The Devil's Daughter

by Ophelia Bell

  “Maybe later. Let’s go eat.”

  This time I let Drake head in to announce the meal, and a moment later, all five of us are seated around the big, rectangular table while the chef serves us supper.

  I try to school my features when I look at Papá Flores, to avoid betraying my knowledge of the things I heard, but I can’t help but look at the man differently now. The anger I harbored for the past week is gone. I can’t imagine the kind of turmoil he went through, trying to balance the relationship he had with his wife and best friend, along with the business they were building together. I also got the sense Elle knew more than she let on. She didn’t seem surprised by the secrets he shared.

  But knowing his history changes everything. Knowing he understands our predicament and is sympathetic to it lets me relax. Having a hearty meal to counteract the liquor I drank helps too.

  “Delicious,” Arturo eventually says, nodding to Drake. “Please offer my compliments to your chef, Drake. Though I don’t think it can hold a candle to Elena’s cooking.”

  Baz laughs. “Not even close. I think Mom’s cooking is what I miss most since we moved.”

  “She misses you. Your mother believes you blame her for what happened.”

  “What?” Baz says, shaking his head. “She knows we don’t blame her. You were the one we were pissed at.”

  “All the same, you haven’t called since.”

  Baz and I share a look from across the table where he sits beside Elle, Drake and Arturo taking up either end.

  “Bring her to the gala,” Drake says. “I didn’t add either Elle’s mother or Elena to the list, which was probably an oversight. I can change that easily with a call right now.”

  “Does that send the right message, though?” I ask. “I mean, are you dating our mother?”

  “It wouldn’t be a date, necessarily. Just an excuse to see you,” Drake says. Then to Papá, “Unless you plan to make it a date. I didn’t get the sense you and Elena were involved.”

  “We aren’t,” Arturo says. “What happened between us is in the past. She’s a dear friend, and one of my oldest employees, but not a romantic interest.”

  “She should come,” Elle says. “I wish mine could. I’ll check with Mason, but I don’t think she’s well enough yet to make the trip.”

  “Your mother is more resilient than you think,” Arturo says. “I can ensure everyone arrives safely, no matter who agrees to come. Now…” He sits forward. “Let’s discuss the reason you called me today, Elle.”

  She looks at Papá, as if she’s entirely forgotten our dilemma in the midst of all the other revelations, but I answer for her.

  “Who would have it out for Drake enough to plant cameras all over his place like that?”

  He sighs and shakes his head. “That I can’t help you with. I knew Gregor Stavros well enough, but I cut ties with him the very second he invited me to invest in his new business venture. I didn’t want to be involved, so I don’t know who else might have been.”

  Elle sets down her fork, looking alarmed, not to mention betrayed. “What? Why couldn’t you tell us this on the phone? That was the entire reason I called!”

  “The devious old bastard just needed an opening to come talk to us. To clear his fucking conscience,” Baz says. “And you gave it to him. So I guess we’re back at square fucking one.” He throws his napkin down and scoots his chair back, fishing into his pocket for his phone. “Thirty-six hours until the gala. Elle, we need to get back to work if we’re going to find the bastard.”

  Drake and I share a dark look, then turn to Arturo, who doesn’t seem fazed by our anger. He spreads both hands flat on the table and leans forward.

  “Stop,” he says in a clipped, commanding tone that makes all of us sit up and pay attention. “What I can tell you is that there is a short list of underworld organizations operating in Southern California who might have been involved. And an even shorter list of people who know who they are. I could give you the names of the organizations, but if you want details without alerting the FBI, the Zavala Cartel is who had that kind of intel. César Zavala would have known more than I do.”

  “Except that fucker’s dead now, thanks to Gustavo Delgado,” Baz snaps. “How is this any help?”

  I’m about to interject with my own profanities when I notice Papá sharing a long stare with Elle, and her eyes go wide.

  “I have it,” she whispers. Papá gives her one of his enigmatic smiles and nods.

