“This is more than an owe,” he said with a strangled growl. “He could have been sharing club secrets with our biggest competitors,” Joe hissed. “I need to know.”
“Assume he has, assume he told them everything,” I said as I hoisted the unconscious man to his feet. “Les, a hand?” Les produced zip ties from his inside pocket and quickly secured Vincent’s hands.
I opened the trunk of my car, lifting out my overnight bag. Les helped me drop him in. From my bag, I took out duct tape and covered his mouth as Les removed Vincent’s boots. When we were finished, I closed the trunk and turned back to Joe.
“He’s a sick fuck, who killed a close club’s guy. That should be all you need. You’ve heard the rumours of him and his fetish. I can tell you, it’s not a fucking fetish. He keeps women chained in his fucking kitchen, where he beats them and rapes them, until they die. He kept Devon in that house and forced her to feed them. He kept her chained to a fucking wall.” My anger was threatening to burst out, and I took a deep breath. “I will not let him live.” My eyes held Joes. “She gets to go to sleep at night knowing he isn’t coming for her.”
“Raphe…” Joe shook his head and then sighed in defeat. “You left me a fucking mess in there.”
“Make the deal with Malcolm, offer forty-five, fifty-five to Malcolm. He’ll take it, especially since I’m away to take out your guy,” I said as I glanced at Les who nodded imperceptibly. “Leave a handful of guys for the first run through. Les will keep you right.”
“And this?” Joe nodded towards the car.
“Devon decides.” I glanced at Les once. “I have somewhere to be.” I was pushing my time already. “Les? Joe?”
“Go,” Les told me. “I got this.”
“I need the CCTV wiped,” I said to Les, and he looked around the quiet street. “On it.”
I was already at the driver’s door. “Don’t think about it too much, Joe, you’ll hurt your head.”
“You’re a fuckhead.” He turned to Les. “Let’s make this look good for me, yeah?”
I drove off, heading to Louis’s. I still had a lot to do tonight.
Louis looked down at the unconscious man in the trunk of my car.
“You couldn’t bring something more aesthetically pleasing?” he asked me dryly.
Snake glared back at us as he tried to twist out of his zip ties. I shut the trunk and looked at my old friend.
“Did you recognise him?” I asked as we stepped away from the car.
“Should I have?” Louis looked at me and gave me a tight smile. “It’s hard to see past the blood and the hate,” he said to me.
“It is, but the hate wasn’t just for me.”
“Meaning?”
“Vincent Lannister is in the trunk of my car.” Louis looked at me blankly. “He’s affiliated with the Ricci family.”
Louis’s eyes flared with disgust, and he stepped forward, glaring at me as my hand stopped him.
“He’s not for you,” I said softly. “Someone else is owed this debt.”
“No.” Louis scowled at me. “You would not bring him here if he was meant for someone else.”
“Louis, do you trust me?” I asked him quietly. We were in front of his ranch. His security guards moved around the grounds, but I knew he was always in their sights.
“What have you done?” Louis asked me shrewdly.
“Do you trust me?” I asked again.
“Yes.” Still he watched me. “What did you do?”
Leaning forward, I kissed him on both cheeks, traditional family style. “Trust me for a little bit longer, capo.” At his slight nod, I asked the unspoken question that hung between us.
“Do it.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
Ignoring the kicking in my trunk, I headed to Cherry Creek. I was cutting it too fine. A quick call and I was heading to Cammy’s room.
Two guys stood outside it, and I flashed my gun at them. “I’m ready to fight you for it.”
They stood with their arms at their sides as I rapped on the door. Cam opened it, and I showed him my gun. His hiss seriously made both guys pale, but I knew the odds were in my favour.
“Alberto,” I greeted as I followed Cammy into the room.
“Why am I here, Raphael?”
“Antonio doesn’t need to be here, you don’t need to be here. Neither of you want to make this move.” I took a seat as I accepted the bottle of water from Cammy as he handed his uncle a glass of bourbon. “Nico is ambitious. Dangerous.”
