Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
~CARMINE~
“ Y ou do realize that it’s not necessary to hold us at gunpoint to get us into your office.” My voice is dry as I sit across from Mick and narrow my eyes at him. “We’re happy to come in willingly.”
Mick smiles, but his eyes aren’t full of humor.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I just stare back at him until he looks down at the papers on his desk. “I’ve done some asking around, some talking, and I’m afraid I don’t know much more than you do.”
“But you know something.”
Mick leans back in his chair and folds his beefy hands over his impressive stomach. When you think of the stereotypical mob boss, Mick is the image that comes to most minds. He’s a big man—in both stature and weight. He’s imposing.
“Turns out, someone approached one of my men about selling something new here in the city.”
I sit forward. “A new drug?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know who did the approaching. Or what kind of drug.”
I scowl. “Come on, Mick, you know everything that goes on in New York.”
The other man’s eyes flash with anger. “I thought I did. And trust me when I say that I’d be happy to drag my man in here to interrogate him myself.”
“Then do it.”
“He’s fucking dead.”
“Goddamn it.” I rub my hand over my mouth. “How did he die?”
“I was at that wedding,” Mick reminds me. “My man has been dead for a few days, but it looks like he met the same fate your father’s man did.”
“Poison,” Nadia murmurs beside me. “Are they trying to sell poison? Why would anyone take it if the result is death?”
“I don’t think it’s the poison they want to sell,” Mick says. “There’ve been rumblings of something new on the streets. Something damn powerful, addictive, and cheap to make.”
“Hell, you just described meth,” Carmine says.
“I’m not a fan of drugs,” Mick replies. “I know some of my guys sell a little here and there, but that’s not my game. And they know it. My hunch is that my guy told the stranger no, and that answer wasn’t the right one. I have no way of knowing who it was that approached him.”
“His cell?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“Gone.” Mick hisses out a breath. “Listen, this doesn’t sit well with me, either. Someone came, unannounced, into my city and killed my man. I’m damn pissed.”
“I know the feeling.” I stare at Mick. “What now?”
“I’ll keep asking,” Mick says. “You keep me posted, as well. Someone’s going to pay for this.”
“On that, we can agree. I’ll keep you informed when and if we find anything. I appreciate you working with us on this, rather than against us.”
“It seems someone has decided to wage war with several organizations,” Mick says thoughtfully. “They’re either very brave or out of their fucking minds.”
“Maybe both,” Nadia adds, and Mick’s eyes slide over to her for the first time.
“We’ll stay in touch,” Mick says again, dismissing us.
“Thanks for your time.” We stand, and before I can walk away, Mick says my name.
“Carmine. Watch your back. This has conspiracy written all over it.”
“Same to you.”
“I guess this was a wasted trip,” Nadia says as she flops onto the sofa in our suite.
“Not at all.”
I sit next to her and lift her feet into my lap. “We had a good few days here. And although it’s not the information we were hoping for, we at least know it’s not Mick.”
“He could be lying.”
I stare at her pink-tipped toes as I push my thumb into the arch of her foot. “I don’t think so. He’s pissed.”
“What now?”
I’ve been running that question through my mind since we left Mick’s office. “I think we need to go back to the city where this all started.”
“Denver.”
I nod and reach out to brush her hair behind her ear just as my phone rings.
“Hi, Shane.”
“Hey, what did you find out from Mick?”
I relay the information and hear my brother curse on the other end of the line. “Yeah, that was my thought, exactly.”
“This is a game for someone,” Shane says. “They’re fucking playing with us. But why? What’s the end game?”
“That’s the million-dollar question,” I reply. “Nadia and I are headed to Denver first thing in the morning. I think we need to do some digging there.”
“Denver is supposed to be neutral ground for all of the families,” Shane reminds me.
“Yeah, well, that went in the toilet when someone tried to kill Pop.”
“I’ll meet you there,” Shane says. “See you at the office.”
“See you.”
I hang up and turn to Nadia, who’s watching me closely.
“Shane’s going to meet us in Denver. He’s been at his place in the mountains for the past couple of weeks, doing some digging of his own.”
“Why does he have a place in Colorado?”
I tilt my head to the side. “Why shouldn’t he?”
“Denver is neutral ground. We all have offices there, but no one lives there.”
