord’s pinky finger.

Rico waited at the top of the elevator, the expression on his face somewhat grave. Gabriel raised a brow and shook his head, and the two of them waited until they were outside before they spoke.

“I begin to fear Lupo wants to get me out of the way,” he told Rico then. “If anything happens to me, you must make certain that Betsy and our child are kept safe. Promise me.”

“You have my word, boss,” Rico told him. “And I also have your back. I don’t trust the Alphas any more than you do.”

“Good,” said Gabriel. “Then let us go.”

Both men got into a small, dark brown, four-door car, Rico in the front and Gabriel in the back. Rico turned on the engine and slid one finger down the steering column to look for the bug he was sure Lupo’s men had planted while they were inside. He yanked it free with a smirk and tossed it out the window.

“From now on, check the car before you start it, Rico,” said Gabriel. Rico nodded his agreement as they sped off onto the road.

*

Rico stopped the car near the docks in the shipyard. The large warehouse and a grain elevator beyond it nicely obscured any view of the area and the rows of cargo crates awaiting pick up and delivery to the customs area spread out before them.

“Rico, help me see if the crates have simply been overlooked,” said Gabriel. “I’m calling in Vito and Desmond to help out. It shouldn’t take them very long to arrive, and considering the fact that the Alphas might also show up, we could use their presence.”

“You got that right, boss,” Rico agreed.

The two men stepped up to the first row of crates and began to check the small plates mounted near the lids which contained the shipment numbers. One by one and row by row, they checked for the missing crates, but to no avail. They weren’t even half finished when Vito and Desmond joined the search.

Just as they’d checked the very last crate and regrouped to confirm they’d found nothing, the moon was beginning to rise in the night sky. It was full, and the men began to transform. They willingly allowed their bodies to do so, and as it happened, they did so just in time.

“What are you four doing here?” demanded Lucretia, Gabriel’s ex-wife, as she stepped out into the light and transformed before them into a werewolf as well. “You know that this is my territory.”

“Yes, we know, and believe me, I wanted nothing to do with coming here, but Lupo wants to know what happened to his shipment,” said Gabriel in a feral growl as he stepped ahead of the other men.

“I’ve already told him it never arrived,” she practically pouted. “Why did he need to send you?”

“Perhaps he does not trust you,” Gabriel pointed out. “You would not be the first person who ever went against the boss’s orders.”

“If I was going to go against Lupo’s orders, stealing a shipment would not be my first order of business,” she pointed out. “What use would it be to send non-Alphas out to stop an Alpha, when Lupo knows such men could never win if there was a fight? No, Lupo must be after something else. Yes, he knows that Betsy is not here, maybe he’s trying to get you and me to interact.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gabriel scoffed. “It’s much more likely that you would hide the shipment to get me out here than it would be for Lupo to come up with such a crazy idea.”

“Do you really think I would bother with such a plan?” Lucretia asked, baring her teeth. “Since you’ve been out philandering with that so-called wife of yours, I’d want nothing more to do with you. You’re tarnished goods now.”

“The only taint I suffer is the leftover taint of being with you to begin with,” said Gabriel as he began to walk away. “I don’t have time for your games, Lucretia. Tell Lupo where the missing shipment is hidden and leave me be.”

“That would work, except for the fact that I don’t know, unfortunately,” Lucretia called after him. “I’m afraid it looks like we’re going to have to work together to find it, or he may very well decide to kill the both of us.”

“Great,” Gabriel grumbled as he looked back over his shoulder to see that the she-wolf was following behind him. “Just what I need right now.”

“Don’t think I like it any better,” Lucretia said. “I have no use for you anymore.”

“Good. Then let’s find the boat and get it over with,” Gabriel snapped.

“Well, it’s not as if we can just have the Coast Guard locate the thing,” Lucretia pointed out.

“I know that,” he said smartly. “We’ll have to get a boat and go look for it ourselves. How can you be the boss around here if you can’t even think for yourself? Now I know why he sent me.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Gabriel Russo,” Lucretia told him. “I’ve got Lupo in my back pocket. He trusts me completely.”

“And did he entrust you with some sort of a boat we can take out to sea?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact he did,” she said. “This way. And I’ll call my brothers in to steer it.”

“I am not going out to sea under the full moon with both you and your four blood-thirsty brothers,” he insisted. “Suicide isn’t in my job description. I’ll steer the boat myself. Gentlemen?”

“We’re with you, Gabriel,” said his three men.

“It would be a lot easier to do this in human form, Gabriel,” Rico pointed out. “We don’t want the Coast Guard to stop us because the boat is full of werewolves.”

“He does have a point there, boss,” Vito agreed.

And so, about half an hour later, the five werewolves were in human form as Gabriel drove the boat out.  Lucretia paced back and forth, irritated that Gabriel had taken charge, while Vito and Rico read a map and Desmond kept watch at the back of the boat in case anyone followed them or anything else untoward might be happening.

“Somebody’s back there,” Desmond said worriedly.

“Where are they headed?” Gabriel wanted to know.

“Right for us, unfortunately, and they’re coming fast.”

“That looks like my brothers’ boat,” said Lucretia worriedly. “I wonder why they’re trying to catch us?”

“Did you tell them where we’re going?” Gabriel asked her. “You didn’t tell them to come after us, did you?”

“No, Gabriel, I want that shipment found as much as you do,” she said. “Maybe there’s something wrong.”

A sickening fear gripped at Gabriel’s stomach when he heard these words. Would Lupo send the Alphas to tell him if Betsy had been harmed? Would he find some sick sort of humor in it, or maybe even decide that since Betsy was dead he might as well finish him next. The straight answer was a resounding “Yes,” that was just the sort of thing he was known to do.

But the very thought that Betsy could be dead was something his brain rejected completely. Would he not feel it somehow? He was the wolf who had made her, so would he not somehow sense her pain? No, it had to be something else.