50. Caspian
CASPIAN
T he next day, Max called us for help for the first time. I recognized his number showing up on my new phone like it was a tattoo on my skin. My heart had raced picking up the phone.
Max’s men had tracked some Albanians to one of their businesses and found a small group of girls hidden in the back. They were outnumbered and didn’t want to risk the girls as collateral damage, so they called us for backup.
When I first got the call, I figured our truce was about to fall apart in front of our eyes.
There was no way that we’d be able to work together again after everything that happened, especially since a huge chunk of our men had defected from him to our side.
I expected so much animosity the whole thing would fail, and Ryuji or I would end up killing Max, and then we’d all have to tell Leona how none of us could hold it together.
To my surprise, it went perfectly.
As soon as Ryuji, Wynn, Giulio, and I showed up—Leona stayed behind at all our requests because she was still exhausted—Max was the picture of politeness, and so were we. Giulio’s men worked together well with their past colleagues .
Ryuji and I barreled in first, leading the charge. Max followed right behind, directing us step by step. I slipped into the fray beside Max, following his commands like nothing had changed. We took out the Vokshi Clan members one by one, then Wynn and Willow’s crew rescued the captured girls.
It was invigorating.
By the end, our men were fucking laughing with Max’s men, each of us congratulating one another on a job well done. I even found myself smiling at Max.
Max .
The fucking piece of shit who tortured me, yanked my nails off, smashed my knee to fucking pieces, and almost killed the love of my life. The asshole who used to be my best friend, the one man I pictured following and obeying for the rest of my life.
I had no idea how to process it.
Working with him again felt good .
At that realization, guilt settled in my stomach like a sour meal. Then came the pissed-off anger. Except after that, I remembered how we’d successfully worked together.
The cycle fucking continued. It was a total mind fuck.
Meanwhile, Giulio’s men had stopped skirmishing with Max’s at every chance they got, and they were able to sell large quantities of the Russian drug product.
We were making more money than we had before.
Makarov’s men could rest and recuperate since they also weren’t getting hit by Max’s men at every turn.
Everyone was happy. It gave us a chance to take a fucking breath, regroup, and get structure through our ranks.
Days passed like that.
We exchanged information with Max. We coordinated our attacks. We found tunnel entrances, and stationed men at some we thought were in use, and crossed off others we thought were dark. We started seeing fewer Vokshi Clan, and it felt like we were actually making a dent.
It was working .
Now, a week after that first collaboration with Max, we were just finishing up dinner at the penthouse when my phone buzzed again.
I looked up and locked eyes with Leona while she handed her dirty plates to Wynn. She glanced down at the phone being squeezed in my fist. “Everything okay?”
“It’s Max.”
Everyone went silent, pausing their busywork to reset the kitchen and put away leftovers.
I tapped the accept call button and put it on speaker while placing my phone in the middle of the island. “What is it?”
“We found something.” His voice was strong and smooth coming from the other side. I could hear men in the background and pictured him in his element, giving orders and mobilizing his team for a mission. I wished to be there. To be next to him. To help him, as I’d been trained to do my entire life.
Fuck .
A complete, total, mind fuck.
“Good or bad?” Leona asked while the rest of the guys huddled around. Her hand slipped into mine, like she could tell that hearing his voice did something to me.
“That depends on your perspective.”
Ciel had his tablet at the ready. Obi folded his arms across his chest. Ryu flipped a knife end over end.
“Spit it out already,” Ryu snapped. His desire to stab that knife into Max’s eyeball was evident in the way he glowered at the phone. I might have thought we worked well together, but Ryuji had a stick up his ass every time Max was mentioned or present.
I didn’t blame him. That’s how I should be feeling.
“We think they’re putting together an auction.”
Leona blanched. An auction. Penny and the girls we’d taken off the Red Talon had mentioned they were part of an auction.
“An auction means buyers,” Leona said. “That could be huge, both in the number of girls and the money they could exchange. ”
We had made no progress in figuring out who was buying or in stopping them. This could change that.
“I think the Vokshi are making their move,” Max answered. “The Camorra have been pressuring them in Europe, and the Albanians are losing. This might be the Vokshi’s attempt to offload product before they disappear.”
A tremor went through Leona’s hand. I frowned, looking down at her, but she refused to meet my gaze and instead pulled her hand free and folded her arms over her chest.
“Okay. How can we help?” Leona looked to Ciel. “Do we know where or when?”
“It’s in an hour,” Max said. “We’re just not sure which tunnel systems they’re using.”