“Your cousin and her husband do,” I remind her. “Just because your father isn’t based there full time doesn’t mean he doesn’t have connections to the city. Besides, Shane doesn’t live in Denver. He lives in a small mountain town called Victor, several hours outside the city.”
“Shane’s been there this whole time?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “He’s a grown man and can live anywhere he likes, Nadia. Shane likes solitude. The mountains suit him. And he’s within driving distance to several airports and can get in and out easily.”
“Hmm,” is all she says as the doorbell rings. “Oh, I bet that’s our stuff.”
She hurries to the door, and sure enough, it’s the bellman with all of our purchases on a cart. He unloads them onto the dining table big enough to seat eight, then leaves. Nadia is all smiles as she starts digging into bags and boxes wrapped with ribbon.
“I’m so glad I got these shoes,” she says as she slips out of her sneakers and tries on her new Dior heels.”
“What’s your problem with my brothers?” I ask while she’s in a good mood and on a new shoe high.
“I don’t know them well,” she replies. “Oh, I forgot about this jacket. I know it’s summer, but it’ll be perfect for fall.”
“But you don’t like Shane having property in Colorado.”
She shrugs a shoulder as she checks out her new purchase in a full-length mirror. “It’s just all suspect. Shane has a place near Denver. This mess started in Denver.”
“Your cousin lives in Colorado,” I remind her once more. “All of the families have offices there. Just because Shane spends more time there than most doesn’t make him the cause of all of this.”
“I know.” She sighs and turns back to me. “And I also know that you care about him, and you’d defend him to the ground.”
“Every fucking day,” I agree, frustration a bubble in my throat. “If we’re all going to be judged by our taste in real estate, Annika and her husband could be the cause of all this, too. The first attack happened at their wedding, after all.”
“Oh, come on.” She turns to me as she lets the jacket fall off her arms and catches it with her fingers. “Rich is an ear, nose, and throat doctor. He’s no mobster. And he certainly isn’t a drug dealer.”
“Annika?”
Her eyes flash in temper and annoyance.
Good, we’re on equal footing.
“Annika has worked her ass off to stay out of the family business. She wants no part of it. None of it. She’s a damn good doctor. Hell, I’m more likely to be the one behind this than she is.”
I cock a brow.
“No. It’s not me.”
“Well, it’s not me, either. At least, we’ve established that. Let’s get to Denver in the morning. We can plan what happens next then.”
She blows out a breath and reaches for her Chanel shopping bag. “Okay. In the meantime, I’m going to play with my new goodies.”
“Play away, sweetheart.”
“Rocco.” I smile at my brother as Nadia and I walk into our Denver offices. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“Shane called me last night. I want in on the fun.” He nods at Nadia. “Hi.”
“Hello. Rafe .”
My brother rolls his eyes. I don’t know why he doesn’t care for his given name, but he’s always insisted that people call him Rocco, ever since he was a kid.
Of course, Mom refuses to call him anything but Rafe. She named him after one of her favorite characters in a romance novel.
Maybe that’s why he doesn’t like it.
“I have something,” Shane says as he hurries through the door. “And let me just say, it wasn’t easy to get.”
“What is it?” I ask as he sits at the desk and opens his laptop, then starts tapping the keys.
“The waiter from the wedding.” Shane’s brow furrows as he searches the screen. “No one knew who he was. I asked the catering company. They had no record of him. I had to bust into the security camera logs at the resort. And let me just tell you, their security is buttoned down tight. Took me several days to crack the code.
“But once I did, I was able to find some footage of our man. Here.” He points to the screen. “See him? He’s floating through the crowd a bit.”
“It’s grainy and in black and white,” I say, squinting to see better.
“Yeah, their security is the bomb, but the video quality sucks. I cleaned it up a bit.”
He points to the bigger monitor on the desk, and Rocco, Nadia, and I shift our attention there.
“Carmine and Nadia sneak off,” Shane says with a cheeky smile. “You look a little intense there, brother.”
I was. I wanted to fuck Nadia like I’d never wanted anything else in my whole damn life. And if memory serves, it was some pretty damn good sex.
Nadia glances up at me with a smirk.
“Okay. Here.” Shane points to the screen. “See, he’s setting the glass for Pop on the table.”