“He is my nephew,” Alberto said as he took a seat also.
“He is, but so is Cameron, and Micky is your son.” Internally, I took a deep breath. I was potentially away to sign my own death warrant. “Nico is bad for your family.” I heard Cam mutter under his breath that I’d lost my mind. “Do you or your brother want this deal in Denver?”
“No.”
“Do you want to be showing the East that you’re merging families? Making moves?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?” Alberto said nothing, and I leaned forward. “Nico is ambitious. Ambition is good, but his ambition is misplaced. You own half of the trade in southern California, you have your share of Nevada, so why are you crossing two states to come here?”
“The Viallis.”
“Mean shit to you and Antonio,” I answered swiftly. “Katalina will inherit, and she is solely focused on Colorado and maybe Phoenix. She has a good relationship with an MC. She is also one hundred percent volatile, unpredictable and unmanageable.” I played my trump card. “She is also barren.” Alberto looked at me, his slight surprise showing. “Nobody wants a family head to marry a woman who cannot give him sons or daughters.”
“That’s the old way,” Cammy spoke up.
“That’s the family way,” I replied, my gaze trained on Alberto. “Family need heirs to carry on a name…and tradition.”
“You sure?” Alberto asked.
“I know.”
“I cannot share this information.” Alberto looked at me in frustration.
“No.”
“So why tell me?”
“You know the solution as well as I do.” I took a drink to let it sink in before I voiced it. “Remove the temptation.”
“Kill the woman?” Cammy asked as he looked between us.
“There’s also the issue of the Neroni idiot.” I ignored Cam, he wasn’t keeping up.
“Remove the issue,” Alberto grunted. “He brings shame to his uncle.”
“He does,” I agreed. “And the other matter?”
Alberto held my gaze, his look steady. He knew what I was suggesting. The nod was slight, and then he was on his feet, filling his glass with bourbon. “Cameron, we leave tonight. Pack our things.”
“I’ll see myself out.”
“Raphe?” Alberto called me back, he was watching the dark caramel liquid of his drink as he swirled it in his glass. “Make it quick, make it painless.”
“Of course.” I left him in the room, his nephew scrambling to understand what his uncle had just sanctioned.
Kat’s lack of being able to carry a child was a closely kept secret, one that I was content to use to my advantage. Families wanted children to carry on the family name, the misconception that Kat had the ability to be the answer to a potential amalgamation of territory and therefore an increase in power, because she was a woman, was a potential power play they would consider. Letting Alberto know that she was barren stopped that move. Nico’s play for a takeover was almost over.
I had a Sabino family head give me the go ahead to kill. I had a Neroni family head give me the go ahead to kill. I had my own family head sanction the deaths.
Now I just needed to find my targets.
Amy was a well of information. After she had left Malcolm’s that night, Les had taken her number. He passed it to me in case she came in handy again. Not to fuck, no, but for what she saw. Emilio’s demise was underlined by his inability to recognise that Amy
was the find of the century.
Much to my delight, both of my targets were partying together at Louis’s club, Emilio acting like he already owned it, Nico laughing at the fool Emilio was making of himself. My car was parked out of sight. A quick blow to the head had knocked my unwilling passenger out. Discarding my suit jacket and pulling my hoodie on, I covered my face with the bandana and pulled the hood low. I changed my shoes for sneakers, and armed with fully loaded guns and my two weapons of choice for these men, I made my way to the club.
A wraith keeps to the shadows, a ghost, a flicker of something insubstantial, a trace of something sinister in the darkness. Legend had it a wraith was a symbol of death, a phantom image seen before a person’s death.
I had earned my name, and the majority of people knew I was not who you wanted to see step out of the shadows.
The music was loud and pounding within the club, the lights flashing as bodies pressed too close together, strangers rubbing together, drunk on alcohol, drugs or lust. I weaved through them all, too drunk or high that no one paid me any attention. At the VIP section, the bodyguards didn’t even see me slip behind them and duck under the rope.