  “You have what?” I ask.

  “I have Zavala’s intel.”

  “How the fuck…?” I begin.

  “Elle, what aren’t you telling us?” Baz asks.

  She shakes her head. “It wasn’t relevant until now. What you guys don’t know is that when Mason was supposedly dead, he was working undercover with Zavala to steal this intel. He failed, but ultimately wound up going back to make a deal to get it. When he brought it home, before he turned it over to the Feds, he made copies for each of us, so if Amador or anyone like that ever came for our family, we’d have dirt on them to force them to let us go. He’s used it before. Sam used it to help get Toni free from Amador. Now you’re telling me that something in there is going to tell us who’s after Drake?”

  “I don’t have the answer, mija, but if anyone did, it would have been Zavala. Sex trafficking is dirty business, and exactly the kind of business the Zavala Cartel was involved in. If Gregor Stavros was part of it, he likely did business with Zavala at some point. Which means that intel would include dirt on him. Zavala always made sure he had insurance on the people he did business with.”

  “Do you remember seeing my father’s name in the files?” Drake asks.

  Elle shakes her head. “I don’t know… I mean, I wasn’t ever looking for it. I only absorbed the intel that affected our family. Anything mentioning Amador or Flores. But there was a lot of other stuff.”

  “Do you have it here?” Baz asks, leaning close, his body strung tight as a bow string.

  Elle nods. “I always keep it with me. I can look, but it might be quicker if I just call Sam. He’d know off the top of his head what was there or not. Mason and Maddox would too. One of the many things I don’t share with them is their photographic memories.”

  31

  Elle

  I give Sam a call over dessert, and he insists that we also conference in Maddox and Mason to give them all the details we have so far. Halfway through the call, Maddox puts us on hold, then returns, adding another voice to the mix.

  “What kind of trouble are you kids into?” says a voice I haven’t heard in months.

  “Marco?” I ask, eyes wide. “Where are you?”

  “In an empty airport in the middle of fucking nowhere, but I’m on my way home. I land at LAX first thing tomorrow, and then I’m home for a while.”

  “What? How long?” I bounce in my seat, so excited for a reunion with the brother I see the least that I almost forget why we’re on the call. “You have to come to the gala tomorrow!” Then I look at Drake, wincing, because I should have asked first.

  He laughs and nods. “We can make room. I just want all of you to be informed of what we’re up against.”

  “That’s what we’re hoping you’ll tell us, Drake. What’s this call about anyway?” Maddox asks.

  “We’re hoping you guys can help us figure it out,” I say, then glance at Drake, who leans closer to the phone lying flat on the table between us. He repeats some of what we already told Sam before he made us stop to call the others, which includes the summary of Drake’s blackmail threats, followed by discovering the cameras, and then the latest, which is the death threat he received via email just this morning.

  “So it’s escalating,” Drake finishes.

  “And you suspect whoever it is might try something at the gala,” Mason says. “Which you’re too stubborn to avoid, I take it.”

  “If I’m not there, the gala doesn’t happen,” Drake says.

  “It’s a good place to dra
w the fucker out,” Maddox says. “Obviously it should happen.”

  Drake gives the rest of us a smug look, and Ben rolls his eyes.

  “We’re not debating whether or not the gala should take place,” Baz interjects. “We’re looking for the identity of the asshole who’s likely behind these threats. It turns out he might be connected to Zavala somehow, or at the very least Zavala’s intel might have included dirt on Drake’s old man, Gregor Stavros.”

  I lean in closer. “So we’re hoping that if you four can put your heads together, you’ll give us a name. I have the intel, but I don’t remember all of it as well as you guys probably do.”

  “Gregor Stavros,” Sam says. “The name rings a bell.”

  “Billionaire shipping magnate, died in a fire. His death was ruled accidental by the authorities, but there’s a big question mark next to his name,” Marco says. “I remember that page. It’s a report of his death, but the notes in the margin were added to the copy in pencil. Whoever added them didn’t believe the report.”