“Shit,” Leona murmured. We’d have to get moving fast if we were going to intercept and stop them.
“Not a lot of notice, Maxy,” Ryu said with a scoff.
“I only just found out,” Max bit back. “I’m doing you a courtesy if you want to be involved. I’m going after them either way.”
This could be our chance to deal a major blow.
If they were trying to offload product, there would be a high number of their victims there.
Buyers would be there, too. Stopping them in their tracks could cripple both sides of this fucked up equation.
We could show them we would not allow this to continue. Real consequences for those fuckers.
Wynn hovered by Ciel’s side, looking over his shoulder at the tablet. “See if there’s any activity on the cameras we put up.”
Ciel tapped something, then shook his head. “One is dead. The street corner where Lucchese dropped Vokshi.” He flipped his tablet around so we could see boxes of white snow flickering on the screen. “I checked them an hour ago, and they were fine.”
“Send me the locations,” Max said, snapping his fingers in the background. “How soon can you meet us there?”
“Twenty minutes,” Obi responded .
I swiped the phone off the island while we all started moving. “I’ll call Giulio and see how many men can meet us.”
“Keep me posted.”
He hung up before I could respond. I rolled my eyes, tucking the phone back in my pocket.
If I felt nostalgic working with Max, then working with the Shadows was like coming into my grown-up skin. Max might have been my past, but these guys were my new brothers, and it was finally starting to feel like it.
Max was a mind fuck, but these guys were home.
We were a well-oiled machine as we all armed ourselves in the weapons closet.
There was ease and familiarity working with them now.
The more missions we did, the more I understood how they worked together.
Ciel and Obi were the brains, Wynn was the reliable jack of all trades, Ryu was the precision killer, and I was the brute force. It just felt right.
As we left the weapons closet, my eyes caught on Leona’s hands while she strapped on her two thigh holsters and her favored weapons. They were shaking. Her breathing was faster than normal. Her cheeks were pale.
I hung back while the rest of the guys headed toward the elevator and the garage.
“You okay?” I murmured once she finally got them secured.
She startled, jumping like I’d scared her. My eyebrows furrowed.
“It’s fine, Cas. I’m just excited,” she responded. Her gaze followed mine to her hands. “It’s adrenaline.”
“Are you sure?”
It didn’t seem like adrenaline. She’d been involved in plenty of missions by now, and I’d never seen her body react like this. Not even when we faced off against Max’s men on that airport tarmac in Philadelphia and I got shot right in front of her.
“I’m positive.” She brushed past me, following a laughing Ryuji as he teased a focused Ciel by poking his cheek. Ciel swatted at him like he was a fly. “Let’s go. We don’t have time to waste.”
My hand closed gently on her upper arm. She whirled back at me, eyes wide, chest heaving. I let go.
“What’s wrong, amore ?” I whispered.
She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. A semblance of control washed over her, settling her shaky hands. “Everything’s fine. We just can’t fuck this up. There’s too much at stake.”
I nodded, then reached up to brush my thumb across her cheek. Something told me she wasn’t giving me the whole truth, but I didn’t want to push her. We didn’t have time. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She pulled away from my touch. “I want to get this over with.”
She turned her back, and I rushed to follow. “Something’s wrong. You’re hiding something.”
“Nothing is wrong, Cas!” she snapped. “Let’s just fucking go.”
My lips thinned. We definitely didn’t have time for me to push her, but how was I supposed to let her stomp off into a mission like this?
Her head was not screwed on straight, and if anything happened to her…
The six of us piled into the elevator. Obi watched and listened, catching my eye, like he also saw her tension.
“Are you going to be okay with what we find at that auction?” I asked loudly, so everyone could hear.
She narrowed her eyes at me in the elevator’s mirrored wall. “You think I won’t be?”
“You tell me, princess,” I returned.
Her lip curled back like she wanted to yell at me, but she paused, took a deep breath, and centered herself. Her hands steadied and her face regained some of its color, even though her breathing was still elevated.
“I’m ready. I’m fine. I want to do this.”
This time, the words rang true. Whatever emotion she’d been dealing with seemed to melt away on the elevator ride down to the garage. When the doors opened, she was once again Leona Vero, our queen. She stepped out of the elevator behind Ciel and Wynn with her head held high.
I locked eyes with Obi again. I raised an eyebrow, and he nodded, giving me a sign that he’d watch her like a hawk, just like me.
If she fell apart, I’d be there to get her out. I was her bodyguard, and I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.