Emilio was in one of the rooms. Lying flat on his back, a girl riding his dick, her eyes closed as she tipped her head back, drinking champagne from the bottle. Another girl sat on his face, chasing her own high as she faced the wall, her head bent to the small shelf beneath her as she snorted whatever her poison was from the glass.
The intermittent lighting of the room, as the strobe lights from the main club cast their shadow, made my job too easy. The needle pricked between his toes, and I injected him with the lethal cocktail. His leg kicked out at the sting, and I was already back in the shadows as he shoved the girl off his face. He looked wildly around the room but saw nothing. He would be dead by the end of the night, the cocktail would work slowly but it would make his heart stop.
In another room, Nico was in a chair, smoking a cigarette as a girl sucked his dick. He looked bored. I watched her for a moment, his stomach resting on his thighs as she bobbed on his smaller than average dick, her dead stare fixed on the wall as she tried to please him. He tilted his head back to look at the ceiling, but his eyes widened in alarm as he saw me staring down at him. My hand clamped over his mouth, and the needle pierced him just behind his ear.
I had promised quick and painless. He was dead before I finished injecting the full dose. The girl looked at me, tears streaming down her face as she kept silent. I placed a gloved finger in front of my bandana, and she nodded frantically. I stepped back into the darkness, and immediately she jumped to her feet and took his wallet, pulling out the cash. Rolling a bill, she disappointed me by snorting a line of white powder. Quietly, I left the room.
I checked on Emilio. He was on his feet, swaying dangerously as he shook his head. The girls ignored him as they pleasured each other. Emilio stumbled as he put his clothes on, obviously disoriented and confused. I watched him leave the club, his protection struggling to contain him as he staggered in the street.
At my car, I made the call to New York.
“It’s done.”
The line clicked dead, and I put my phone back in my pocket.
Feeling the last few hours weigh on me, I headed out of Denver. I would be with Devon before she woke if I was lucky.
She was sitting at the window waiting for me, her hair loose around her shoulders, falling in waves over her chest. The soft glow of the lamp behind her gave her an ethereal look. Her face broke into a smile as I got out of the car, a frown forming when she saw what I was wearing.
The door opened before I got to it, and her arms slipped around me as her head rested on my chest. “Be back soon?” She tilted her head to look up at me as my arms circled around her, pulling her into me. “That’s the best you got?”
A small laugh escaped me as I looked down at her. She was in her grey sleep shorts, a hoodie, my hoodie, over her, hanging past her ass. “You stealing my clothes?”
“You slipped me a sleeping tablet?”
“How’s your arm?” I asked as we stood easily, our arms wrapped around each other.
“Barely aches,” she told me with a small shrug.
“How’s the rest of you?” I asked as I dipped my head and brushed my lips against hers.
“Aching.” Her teeth nipped at my lower lip. “Lonely.”
“Is that so?” My mouth caught hers, and I kissed her hungrily. She tasted sweet and fresh, and as my hands tangled in her hair, Devon’s hands slipped under my hoodie and shirt, her fingers pressing into my back. Reluctantly, I pulled away from her.
“What is it?” she asked me as I took a step back. “You okay?”
“We need to talk.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Devon?”
“You’re going to want to tell me you like me, we had fun, but it’s time to move on.” Devon bit her lip as her arms wrapped around her waist.
“Utterly ridiculous,” I told her as I shook my head. “C’mon.” I led her into the kitchen, and I was relieved to see a full pot of coffee.
“Have you slept?” Devon asked me curiously as she sat on a stool beside the breakfast counter.
“Not yet.” I poured us both cups of coffee, getting her milk from the fridge. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Tell me what you wanted to talk about,” Devon said to me anxiously.
I was nervous? Fuck, that was new. “I killed two men tonight.” I just said it. No build up, no easing her into it.
