by A. C. Bextor
Ciro sits farther back into his brown leather couch, clutching the tumbler of scotch to the point his knuckles have turned white.
The devilish smile plastered across the smug face of the black-vested thug sitting across from him incites Ciro’s already raging temper. The man’s clothes are filthy enough to stain the leather of the chair he’s stretched out in.
How dare that lowly brand of an outfit ask so much for a job so simple anyone could finish it.
Elevent himself knows more than most what Ciro is capable of. As if raising him as his own son wasn’t enough, Ciro later pledged his allegiance to the boy by killing his biological parent.
At the age of fourteen, Elevent’s father had returned to claim him. Ciro stopped him where he stood by ordering one of his men to fire a bullet through the man’s head. He hadn’t even blinked in giving the order because that was what a person was expected to do for family.
And this is the thanks I get for my allegiance.
Greedy, vile criminals, absent of both organization and honor.
With all the business Ciro had so generously dropped into Elevent’s lap over the last few years, he expected some form of equality to their exchange. Rather, he can only consider this an act of extortion, a form of betrayal coming from a man he once considered one of his own.
“You’re asking too much,” Ciro informs the man known as Leglas.
The vice president of Saint’s Justice motorcycle club is being used as a mouthpiece in lieu of Elevent, its club president. Though Leglas is doing Elevent’s bidding with aloofness as he cleans the dirt and grime from beneath his deplorable-looking fingernails.
Ciro shudders, imagining how many lives have been taken by that very blade which is being used to prod the stained meat around the man’s filthy fingertips.
“Prez is pushin’ for this one, old man,” Leglas casually returns. He doesn’t give Ciro so much as the consideration of eye contact, adding an additional bout of insult.
“Your prez,” Ciro mocks with disdain, “is trying my patience, as well as my bank account.”
Sitting forward, Leglas rests his elbows on his knees. His calloused hands, adorned with thick, tarnished silver rings, hang limply between his thighs.
The man’s long, light brown hair is dirty. His skin is caked with dust. Ciro can’t make out the color of his eyes; they’ve remained narrowed since he sat down. He has a jagged scar just above his right eye that looks more new than old.
“You’re a fuckin’ businessman, right?” Leglas carelessly inquires, rotating his head around the room to acknowledge the empire Ciro built himself.
Ciro’s grimace is immediate. Not only does the man sitting in front of him reek, but his foul mouth is wreaking its own havoc on Ciro’s narrowing impulse to have him physically removed from where he sits.
However, Ciro resigns himself to the truth: he needs this abhorrent man, along with Elevent and the entire Saint’s Justice outfit, to get their hands dirty in a way he cannot.
Ciro recognized long ago that he needed a hand to help build, train, and maintain the army he’s always needed. A soothing, palliative hand at that. Liam is exactly the kind of well-respected leader his men would look up to with reverence and admiration.
Ciro has thought tirelessly of ways to work around Liam’s honor and self-preservation. Until something—or rather someone—luckily fell into his lap. A gift from the devilish saints of crime and punishment, he thought.
Months ago, after hearing the name Wren casually fall from Liam’s lips, he sequestered his most trusted soldiers, excluding his sick but most valued consigliere Pete Sandoval himself, and sent them out on a mission. He intended for them to find out who exactly the woman was. And if there would be any reason she’d ever be in need of Ciro’s “assistance.”
If he could somehow bait Wren enough to “save” her, Liam would come to him of his own free will. That would paint a much brighter future for them all, he figured. Liam would have to dedicate his life to the family as it should’ve always been, in exchange for the woman to remain alive and well-kept inside Ciro’s home.
Even if that arrangement were only temporary and only a lie.
When word got back to Ciro that Wren’s tyrant of an ex-boyfriend was in deep with loan sharks all around, he plotted a way to get to her: using Chase as a rouge to capture young Wren, position her where he needed her to be in order to use her as the pawn of war she’d become. Ciro couldn’t afford for Elevent and his goons to fuck it all up now.
