Tipping Point Read online

  Tipping Point

  The Castaletta Sindacate #4

  Ali Parker

  Contents

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  Description

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

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  About the Author

  Copyright

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  Description

  One decision can change everything.

  * * *

  Marco’s fled the scene at the Castaletta house, and in his absence, he’s left everyone emotionally fucked.

  * * *

  Not knowing who he can trust, Demetri does the only thing he knows to do, he calls his brother back to the syndicate and turns his back on the only woman who’s ever owned his broken heart.

  * * *

  On top of it all, Don Joe Castaletta is interested in a new venture for the crew – nightclubs.

  * * *

  While trying to rebuild the narcotics syndicate and work on this new business, Demetri is stretched paper thin. He yearns for a future that doesn’t exist, no matter how hard he tries to envision it. All is lost and nothing will ever be the same again.

  * * *

  With threats all around and a lack of trust in the people he’s invested himself in, his back is against the wall and alone he stands.

  * * *

  There is only so much one man can endure.

  * * *

  The Tipping Point.

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  1

  Demetri

  The moment was completely surreal.

  No fucking way things were going down like this.

  No fucking way.

  I turned from Edward, who lay below me, not moving. Fuck. I wasn’t going to have enough apologies in the world to make it up to Izzy for beating up her bestie. Stupid little bastard. “Where is Marco? Last time, Izzy.”

  She pulled her gun out and pointed it at me as tears filled her eyes. “Who are you? I don’t know the monster you’ve become. Back the fuck up, or I swear to God, I’ll shoot you.”

  Really? All these years of being right beside her, and she was going to point her gun at me? This is where the hell we were in our long, sordid relationship. Pain laced my chest, stealing the breath from me.

  “Tell me where your brother is. Now, Bella.”

  “Why?” Her gun shook as she let out a soft sob. “You gonna kill him too, you bastard? What was in it for you, D? All these years of serving my father, my family, and finally you’d had enough?”

  “You’ve lost your mind.” That was it. Enough of the bullshit. I moved toward her and grabbed the gun, spinning her around and wrapping her in a tight embrace. Fuck me, she smelled so good. Like fear and innocence. I stifled a growl. “Tell me where Marco is, or I’m going to assume that you’re helping him with all of this.”

  “All of what?” She pushed against me, but it was useless. I wasn’t budging. Not now. Not ever.

  “Where is he?” I screamed against the side of her head as a million thoughts blasted through my skull. Was she involved? Fuck no. What would happen if she were? My world would be destroyed. Joe would never let her live, and then I’d have a choice—him or her. “He’s the killer. He’s the mastermind. The fucker did all of this to us. Tell me where he is, or I’m going to tear up this whole fucking town looking for him.”

  “He’s at your place, getting the tapes back that you took from Marcus behind my fucking back!” She elbowed me and turned, lifting her gun again as we circled each other. “Why should I believe you? You lied to me.”

  The door opened behind us, but I ignored it. “He got rid of them.”

  “What?” She jerked away.

  I spun around. Marco. Fucker. I lifted my weapon and started to speak, but the rat-bastard cut me off.

  Marco lifted his hand as sadness swept across his face. “You had Drake come back to take Izzy’s place, and you were finally going to take mine?” His eyes were on me. What a clever game he was playing, this man who was like a brother to me not twenty-four hours before.

  “Shut your fucking mouth. You forced Freddy to make every sick move you needed to set him up as the villain, but the little shit got you in the end didn’t he, Marco? He confessed to everything on those damn tapes. He didn’t even have to say your name. You walked in on the fourth tape and said everything someone listening would need to know. The question is why?”

  “The tapes that you destroyed?” Marco’s voice was soft, his expression filled with anguish. “Why are you doing this to me? I’ve loved you like a brother my whole life. I kept the Drake thing from my sister when you asked me to because I knew you would tell her when you were ready. I’ve given up my position to you because I felt like you were worthier of it.”

  Izzy moved in between us, her damn gun still pointed at me. Edward still wasn’t moving, but it was a good thing. He would probably end up hurt again with the way I was feeling.

  “Shut up for a minute.” Isabella pointed the gun at Marco. “I don’t know who to believe.”

  “Where are the tapes, D?” Marco asked and glanced over at Izzy. “He destroyed them so you wouldn’t know, Izzy.”

  “You said there was nothing on them originally, remember?” I bellowed. The sound of blood rushing by my ears had me in a cold sweat. There was no way in hell we were getting out of the situation without someone’s blood on my hands. Sadly enough, two of the people I loved most stood before me. Today would change everything. “Why? Because you knew if she watched them that she’d know exactly who was involved in Vivian’s death. You, you sorry bastard.” I flipped the safety off my gun. Time to stop talking and start acting.

