Dark Mafia Prince: A Dangerous Royals romance by Annika Martin Page B

me about Aldo Nikolla, who killed our parents and stole our lives. We would make him pay, and we would make Lazarus pay, because Lazarus helped him. And we would find our baby brother Kiro and take back the empire.
    With the blessing of my superiors, I took five of our best, including Yuri, and went with Aleksio to Chicago. It was not charity, of course, that our mafia bosses let me go. A position at the top of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in Chicago would be a good thing.
    Al Capone! That’s what Mischa and the guys said when they were told they would accompany me. Each and every one of them said the name of Al Capone.
    Chicago was Al Capone to me, too, until I met Aleksio.
    Yuri slides up to one of the windows. He gets ears in, pressing a listening device to a small square of safety glass.
    I exchange glances with Aleksio. He tips his head. So far, so good. Perhaps our enemies do not know.
    Yuri steals over. “Is quiet,” he says. “Too quiet.”
    Tito slips in. Tito is Aleksio’s Yuri. “What’s your feeling?” Aleksio asks Tito.
    “Feels like a trap, smells like a trap. Is a trap.” Tito likes to make his hair bright blond on the tips of it. He is very formidable.
    “A trap,” I say.
    We have men around the neighborhood, and they text in. Nobody is watching.
    Aleksio looks up and down the blocky building. “The files are right inside, and we have the fucking decode key,” he says.
    No question we’ll risk it. Aldo Nikolla may or may not talk. The file is sure.
    We discuss what we would do in the place of Bloody Lazarus if he thought we might be back.
    “I’d think about torching the place,” Tito says. “But then I’d say, how can I go for maximum death? That says explosives to me. And if I didn’t have a lot of time? Explosives connected to the door.”
    “Or to the alarm system,” I say. “Sound, vibration.”
    We narrow it down to the door. Easiest, smartest, fastest.
    “Then maybe we should go up the side. Up that old fire escape.” Aleksio points. The fire escape is half falling apart, but it’s still up. “What happens if we break that window?”
    I pick up a brick and hurl it. It sails into the window with a crash. We press against the wall, waiting for an explosion.
    Nothing. So we have our entrance.
    We argue about who’ll go in. “I’m not sending anybody in somewhere where I won’t go myself,” Aleksio growls. He’s like that, a strong leader. But the girl will be trouble. I saw his face in the video clip. I saw the way he looked at her.
    Aleksio creeps up the side and leaps to the lowest rung of the fire escape. The apparatus creaks as he begins to climb, balancing on the edges, seasoned criminal that he is. When he is the three stories up top, he throws his jacket over the sill and lifts himself up by his fingers.
    He makes it look easy. I know it is not. Aleksio is a strong ally, but a girl like that Mira will weaken him.
    I loved a girl once, and then I had to kill her. It was very hard.
    An explosion tears out from the second floor below him. The wall buckles—with Aleksio half in the window.
    “Fucking hell!” I spring out of the darkness, running toward him as he drops onto the fire escape and grips the rusty pole. The structure separates from the building with Aleksio clinging on. It twists and groans.
    Aleksio drops to the alley. He makes himself into a ball and rolls. I grab him, pull him behind the dumpster. He is hurt. His ankle, I think.
    “Fucking hell,” I say as the assault weapons start.
    Our men shoot back.
    “Where the fuck did they come from?” he gasps.
    “We have it, brat .” Our men are suppressing. The cops will be here soon. “Can you walk?”
    Aleksio wears a grim look. He will.
    “I got him,” Tito says. “You help cover.” Tito wants me shooting because I am the marksman here. I rest my forearms on the metal lip of the dumpster lid and focus my senses on our attackers. I focus and calm myself, breathing, squeezing the