But before bringing the young woman of questionable upbringing into the folds of his home, due diligence had to be served. There’d been rumors—lies, he was more certain—that the beautiful young girl he’d heard his nephew and Pete talk tirelessly about has ties to another family in the city. A family that deserved no respect, care, or concern from his.
So, while securing the pawn in place, he would also have his men pay others to continue looking deeper into her background.
Not her natural upbringing but her biological background.
Leglas pins Ciro with a knowing smirk. “Dirty deeds cost money. You say you want this done right, and you want it done to your specified instructions. Well, you’re being charged more for it.”
“I’m paying Chase Avery’s debt,” Ciro clips, straight to the heart of his demand. “So Elevent owes me, but in turn, it’s not Chase I want. You can do whatever you want with him once you’ve done all I’ve asked.”
Wiping his filthy mouth with his even filthier hand, Leglas narrows his eyes. “Let me get this straight, old man. You want the bounty Chase owes us, but not Chase?”
Stupid, stupid ingrate.
“Yes. As I’ve explained, my interest is with the girl Chase was once attached to. I want her brought to me as payback for Chase’s debt.”
All plans of this magnitude took time. And his plan was finally coming into place. Ciro had to set Saint’s Justice straight.
Leglas’s head slowly tilts, a mix of confusion and disbelief marring his features. In a smooth and careless gesture, he raises his knife, holding the handle and pointing the sharp tip at Ciro in thought.
“Elevent does a lot of things he knows you despise. We’ve all heard how you two know each other from way back, so I don’t have to tell you that playing fair is one of Elevent’s strong suits. Whoever this woman is, she owes Saint’s nothing. That piece of shit is in over his head with us. Bein’ that this is the way it is, we’ll make every attempt to extract payment from Chase first.”
“That was not our agreement,” Ciro hisses, then empties his tumbler in one drink. Gathering his composure, he states, “You were to get Chase involved. Pull him in.”
“And we have,” Leglas retorts, undeterred. “He’s got his bet in play all over the underground. The kid has big dreams but no way to finance them. He’s in over his head.”
To Ciro’s relief, he suggests, “Then he must owe Elevent and the club a great deal of money.”
“That he does,” Leglas confirms, sitting back and getting comfortable with his tattooed arm stretched across the back of Ciro’s chair.
Dear God, is that a tattoo of a fallen angel fornicating with a devil dressed in drag?
Ciro releases a breath and braces for Leglas to continue. “But again, Mr. Moneybags, Chase owes the debt. The woman does not.”
Ciro’s pulse races as what he thought was his best-laid plan begins to unravel. He could take it upon himself and send his obedient soldiers to collect her. He’d bring her into his home and devise a new plan, making sure it was one that included pissing off the entire society of mob men throughout Chicago if they found out who she was. Though, he also knows doing that comes with risk and consequence. To show his hand so blatantly would do nothing to further his cause.
Liam’s position in her life is what he’s after. For now. She’s exactly what he needs to bring Liam into the family.
Collecting himself once more, Ciro suggests, “I’m not unwilling to compromise. You tell Eleve
nt he has three days to deliver what’s now my debt from that boy. If Chase doesn’t make good, I want her in my possession no more than an hour after our agreed deadline. I suggest you get her soon.”
Leglas shakes his head, then looks up to the high-rising, gold-colored ceiling of Ciro’s mansion. Bookcases adorn the walls of the study. Custom woven rugs finish the floor. Ciro guesses that Leglas doesn’t have any clue the knowledge any of those books hold or the price he paid to collect them. Not to mention the cost of the rug his muddied boots rest so comfortably upon.
When Leglas uses the heel of his hand to crack his neck, Ciro winces.
“I’ll give Elevent your message,” the VP haplessly agrees. “Though I wouldn’t hold my breath. I’ve known my president for a long time, and he doesn’t change direction from business to personal often. And by giving orders to collect an innocent girl who’s probably never seen dirty a day in her life just because you think he owes you for whatever Chase does, you’re making this personal.”
“I know by raising Elevent that he’s, at least in part, a man of honor,” Ciro concurs. “However, honor doesn’t cultivate working relationships as it once did. If Elevent wants to test the boundaries of my loyalty to him, I can assure that it wouldn’t behoove him to do so.”