  “D. Don’t.” Izzy cocked her weapon. “Marco is my brother. My flesh and blood.”

  “And I’m your lover. Your man. Your goddamn future. I’ve held this fucking family together for as long as I can remember.” No way I was explaining beyond that. She knew what we meant to each other—unless this shit was one-sided all of a sudden. Certainly not. No fucking way.

  She moved in front of her brother and kept her gun on me, making her decision. “You lied about Drake, about Terrance Cooper, about my father sleeping with your mother.” She nodded toward Edward. “And you beat the hell out of Eddy and wrapped your hands around my throat. I have no clue who you are right now. Where are the tapes? Give them to me, and we can clear this up. Please.”

  “Ask your goddamn brother.” I pointed my gun toward her left and fired it. She jumped, and I was damn lucky she didn’t put a bullet in my head from instinct alone.

  “I’m going to ask you nicely to put your gun down one more time, and then you leave me no choice.” Izzy’s voice dropped. She was in her calm center where all killers went to before pulling the trigger and spilling blood. “I helped you w
hen Drake needed to leave. I have no clue if Marco did this, or if you did, but I’m asking you to return the favor until I can figure it out.”

  I tightened my jaw and narrowed my eyes. She had no goddamn clue what she was asking of me. Joe would slaughter us all. “No.”

  “Go,” she whispered roughly and pulled the trigger. The sound was defining, but the action is what ripped my heart open in my chest. Did she really love me at all? I wasn’t sure anymore.

  Sharp, dizzying pain on the right side of my head brought me down to one knee. I clapped my free hand over it. I felt the blood pumping through my fingers as I looked up at her. My woman.

  “Fuck,” I snarled over the sound of someone screaming.

  Izzy. Izzy was screaming. Her eyes locked with mine, and I grimaced as the flesh wound pulsed with heat. Tears welled in her eyes as I pulled my hand away to find it coated in blood. I wiped it on my thigh and covered the wound again.

  Marco was already gone. He must have bolted when I went down. Smart. It was the only chance he was going to get to get away from me.

  Izzy’s scream intensified as Timothy, Nate’s twin brother, came around the corner behind her. He froze and glanced around before approaching Izzy from behind. She crumbled, her knees bending as she dropped her gun and lifted both hands to her face. Her scream had subsided into a sob that cut into my soul.

  Marco was going to pay for doing this to her. For fucking with all of us.

  Timothy used the butt of his gun against the back of Izzy’s head to knock her out. Her already trembling knees gave out, and Tim caught her as she went limp and her scream ceased. I was grateful that he was there in Nate’s place as the ex-Navy Seal was inserting himself into the Cooper syndicate on my order. This night could have gone much worse had we put someone else in Nate’s place as head of security at the Castaletta mansion.

  Tim was staring at me as he held my girl up. He opened his mouth to say something, but I cut him off with a shake of my head. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it. Not right now. Not after this shit show.

  I pushed myself back to my feet with my hand still pressed to my ear. I wasn’t sure how much damage Izzy had actually done, but the pulsing pain had me concerned about looking in a mirror. If I couldn’t feel my ear under my hand, I would have been convinced she had blown it clean off.

  I walked toward them and let my hand fall from my bloody ear. “Son of a fucking bitch. Fuck.” I snarled as I wiped my blood on my thigh once more before scooping Izzy up in my arms. I cradled her head to my chest and felt the tears on her cheek leak through my shirt.

  “D, let me go after Marco. He couldn’t have gotten far.” Timothy took a few hurried steps back in the direction Marco fled in but turned back as if waiting for orders from me.

  “No,” I said sharply as I adjusted Izzy in my arms and made for the grand staircase. “Lock the mansion down. Find Joe. Now!”

  Timothy nodded once and took off for the front door. I took to the stairs, taking them two at a time as the smell of Izzy’s perfume mixed with that of my own blood.

  “I can’t believe you fucking shot me, Bella,” I whispered against the side of her head as I kissed her temple. Unruly bitch. For some strange reason, I understood why she had done what she did, and the truth of the matter was simple—if she wanted me dead, I would have been dead.

  She remained still in my arms as I made it to the second floor and made for her bedroom at the end of the hall. I shouldered open her door and slipped inside. Her room was basking in the warm glow from the lamp on her nightstand. Her windows were slightly open, letting a cool late spring breeze push and pull at her sheer white curtains.

  Gently, I laid her down on her bed and went to close the windows. Now was not the time to have any entrance of the Castaletta mansion unlocked. It had never been clearer to me that I had no idea who I could really trust in this place.

