Chapter 8 – Elias
I ’ve been in a foul mood all week, and I’ve barely slept.
It began with the shipment we busted.
Twenty.
Twenty women, girls, and boys were in the shipping container. Some as young as twelve. Some kidnapped right from their front yards in a small Midwest town. Brooklyn was their last stop where an auction was to be held for rich disgusting pricks to bid on them.
We’re working to get the names on that auction list, but it’s a long shot since the men taken into custody last night were mules, forced to transport the shipment to the pier. They were likely being blackmailed and won’t know the names I need to pass on to the Marionette and Colpa Sicario.
My brother and Noah.
Two mafia brats who are also the country’s top contract killers .
Anytime I get names from these sex trafficking busts, the FBI allows the assholes to be killed or to coincidentally disappear because the government doesn’t want to admit this country has a human trafficking problem.
Most of the girls and women are on their way back home to their families. I made sure they were set up with funds for whatever they want or need, not that money will resolve their trauma. But hopefully unlimited access to counselors will help.
My sour attitude is also because of Sage. It’s been nearly a week since I’ve seen her.
She hasn’t responded to any of my texts either. Not that I’m being a Level 100 Clinger. I’m not. I’ve only sent her six texts. There’s nothing wrong with wishing a person good morning every day.
I considered asking Noah for her address, but I knew she wouldn’t give it to me without Sage’s approval.
And reason number three I’m in a shitty mood: my goddamn brother.
Word quickly spread about Noah and Lance’s engagement. Me being at the Christmas party didn’t help. Tensions are high between the Empire and the QBM with speculations that I’m attempting to start a turf war by arranging my little brother to marry Lenetti’s daughter.
Not that Lenetti is worried. He showed his fucking dominance by shooting my brother in the shoulder.
He was also likely punishing Noah for getting engaged to a QBM heir.
The only reason I found out Lance was shot was because Sage texted me—the only other text I received from her aside from the one telling me she was home.
She found out after visiting Noah at Lance’s Brooklyn safe house.
I stormed over to my brother’s place to confront him about it, only to walk in on him fucking Noah’s ass. Those fuckers enjoyed putting on a show, but I stayed because one: I wanted to piss off my brother and two: I needed answers.
What are these two up to with their fake engagement?
Noah has a plan.
Which is why my driver is now pulling up to Lenetti’s Lower East Side townhouse.
Noah wants to convince her father to merge the Empire and the QBM.
I practically called her insane, because there’s no way I’m giving over control to Lenetti, and he would rather kill me than let me rule. Noah explained that combining the organizations is temporary until we can uncover the truth about our mothers’ murders.
Noah witnessed two men kill her mother the night before Lance was forced to slit our mother’s throat.
We believe Lenetti was behind both hits.
If that’s the case, then he dies, and I take over sole control of the combined organizations.
If Finn O’Connor was responsible for the murders, then he dies and the plan to dismantle the Lords will continue.
And if it was my father, Percy, then there’s nothing left to do since he died fourteen years ago.
I step out of the SUV to cleaners dousing the sidewalk with sudsy water, washing away a puddle of blood. I’m going to guess my brother had something to do with this. Of course he’d be the one to start shit on Empire territory.
“Oh my God!” a familiar voice gasps. “What happened?”
Sage is walking up the sidewalk, her palm over her mouth.
Fuck she’s beautiful.
Her hair is up in a messy blonde bun. She’s wearing a red sweater, a flowing black skirt that falls mid-calf, and a pair of black ankle boots. Christmas tree earrings hang from her ears.
My heart flutters at the thought of spending the holiday with her. Which surprises me into silence because I haven’t wanted to celebrate Christmas since before my mother’s death.
“Nothing for you to worry about, sweetheart. Just an accident. You must be Sage.”
One of Lenetti’s guards is laying it on thick with the flirting and Sage is eating it up.
“I am. How did you know?”
“I was told to keep an eye out for the cute blonde. ”
Sage giggles like a fucking teenage girl with a schoolyard crush. “You’re cute yourself,” she coos, fluttering her eyes and biting her lip.
I want to murder this man. He’s tall and built with brown hair shaved close to his head.
I walk toward them, and Sage spots me over his shoulder. She hadn’t seen me before now, and her greenish blue eyes widen. She blushes and takes a step back to put some distance between her and the ‘cute’ guard.
“Elias,” she says, her voice barely a whisper. “I didn’t know you were going to be here.”
The guard turns and snarls when he sees me.
“Carter,” he says, hand hovering over the gun at his hip.
Two other Empire soldiers surround me, forming a triangle. I flash him my Beretta in the holster underneath my suit jacket.