“What is she to you?” Leglas queries. His passive expression signals to Ciro that he isn’t really interested, more curious.
Ciro doesn’t have time for the mere curiousness of his tainted associates, which is exactly what Saint’s Justice has always been. There is no longer a relationship other than business with Elevent or any of his vile men. If this meeting proves anything, it’s that.
“I don’t think my business with this woman matters to Elevent or to you. The point of this is that Chase Avery owes you money. Elevent has known all along that it wasn’t Chase I wanted but her.”
“She must be worth somethin’,” Leglas puts in, adding to Ciro’s disgust.
“You and your band of outlaw soldiers let me worry about her worth.”
Leglas’s eyes heat, filled with rage. “My brothers aren’t soldiers.”
“Aren’t they?” Ciro questions, knowing he’s coaxing Leglas into violence, yet not caring either way. With Xavier, his personal guard, standing closely behind him, laden with weapons and thirsting to kill, Ciro continues to speak freely. “Your so-called brothers do as you tell them, do they not? They take your orders and fulfill them as directed.”
“We’re all equal members,” Leglas points out. “Your men and mine are not the same.”
“Alas, they are not,” Ciro concedes, thankful this is true.
The Saint’s Justice crew run themselves amuck across the city. Elevent gives his men too much leniency to do as they please, creating unwarranted havoc and attention.
Ridiculous.
Ciro’s men are dressed in suits, conducting business in dark corners of lavish restaurants. Their agendas are well thought out, carefully planned. They integrate themselves into society in such a way that those who live innocently have no idea the danger that surrounds them.
That is how educated, dignified criminals should behave.
There’s no point in trying to explain this to Leglas. Ciro decides there’s no point in trying to explain anything further at all.
Leglas stands and walks close, Ciro’s eyes widening under the threat of the man’s close proximity. Behind him, he hears the subtle snap of Xavier readying his weapon. Ciro holds his hand up to stop his man from pressing forward.
“I have to wonder”—Leglas tsks—“what it is exactly that you did for Elevent that makes you think he works for you.”
“Again,” Ciro snaps, “not your business.”
“And what the fuck does a man your age want with a girl so young?”
Ciro doesn’t respond verbally, waiting with impatient breath for Leglas to piece together the puzzle that is Wren Adler. If anyone other than his close, personal, trusted sources find out, then all of this plan stands for nothing. And he’s been through enough heartburn dealing with this specific “nothing” standing in front of him, looking down on him as if he has no right to be here.
Funny.
“You some sort of pedophile?” Leglas questions with a laugh. “’Cause there are cheaper ways to purchase warm, tight, and untouched pussy.”
Ciro’s jaw clenches. In no way is his plan to seduce young Wren into anything. He only needs to ensure her compliance during her captivity while being used as a puppet to get what he wants from Liam. After that, Wren’s death would serve another purpose.
A catastrophic weapon in war.
“You’ll see Elevent gets my message,” Ciro instructs. “We’re finished here.”
“Yeah, that we are,” Leglas affirms before finding his own way out.
Walking down the row of curtained rooms, I turn to the nurse walking beside me. “I’ve got this one.” She steps back, but does it slowly. “Really, I’ll get him,” I confirm. “See to the others.”
In room six, I inevitably find what the frazzled charge nurse said I would. The tyrant of a man who’s been threatening the staff is lying sprawled out on the hospital bed.
My gut twists as I take in the patient. His stench brings a vile taste up the back of my throat.
Upon first glance, I note he’s bleeding from his side. His black vest, proving he’s a member of Saint’s Justice, is covered in dirt and grime, and riddled with random tears and holes. His hair, matted with the some-days-old filth, is long, once blond, and is piled on top of his head, knotted together with whatever he’s used to hold it in place.
“About fuckin’ time,” he greets me at the same time I step inside his room. Instinct has me checking for weapons. “Been here a fuckin’ age already. Got shit to do. Fix me up so I can go do those things, Doc Friday.”
