Read The Muscle Part Two for Free Online Page B

couldn’t help feeling like a piece on Diego’s fucked up chess board.
    The trick was letting Diego believe he was a pawn, when Luca was in fact a knight.
    Diego went on about the house and potential threats — most arising from rivalries and other negative aspects of the drug trade. Luca used the opportunity to study the two new guards. They’d been hand-chosen by Diego, so Luca would have to assume they were well-versed in personal security. Eduardo looked very much like Hector, Robert, and Albert — big, beefy, some kind of Hispanic descent. He glanced at John, then tried to figure out why he seemed slightly familiar. Tall and fair haired, he didn’t fit the profile of the men Diego tended to hire, and when he spoke, Luca thought he caught the hint of an Irish accent. He wondered if maybe the guy had been connected to the Irish division of the Syndicate. Luca would have to keep an eye on him, make sure he didn’t recognize him or Marco.
    “Luca will show you to your rooms,” Diego said, “and give you a tour of the house.”
    He stood, and the others followed suit, a king and his loyal subjects. Luca led them out of the room and gave them the same tour Robert had given him less than a month before. He wondered idly what had happened to Robert and the others. Had they been unceremoniously fired after the incident in the media room? And what about Hector? Had he faced an even more severe punishment after Luca beat the shit out of him? He couldn’t help hoping so. He wished Hector a slow and painful death for what he’d done to Isabel.
    He assigned Eduardo and John to patrol the property, putting them on rotating shifts that covered both the house and grounds. Like so many of the things Diego did, security was half-assed. No wonder Isabel had been able to sneak off on her own. Diego liked to put on a big show, but there were holes everywhere. The guy was too hopped up on coke and his own ego to realize he was his biggest liability.
    It would be easy to discount him as a threat. His attempts at security were uneven, his hold over his men due to fear and not respect. It wasn’t the way to lead. Luca knew that from his time with the Vitales, from working with Nico. You could keep people in line through fear for awhile, but eventually they’d turn on you, and when they did, they’d rip out your throat.
    But the danger in Diego lay in his disorganization. He was surrounded by an aura of chaos and disorder so that it was impossible to know which Diego you were dealing with — the magnanimous leader or the coke-fueled five-year-old who was still pissed Daddy left all his money to his little sister. Sometimes Luca saw both of them within minutes of each other, and he found himself twitching for his weapon more often than he cared to admit, ready to take Diego down in spite of Isabel’s wishes if he went too far.
    Once he got Eduardo and John settled in their private quarters, he took Marco to Isabel’s room, keeping up a bored patter as they moved through the richly furnished halls. He told Marco all the things he would have told any new guard — about Isabel and the rules surrounding her ability to leave the house, about Sofia, about Isabel’s history of escaping the house’s security measures — just in case Diego overheard them.
    He was oddly relieved. He prided himself on his self-containment. Need no one and you have nothing to lose. That had always been his motto and it had always worked.
    Until now.
    He needed Isabel in ways he couldn’t yet define, and that made him vulnerable in a way he didn’t much like. He felt new empathy for Nico. The poor bastard had been hit hard with his feelings for Angel, and he’d risked — and lost — everything to prove it. Luca had half thought Nico was crazy at the time, and he had the sudden urge to contact his old friend and apologize.
    But there was no time for that. He would get Isabel out, and one day, he and Nico would talk about it over beers on a beach