  I turned and went back to her. I laid down on my side beside her and reached out to run a finger down her cheek.

  “This is my fault,” I whispered. “What reason have I ever given you to trust me over your own blood? I should have just told you every fucking thing as it happened over the last few years. Forgive me, baby. I needed to protect you.”

  Some part of me wanted to strangle her, but a larger part knew the truth. Marco was at the helm of everything we’d been dealing with lately. Vivian’s death. Freddy’s demise and death. The fucking Kallup boys. The Coopers. Everything. Izzy would know soon too, and there was no reason to smash it in her face.

  She had been to way too many funerals as of late, and the poor girl was headed to another one once Joe sent us after his oldest son.

  There would be no surviving the Don’s wrath over his part in Vivian’s death. Nor should there be.

  Marco had played everything to his advantage. He knew how rocky things were between me and Izzy. They’d been that way for over six years now. He also knew that if push ever came to shove, his sister would have his back, no matter who she had to protect him from.

  I thought of my brother, Drake. I would do anything for him. I had done everything for him.

  I’d snuck him away from Joe to keep him safe when Drake got to a point where he couldn’t be in this life anymore. I had risked everything, and I was still risking it every day, just to keep him out of Joe’s crosshairs. And now Marco had taken his place as the center of Joe’s focus, or soon would. Dammit.

  I knew without a doubt that Joe would send Izzy to take her brother down. She wasn’t his daughter in our syndicate. She was his best, his only hitman.

  That would destroy her.

  I went to her bathroom and pulled a handful of toilet paper off the roll. I gathered it into a wad and worked up the nerve to look into the mirror.

  I still had my ear. “Thank God.” I let out a long sigh. How had things gotten so fucking out of control?

  The bullet had grazed the side of my head and nipped some of the cartilage at the top of my ear. The blood made it look worse than it was. I wet the toilet paper and wiped the side of my face and my neck. Then I gathered a fresh wad and held it to the cut as I went back into Izzy’s room.

  She was still unconscious.

  I sank down on the bed beside her and leaned forward with my face in my hand. It hurt to know that she was capable of pulling the trigger. I wasn’t a fool. She’d missed on purpose. But she had fired nonetheless. If I had continued to push and had gone after Marco, I knew I’d be lying in a puddle of my own blood downstairs right this second. Timothy would have come in to find my corpse and Izzy…

  Would she be leaning over my body and grieving my death, or would she have run out after Marco?

  It didn’t matter. The shit didn’t go down like that.

  I had landed myself here all on my own when I sealed mine and Izzy’s fate and told her we could never be together. I had chosen the syndicate and Joe over the potential we had, and the moment I told her “no,” I could see the destruction I had wreaked upon her. Things had been different between us ever since. We never stopped wanting each other, and we never stopped fighting against the bonds of our roles in this syndicate, but we stopped fighting for each other. Instead, we tortured each other, fucked our brains out, and then repeated the cycle.

  I had set everything in motion that night all those years ago for her not to trust me. Ever.

  “She deserves a better life,” I muttered to myself as I ran my hand down my face. “But no fucking way are you taking it, are you Bella?”

  When she woke, she wouldn’t want my face to be the first thing she saw. She needed someone neutral—someone who wouldn’t stir up terrible memories of dead relatives and betrayal. There was only one person I could think of who might stand a chance of offering her some comfort, and he was close at hand for the first time in years.

  Drake.

  I fished my phone out of my pocket and opened a message thread. I stared at his name for what must have been several minutes before I typed out the message.
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  “Get over here. Now. Izzy needs you.”

  I stared at the message as it sent and let out a sigh. Things hadn’t been this bad for as long as I could remember. The same thoughts kept sweeping through my mind, the emotion behind them weakening me.

  Vivian was dead.

  So was Freddy.

  And the blame fell on the shoulders of the man who had been playing a dangerous game. That same rage that had burned within me minutes ago came back as I thought about Marco. The bastard had crossed too many lines to get out of this one alive. There was no way in hell Joe would let him escape—and neither would I. He had to pay for what he did to this family.

  He needed to pay for what he did to Izzy. I knew her like the back of my fucking hand. Finding out the truth about Marco was going to fuck her up badly. She had been keeping it together pretty good after losing her mother and Freddy, but this would be the last straw. If it had been anyone else, she would have been able to handle it like the Enforcer she was. She’d be able to place her gun between their eyes and blow a hole through their skull.

  But Marco wouldn’t be that easy to put down.

  At least, I didn’t think he would. But maybe I didn’t know the full extent of her ability to compartmentalize her feelings. She had just shot me, after all.