“Did they hurt you?”
“No.”
“Did they deserve it?”
“Ultimately, they may have.”
“Oh.” Devon looked at her coffee and then at me. “How many have you killed?”
“I stopped counting a long time ago.” I took a drink of my coffee.
“Wow.” She shifted in her seat, drawing her leg up to her chest. Her chin rested on it as she watched me. “You’re really casual about it.”
“It’s what I do.”
“Does it bother you?”
“No.”
“I guess, that’s…good.”
“Good?” I asked, amused at her thought process.
“You know, some people would let that eat them up.” She shrugged. “You accept who you are and what you do. That can only be a good thing. Right?”
Weirdly, I could follow her logic. “I guess.”
“Why are you telling me?”
“I kill people.” I saw her chew her lip as she watched. “I come from a family of…criminals, really. I work for other criminals. We’re not good men. I’m not a good person.”
“The redhead was one of the men?”
“She is,” I confirmed with a smile at her description of Kat.
“You look so much more human when you smile,” Devon told me distractedly.
“Focus,” I reminded her. “I don’t propose to change who I am,” I carried on. “I’m thirty-one, I’m very, very good at what I do, and I like my job.”
“Okay.”
“This is me.” I felt stupidly self-conscious.
“I know who you are, Raphe,” Devon told me softly. “I’ve always known you had a dark past, probably a dark future. You never hid that from me.”
“I just want you to know, I won’t stop being who I am.”
“Okay.”
“Does it bother you?” I asked as I watched her closely.
She thought about it and shook her head. “No.”
“You don’t care that I kill people, two men are dead tonight, their wives will grieve for them.” Actually they probably wouldn’t.
“You would have a reason.”
“I get paid to do it.” That wasn’t tonight’s reason, but she didn’t need to know that.
“Money can be a reason too.”
I drank my coffee and studied her. She was very calm about this. “Come with me.” Obediently, she got off the stool and followed me to the door. I led her onto
the porch, and I saw her look around as she tried to determine where the thumping was coming from.
“It’s coming from the trunk.”
“You got a puppy?” Her eyes lit with excitement. “It’s exactly what we need here, a dog to walk through the woods with.”
I stared at her speechless. “You think I bought you a dog?” My mind was reeling. “You want to stay here?”
“Don’t you?” Devon looked up at me, her eyes bright with hope. “It’s so beautiful, Raphe, and quiet, away from all the noise and the people.” She stared wistfully out to the trees. “I could stay here forever.”
“Hold that thought,” I warned her softly. I placed boots in front of her, and without a word, she slipped them on before I led her to the car.
Devon almost fell over backwards in her haste to gain distance when she saw who I had in my trunk. Her father lay there, his hatred for her burning bright as he glared at her.
“Raphe?” Devon’s voice was unsteady, her eyes searching mine for an explanation.
“I wasn’t expecting to find him so soon,” I admitted. “He’s yours to do with whatever you want.”
“Kill him,” she hissed as she stepped closer to the car. “He doesn’t deserve to live.”
I hauled him out of the trunk, and he fought me, but there’s only so much you can do with your hands bound, your legs cramping from being in a small space for so long, your head dizzy from the broken nose and the repeated blows to the head. His legs gave out, and he fell to his knees.
“He’s yours,” I repeated. “Only you can heal your hurt, Devon. Only you know what those women went through. This is your chance to avenge them.”
Her hand slipped into mine as her father knelt in front of us both, swaying slightly.
“It’s like déjà vu,” Devon whispered as she stared at him. “A man on his knees, waiting for his executioner, while you wait patiently to the side.”
“Only this time, you’re not powerless,” I said as I squeezed her hand in mine.
“I don’t think I can do it,” she told me. Her father’s look told her exactly what he thought of her statement. As she reached forward, I watched her struggle to force herself to remove the tape. I could have done it, but she needed to have the strength.
Beautifully Broken (The Denver Series Book 2) Page 33