“Mr.…” I pause, hoping he responds, this time with less color. When he doesn’t, I grab his chart, then a chair, and move to take a seat next to his bed. “Thanatos.”
“Nice to meet you, too.” He grins, twisted and malevolent. Leaning forward, he holds his side with care. Dropping his voice, adding a threat of warning, he adds, “Now let’s get on with this shit.”
My tolerance for Elevent dims more the longer I sit next to one of his men. Why a person chooses to live like this is beyond my comprehension.
Growing up, Elevent had been smart, although he never acted so wherever Ciro was concerned. He was also caring. The way he loved Aunt Sofie proved he was good once. He hated how Ciro treated her with such little respect. Hated more how much she loved him regardless.
Somewhere along the way, Elevent lost sight of who he could’ve been. And when he did, he was left to surround himself with men like the one I’m looking at now.
“I can help you, and I will,” I bait the errant patient. “But if you continue to disrespect the hospital staff or me, I’ll refuse the treatment you need, and you can go somewhere else.”
Rolling his eyes and extending a huff of annoyance, Thanatos lies back on the pillow and tilts his head toward the ceiling. Moments later, he lifts his arms in surrender. This gives me access, along with his unsaid permission to see to his wound.
“Roll on, buddy. Patch me up,” he comments casually.
“How’d this happen?” I question, opening the drawer and pulling out the needed supplies. The nurse he scared off before had gathered some but left out a lot before making her escape.
Thanatos continues looking up, but a cruel smile paints his rabid mouth. “Must’a ran into a cleaver, I guess.”
“Someone’s got a good hand with a cleaver,” I return, using scissors to cut the rest of his grimy shirt away from the wound.
“Someone else better have a good hand with fixin’ what’s broke,” he threatens.
I stop cutting, lifting my gaze to his. I won’t back down, especially knowing he’s one of Elevent’s men. For all I know of this Thanatos, Elevent could find him as vile and disgusting as I do. Faith in Elevent as a hum
an being has me hoping that’s the case, anyway.
“The cut is deep. You need quite a few stitches, which means I’ll need assistance. You’ll sit tight. You won’t move.”
“Whatever you say, man.” He picks his teeth with his overgrown thumbnail.
“Right.” I nod. “Stay here.”
“Hot blonde,” he grunts just as I start to walk away.
Turning to him, I cock an eyebrow. “What’s that?”
“The hot blonde I clocked when I came in. I want her. I want her to hold my fuckin’ hand while you sew me up. Then after, you can close that curtain and she can hold the dirty parts of me so they can dirty the clean parts of her.”
Son of a bitch.
The hot blonde he’s referring to is my assistant, Chelsea. And he sure as fuck won’t be getting close enough to see, touch, or smell her.
With spite, I remove my gloves and toss them in the trash. Professional or not, a patient in need or not, I’m about to take more time than needed to find Chelsea, then send her home or out of the hospital until he’s gone, all while wishing like hell this pig bleeds to death as I do it.
“I’ll be back,” I reiterate as I walk out of the room, snapping the curtain shut behind me.
Thankfully as I round the corner, I walk right into two uniformed police officers heading my way.
A few hours later, I’ve finally made my way to Pete’s room. I hear him arguing with the loud voice coming at him while speaking Italian into his phone. He’s talking to someone in our family, no doubt.
His small, frail body has been exhausted with cancer, making who he once was unrecognizable. The little hair he has left has faded from black to gray. His once-dark complexion is now pale, along with the color in his now-chapped lips. Pete’s short yet stout frame, which I once admired, has become shrunken and worn.
His heart, though, as always, has remained genuine.
When he catches me standing just outside his door, he lifts a finger, advising me to stay where I am. He’s nearly finished with the call.
Pete’s a stubborn man, so it’s been a challenge to ensure he’s offered and accepts proper medical care. His oncologist and my associate, Dr. Givens, has reached out to me on more than one occasion to discuss treatment and advise that Pete’s determination to leave the hospital is admirable. However, his focus should be on receiving treatment to beat the cancer that consumes him rather than plotting to escape it.
