CHAPTER NINE
Raina
I drop my phone into a Prada baguette bag filled with an extra clip and a wad of cash. Feeling ready for the challenge, I head out the door.
York Towers reeks of wealth. Where there’s wealth, there’s usually criminal activity. Or criminals who don’t mind showing off their ill-gotten gains.
I hide my cringe at how the doorman knows my name and brings me to a private elevator. After the swipe of a gold card, I’m sailing up forty stories to the penthouse.
The elevator opens, and I’m facing a door that could double as a bank vault. Looking up, I see cameras, and I give them both the middle finger. Before I start yelling, the massive door opens on a pivot hinge.
Valdrin stands there, and I instantly relax.
Fuck, I trust him .
“Forty-nine minutes,” he says, looking at a d’Hermès watch.
Jesus, their cheapies go for thirty grand.
“Cutting it close,” he adds, letting me inside.
“It was a bitch to find parking.” I breeze by him.
“You drove a car?” He sounds shocked and upset, like he missed something when interrogating me.
“Joke.” I face him, fidgeting with my sleeve like I’m bored.
He gives me a once-over. “ Are you armed?”
Smiling, I say, “Yep. Can I have a tour?”
Two men come from nowhere and pin me to the wall. Seconds later, they strip me of my gun.
“You’re the goddamn mafia,” I argue bitterly. “I’m protecting myself.”
Valdrin grips my chin. “W e’re in the mafia. You. You belong to us now. You’re no good to us six feet under.”
“Nice Walther,” one of the guards says, nudging an erection into the crack of my ass.
“Hey buddy, take your stiff cock and fuck your mother.” I kick him from behind.
Valdrin’s head turns sharply to one of the guards frisking me. With eyes of fire, he grabs the guy and smashes his face against the fancy raised paneling. Erection Man screams in pain, and blood splatters across the wall.
The second guard jumps back. “Val!”
“Take your partner out of here and get his nose set.” Valdrin grabs my Walther and shoves me behind him. “If you or anyone else ever fucking touches her, you’re dead.”
“Noel said—”
“Fuck, Noel. You know who I am.”
They stagger off, and Valdrin turns to face me.
“Are you all right?” he asks in a tone that moves through me.
I exhale, more breathless at how he cares about me. “If I can’t take a guy getting inappropriate with me, then—”
“I am so sorry,” he interrupts with a tight jaw. “That will not happen again.” His words are strong, but worry clouds the edges, like he’s not sure. “Noel is waiting for you. This way.”
Valdrin leads me down a softly lit hallway, illuminated by sconces. It opens to one massive room. Everything I see is polished, oversized, and designed to intimidate. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the glittering Manhattan skyline, and expensive liquor glows amber under the lights of a glass bar.
I take it all in with a bored exhale. Opulence has never impressed me. All wealth is dirty money in some form or another.
I do, however, stop short, noticing the man lounging in a high-backed wing chair near the fireplace. With long, powerful legs crossed, he’s watching me with a gaze that can cut glass.
Noel Tahiri.
I recognize him from intel briefings I found using an old password the DEA hadn’t deactivated yet. The newly crowned kyre of the Albanian Brotherhood is young, handsome, and dangerous. He was Levin Berisha’s ambitious but impulsive second-in-command.
According to an FBI informant, the Albanians’ singular mission is to take over the entire city. Which means they think they’re stronger and smarter than the Irish, the Greeks, the Italians, and the Bratva combined.
Noel’s tailored black dress shirt and matching tight slacks fit his gangster image. His dark hair is slicked back, and his sharp, calculating gray eyes skim over me in a way that makes my skin crawl.
“Raina Riatt,” Noel says smoothly, holding a crystal tumbler filled with something amber and expensive. Unlike Valdrin, Noel doesn’t speak with an accent. “Or should I say, Raina Berisha?”
My insides get queasy hearing the last name of the father I never met. “What’s in a name?”
A smirk tugs at the corner of Tahiri’s mouth. “Smart. Names are irrelevant. It’s the blood that tells the truth.” He gestures to the black leather sofa across from him. “Sit.”
I stay on my feet, not liking all the space behind it .
Noel chuckles, setting his drink down on an end table. “You’re cautious. Good. But you don’t need to be. We are not the enemy. You belong here.”
“I don’t belong anywhere,” I say flatly. “I’d rather stay unaffiliated. I have to get another job. I’m not sure the name Berisha on my resume will open a lot of law enforcement doors.”
Noel hums in amusement and looks at Valdrin. “How adorable. She thinks she’s getting a job with the NYPD.”
I don’t argue. “What do you want with me?”
Noel’s right eyebrow raises. “It’s what your father wanted. He wanted you to have this.” He spreads his arms wide. “All of it.”