“Don’t try anything stupid, Big Guy. Not with the pretty lady here.”
My eyes flick to Sage, and she stands there frozen and trembling, eyes like saucers.
She’s terrified.
I almost lower my guard to go to her and bring her into my arms.
“Hand over your weapons.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Then you don’t go in. ”
“Elias,” Sage whisper shouts at me. “Give the man your weapons.”
The desperation in her voice makes me pause. Is she urging me to go into my rival’s headquarters unarmed because she’s scared of what this man will do? Is she worried about me?
Or is she working with Noah? A trap? I may enjoy this woman’s cunt… and lips… and… everything ...
I shake my head.
She’s not my enemy.
I’m just being paranoid.
“Please,” she mouths, no sound coming from her pouty red lips.
Fuck.
It’s this moment, on rival territory, that I realize I would do anything for this woman.
I unarm myself, handing over the two guns in my shoulder holsters, the one I stuffed in the back of my pants, and one in a holster on my ankle.
“The knives too,” the guard says as I turn to walk into the townhouse.
“It’s fine, Keith,” a man says, appearing in the building’s entrance. “He’s not going to be a problem, are you, Carter?”
I recognize this twerp as one of Lenetti’s top soldiers. Blond hair. Average height and build. Slightly older than me. Ruggedly handsome .
“Matthew. Lenetti’s head of security,” he says with a nod of his chin.
“I thought...” I begin.
“Recently promoted thanks to your brother. He shot Gio’s main guy.”
“He what?” Sage squeals, peering back at the sidewalk where the blood has been washed away.
Fuck.
I was right.
Lenetti’s had the same asshole as his head of security for thirty years. Vershun was also the Empire’s Caporegime—the fourth highest rank in a mafia behind the underboss and the consigliere. The caporegime leads soldiers, maintains order, and enforces rules.
If Lance killed him, then I’d be surprised if he was still—
“Don’t worry, your brother is alive.”
I silently curse because I clearly showed this fucker a hint of vulnerability. I’m typically good about hiding my emotions, but Lance fucked up, and he’s lucky he wasn’t killed.
“Come on, Sage,” I say, taking her hand and tugging her inside.
Matthew holds up a hand before we walk through the doors.
“You try anything, and she’s the first to die,” he says, nodding at Sage who hugs my arm to her body .
My jerk reaction is to put a bullet through this fucker’s brain, but Sage is still trembling next me.
I don’t say anything and walk on, following one of Lenetti’s staff members down the hallway to a sitting room. The woman says she’ll notify Noah that we’ve arrived and leaves.
The moment we’re alone, Sage pushes away from me and starts panicking. She paces the room, breathing in and out slowly, shaking her hands like they’re covered in water, and she’s trying to dry them off.
“Hey,” I say, taking a step toward her. She backs away from me.
Fuck that hurts.
“I just need a minute to process…” she waves her hand around the space, “everything. You. Del killing a man in broad daylight in the middle of Manhattan.”
“To be fair, this entire block is owned by Lenetti and only his soldiers and trusted circle live in these buildings. Only people he allows can walk down the sidewalk so there wouldn’t be any witnesses, or a chance Lance would get caught. He must have had a good reason to shoot that man.”
A manic laughter bursts out of Sage.
“Of course, right. How silly of me. Murder-schmurder.”
“Sage,” I sigh, trying to approach her again but the sharpness of her narrowed eyes stops me .
“If I had known you’d be here, I wouldn’t have come.”
Her defiant mask slips but only for a second.
She’s lying.
“Is that so?”
She crosses her arms and nods.
“What was your plan? Never see me again? Forget I exist as if I haven’t made you scream just by tasting that sweet cunt of yours?”
“Oh, fuck off, Elias!” she yells. “Is that all I am to you? A warm cunt?”
I step closer.
“Of course not,” I bark. “You’re a distraction, and I can’t fucking stand it.”
I grab her wrist and tug her against my body.
“Not just your cunt, but your smart-ass mouth that won’t stop challenging me, which pisses me off because I like the fight.
You haunt my thoughts, day and night. You’re all I fucking think about!
What did you have for breakfast? Did you sleep well?
Are you safe? But you don’t answer my texts, so I worry.
And do you know how hard it’s been not going to you? ”
Her lips tremble. Not with fear… but with something I can’t understand. Disbelief maybe? “You don’t know where I live…”
“You don’t think I couldn’t have found out? Sage,” I brush my lips over hers, “I’m a powerful man. I can get whatever I want.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you, Reine,” I growl and claim her mouth.