“And looking around while he does it,” Nadia adds. “That’s definitely shady.”
“None of us noticed,” Rocco says. “We were all too busy partying.”
“Our guards were down because it was supposed to be neutral territory,” I say, thinking it over. “Not just in Denver, but at the wedding. We all had our guards down.”
“Before Pop can take a sip, Armando takes the glass by accident. He’s laughing with someone and just picks it up and drinks.”
I watch as Armando does just that. Pop looks over and scowls for a second, then shrugs and laughs, signaling for a waiter to order a fresh drink.
“I’m going to speed this up a bit because it takes a couple of minutes for the poison to kick in.” Shane hits a button, and the video runs faster. Then he slows it down, and Armando’s face changes. He reaches for his throat, his eyes bulge, and the next thing we see, he’s flailing about and ends up in the middle of the dance floor, seizing.
“That’s enough,” I say, but Shane shakes his head.
“Watch here.” He points again. “There’s our man. He takes a picture of the scene and then slips back into the crowd. And he doesn’t come back. He ducks out.”
“You said you found out who he is?” I ask, seeing red.
“Sean Brown,” Shane says. “At least, that’s the name he’s gone by for a while. I found him doing a search for his image. He’s also gone by Clark Brown and Rudy Brown.”
“Why all the names?” Nadia wants to know.
“He’s been in and out of jail,” Shane says. “I assume he changes his name so he can get jobs. Have a clean record.”
“He’s anything but clean. Fuck, he’s a contract killer.”
“Looks like it,” Shane agrees. “I have an address.”
“What are we doing sitting here, then?” Rocco pulls his nine-millimeter out of his shoulder holster and checks the magazine. I do the same, and I notice Nadia pulling her small piece from her Hermes bag, checking it, as well.
I laugh.
“What?” she says.
“You carry a concealed in an eleven-thousand-dollar handbag?”
She grins. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“We don’t kill him.” My voice is firm with the order. “We question him.”
“Maybe break his arm,” Rocco says with a shrug as we climb the steps to the upstairs apartment. Sean—or whatever his name is—lives on the second floor of a rundown building in a shitty part of town.
I raise my fist to knock on the door, but it’s ajar.
“Not a good sign,” Shane murmurs as he pulls his weapon. We all follow suit, and I nudge the door open with my toe. We soundlessly hurry inside.
But we don’t have to go far.
“Fucking hell,” I mutter and stare up at the man who used to be Sean as he swings from a noose tied to a beam in the ceiling.
“Shit.” Nadia circles around him. “He’s been up there a while.”
His face is purple, eyes bulged, and the rope cut the hell out of his neck. The smell of decay is overwhelming.
“There’s a note,” Rocco says and begins to read aloud.
I can’t live with what I did. I’ve done some fucked-up things but killing ain’t one of them.
“That’s it,” Rocco says.
“Well, damn.” I rub my hand over my face and listen as Shane murmurs into his phone. He’s calling in a cleanup crew.
The cops won’t find Sean.
He won’t be found at all.
And we’re at another dead end, literally. Back to square one. Which royally pisses me off.
“Look for a phone,” I say, already headed back to the one and only bedroom in the flop. His phone is on a charger by the bed, so I pocket it. Shane can dig into it when we get back to the office.
I rummage through drawers but don’t find anything else when Nadia pokes her head in.
“You’ll want to see this.”
I follow her to the bathroom and snarl. “Jesus fucking Christ, this is disgusting.”
“Yeah, our boy didn’t know what a toilet brush is. But that’s not what I wanted to show you.” She opens the medicine cabinet. “Look at these.”
Bags and bags of little blue pills.
“I’ll give you two guesses what these are,” she says.
“Given that none of us are pharmacists, it could be anything. Maybe Sean had an Aleve habit.”
Nadia rolls her eyes. “Right. It’s an anti-inflammatory. That’s why he had like five thousand of them in this cabinet.”
“We’ll take them,” Shane says. “Crew’s on the way. Let’s bail.”
We take the bags of pills with us, and I skirt by the body still hanging in the living room.
“He looks like a baby.”
“Twenty-two,” Shane confirms. “Still wet behind the ears.”
“Seasoned enough to kill,” I remind him. “I’d hardly call him innocent.”