“Bullshit.” I twist my fingers, my missing gun hitting a nerve.
Grumbling, Noel stands and points to a glass dining table. “Sit there.”
“Are you going to smash my face in it?”
Laughing, he says, “No. But thanks for that idea.”
Valdrin taps my shoulder. Winking, he steers me to a cushioned seat. “Can I get you anything?”
Thinking anything will be laced with poison or a sedative, I shake my head.
Noel spends the next few minutes showing me a thick portfolio of statements with names of equities and mind-bending balances. My father’s estate has vast wealth I cannot comprehend.
“Because there’s only so many millions of dollars you can hide in a safe deposit box, we’ve created shell companies that are managed by my accountant. But your father’s wealth does not belong to me. It belongs to his heir. That’s you.”
I sit back, not absorbing any of these numbers, which can be bullshit printouts. I’m waiting for the fucking punchline .
“And? Where do I sign to make it mine?” I motion for a pen and catch Valdrin covering a laugh with his big hands.
Noel sneers at Valdrin, who steps back. “Not so fast. You need to earn this money.”
Panic swims in my veins. “How?”
Noel smiles. “I need someone dead.”
My heart skips a beat. “By me?”
“Yes, you.” Noel leans forward. “Have you ever killed someone?”
“No.” I consider the number of people I shot at or stabbed on an op, but they wanted me dead.
No one died by my hand.
“You are of Levin’s blood. It should come naturally,” Noel says. “Taking out the enemy.”
“ Your enemy,” I point out.
“Quinlan Empire is our enemy,” Valdrin clarifies, standing behind Noel.
I wrinkle my nose. The name doesn’t register. “Who?”
“Irish Mob. Lower East Side,” Noel says through gritted teeth, disdain dripping in his tone.
I forgot Valdrin mentioned the Irish. A lot of truths, details, and confessions got shoved down my throat today.
Irish. Lower East Side. Something clicks. “Do they work for Troi Keller?”
Valdrin smiles. “You’ve been focused on the Colombians a little obsessively, haven’t you?”
“Yeah,” I snap. “It was my job. And I didn’t murder any of them.”
Holy shit, can I do this?
Crap.
A rush of excitement floods my veins. The side of me that I had to hold back is welcome here. Now I understand why the thirst for vengeance lives in my soul and the drive to take down an enemy keeps me up at night.
I push away the guilt of how I wanted to pull the trigger so often.
Those cartels and other mafia scumbags have million-dollar lawyers and abuse our justice system.
It’s why I had a hard time with the agency, following rules, and having to shrug off getting clipped at the knees after stupid technicalities wrecked our cases.
Usually from my recklessness.
Irish Mob...
“You want to kill Troi Keller?” I ask to get out of my head.
“Troi Keller died nearly two years ago,” Valdrin gently informs me. “A former hitman named Griffin Quinlan, who was related to Troi’s wife, was named the heir. He now rules that territory.”
“What about the Greeks? Keller and the Zervas brothers are at war.”
“Not anymore,” Valdrin keeps filling me in, because I don’t think Noel has the patience. “Griffin Quinlan married Ares Zervas’s sister, Ava. They are at peace and aligned.”
“And growing in power,” Noel says resentfully. “Your father and I were hoping to widen the crack after Troi died without a solid heir. But we were too late.”
“You want to kill Griffin Quinlan? The head of the Irish Mob?” I scoff. “Are you insane? You don’t kill a don . Every other don will retaliate. Out of principle.”
Noel smiles. “You understand our laws.”
“Spying on the mafia who traffics drugs, gambling, and whores is a master-class education,” I say proudly.
“No, we’re not killing Griffin,” Noel informs me.
“I have no direct conflict with him. It’s his brother, Connor Quinlan, his second-in-command, who needs to die.
Unlike every other sane mob boss, who, like you pointed out, wouldn’t kill a leader, Connor Quinlan is so fucking psycho and unhinged, he killed your father. ”
I process killed your father, waiting to feel something about this. Nothing. Other than palace intrigue, and wondering why a mob capo would kill a rival don without expecting retaliation.
Your father. Your father. “What happened to Levin, my father?” The words scrape from my throat.
Noel takes a seat next to me and pushes the portfolio papers away.
“Your father was doing what he does best. He went to negotiate with a nightclub owner for protection money. That’s the last I saw of him alive.
A few days later, we found him in the city morgue riddled with hollow points.
He and his guards. This club is tied to the Quinlans.
We assumed one of them did it.” His fingers tap the glass surface of the table.
“Only Connor Quinlan is crazy enough to put a bullet in your father’s head.
We don’t need proof. It adds up. We know how they operate. ”
Connor Quinlan. Psycho and unhinged.