  “That’s because it wasn’t an accident,” Drake says. “That’s not in question. But who would take issue with him dying, and with me taking over? We think whoever it is lost a revenue stream when I cut the head off my father’s sex trafficking ring—someone pissed off enough to install cameras all over my penthouse.”

  “Okay, I just need to ask, who the fuck are you?” Marco asks. “Are you Elle’s boyfriend, or her boss, or what? Because it sounds to me like you had something to do with your old man’s death.”

  “Marco,” Mason warns, “stay on point. We don’t need to grill the man about his relationship with his dad. If anyone knows what it’s like to have a toxic father, we do.”

  “Fair enough. But she’s our sister. How well do we know this guy?”

  “I trust him,” Arturo says, and the line goes utterly silent for a few beats. I wish I could see all their faces, but we opted not to do a video call because Baz insisted a voice call would be more secure. Finally one of my brothers clears his throat, and I’m pretty sure it’s Marco again.

  “Do my ears deceive me, or was that Arturo Flores?” he asks sotto voce.

  “Pretty sure he can hear you, Marco,” Sam says, chuckling. “And yeah. But you already know Elle is his. So he’s invested in making sure she’s safe. If he’s okay with Drake, then so am I.”

  “Gotcha,” Marco says. “But if it’s all the same to you, I’m going to reserve my opinion until I meet him. No offense, Drake.”

  Drake shakes his head and smiles. “None taken.”

  “Just a warning, though—if you ever hurt our sister, I know how to kill a man in two seconds flat,” Marco adds.

  “I hear you loud and clear,” Drake says. “And I’m sad we weren’t friends years ago.”

  “So, Gregor Stavros,” Marco says, returning to the topic. “One dead guy who did shitty things to other human beings, but someone else is pissed he’s dead, and is now sending you, his son, death threats, trying to get you to give up your company.”

  “That sums it up,” Drake says. “We think whoever is behind these threats has to be someone my father associated with who was involved in the human trafficking too. Perhaps someone linked to the company. And someone who would be on the gala’s guest list, which Baz should be sending over to all four of you now.”

  “Got it,” Marco says a moment later.

  The line goes quiet while my brothers look at the list of names they just received. I hear a couple “hmms” and wonder if they’re all hmm-ing over the same name. Then Marco says, “Are you guys hitting the same conclusion I am?”

  “Pieces are falling together, yes,” Mason says. “Drake, do you remember if your dad ever had a mistress?”

  Drake’s eyebrows shoot up, and he says, “It’s possible, but he was single for most of my life. Mom divorced him when I was about ten years old. He retained custody, though.”

  “This would’ve been earlier, while he was married. The intel links him to a Serbian woman by the name of Vera Sitnik, who’s the niece of a Balkan crime syndicate boss. The pieces I remember include a birth certificate for a child she bore with the father’s name left blank, but that Zavala hand-wrote your father’s name onto. The child’s name was Miloš.”

  “Yes!” Marco says. “There were bank transfers too, along with email correspondence and itineraries for trips Gregor took to Europe. Your company has an office there, and the name of one of the managers is pretty damn close: Miles Sitnik.”

  My neck prickles because I recognize the name. Baz and I look at each other, and I realize he knows it too.

  “I’ve never met Miles, but I know of him,” Drake says. “He’s been with the company for about a decade and was promoted to VP of the South American regional office about six months ago. He lives in Brazil now. And his name is on the guest list.”

  Baz leans in and asks, “Does the name Curt Hagler show up anywhere in connection with this Miles guy? Curt is the former head of security, who fell off the radar after he resigned.”

  “Nah, not that I remember,” Marco says. “What about you guys?”

  My other brothers all deny any recollection.

  “Could be they didn’t hook up until recently,” Sam says. “The intel on Stavros is pretty stale.”

  “My father has been dead for a few years,” Drake says. “Not surprising.”

  “How long have you been receiving threats?” Maddox asks.

  Drake sits forward. “The blackmail started a couple weeks ago, but the ammunition the sender had was weak. I’ve made sure to protect myself from threats like that, so I just ignored them. I have pretty solid dirt on just about everyone who might have made use of my father’s services.”

  “But not on Miles,” Mason says.

  Drake shakes his head. “Regretfully, no. He rarely visited. If he’s my half brother, Dad did a hell of a job keeping me in the dark, but he obviously brought Miles into the fold, considering how long he’s been with the company.”

  “He’s positioning himself to take your place,” Arturo says, speaking up again for the first time in a few minutes. “It’s likely that he hoped to push you out without spilling blood, but is resorting to more dire threats now. Which means he doesn’t have the leverage he needs to do it the civil way. But men like him never work alone. I had heard that Zavala was working with the Corluka gang out of Belgrade. And when I had my falling out with your father, he was trying to lure me with the prospect of the Eastern European women he claimed he was bringing in. I draw the line at exploiting human beings.”

  “Well, I’m not giving up control of my company,” Drake says.

  “So he’ll try to take it from you by having you assassinated,” Mason says.

  “There’s one problem here,” Sam interjects. “Zavala’s been destroyed, so if they were the go-between, who’s taking their place?”

  My brothers are all silent for a beat, and then Mason lets out a curse. “César Zavala might be dead, but his organization is alive and kicking with a new boss: Gustavo Delgado.”

  32

  Drake

  The twins and I are mildly put off when Arturo Flores opts to stay the night, since it’s past midnight when our call ends. I extend the invitation because it’s the polite thing to do as a host, and I want to keep the man on my good side. I hope he’ll say no, but the glint in his eyes when he accepts tells me he knows full well that he’ll be cock-blocking the three of us.

  I should be grateful that he’s open-minded enough not to object to Elle’s relationship with us. Knowing one of his older daughters is in a similar relationship doesn’t mean he’d accept such an alternative arrangement for her. I didn’t hear any of his conversation with her, but Ben’s reaction when he re-emerged from the corridor without them just before supper was enough to signal we were probably in the clear.

  Except there’s no way in hell any of us are dumb enough to try sleeping with her while her father is under the same roof. Shortly after our call with h
er brothers ends, she bids us all good night, giving me a peck on the cheek and each of the twins swift, innocent hugs. Then she kisses Arturo on his cheek and disappears, leaving the four of us to chat.

  It’s a more formal exchange than we’ve had so far, the topic restricted to logistics for the following day. I excuse myself briefly to send an email to Lindsey, since I’ve added a couple more names to the guest list.

  Not only will Marco Santos be attending, but his plus-one is actually one of his Navy SEAL teammates, a man named Jacob Hearn.

  Former Navy SEAL, I correct myself. Marco evidently applied for discharge not long after his mother’s illness so he could be there for his family, and his friend also resigned out of solidarity. They’re leaving something out of the conversation, though I’m not sure what. If they’re as capable and dedicated as they sound, I can’t imagine why they’d retire after such a relatively short career. But I sense that Arturo knows something, because he offers more approval than is strictly warranted when he learns this bit of information.

  It isn’t until we’re off the call that he elaborates, explaining that there’s currently a covert operation underway to take down the Amador Cartel, and that Marco—and evidently Jake as well—has been recruited as part of the team. Neither are leaving the SEALs entirely; they’re just being reassigned. Either way, I can’t object to having extra muscle present at the gala tomorrow.

  I’m not afraid of what will happen—I just really want to catch this fucker—but I also can’t just jump him out of the blue. We have to wait until he makes a move, and knowing I have a virtual platoon of men on my side gives me all the confidence that we’ll have dealt with him by the end of the night.

  As it’s already late, it doesn’t take long for the four of us to run out of steam, so we head down to the lower deck together, and I show Arturo to the third guest cabin in the row next to the twins’ cabins. Each of them retires to their own rooms, and I slip into mine, closing the door behind me.