Chapter Twelve - Joshua
CHAPTER TWELVE
Joshua
“You’re sure you don’t want me to come in? He brought one of his sons—one of the twins. I can’t tell them apart.”
“I’m sure,” I tell Donovan for the third time.
I’m sure he’s dying to get in on the action that is my meeting with Gabriel Consoli, but the only person I’d want to join me is currently on babysitting duty—likely sitting around the garden right about now.
“Well, if you need backup, we’re a signal away.”
I nod but know I won’t need it. Consoli knows what will happen if he tries to hurt me.
I climb out of the car and walk to the door of the run-down bar. A row of motorcycles lines the front, and the burly man at the door eyes me expectantly.
“We’re not going to have any issues, are we, Mr. Moreno?”
“I’ll be on my best behavior, Catch,” I answer with a broad smile that he answers with an eye roll.
“Don’t get any smart ideas,” he warns. “My guys don’t care who the hell you are. If you cause trouble on our turf, you’re all dead.”
“Understood,” I assure him. “I appreciate the hospitality.”
“How much?”
I stop and lift a brow. “Well, I thought you’d wait a little while before calling in your favor.”
“Why inconvenience you with a second trip?” he asks with a tilted smile.
“What do you need?”
“The DA’s been cracking down on my guys, and recently, an officer on my payroll flipped and sold us out. He’s got guys watching mine, so I can’t deal with it myself.”
“Who am I handling?”
“The cop—I want him out of the picture.”
“And the DA?” I ask.
Catch grins. “I’ve got that covered.”
I shake my head. “You have the Consolis handling it for you.”
“Two birds,” he says with a shrug. “I expect you’ll deal with this before you leave town?”
This pushes back when I’ll be returning to the base—to Elise. I’m already a day later than I planned on being, but I don’t exactly have a choice. My relationship with the MCs is a delicate one and one that I need to maintain.
I nod my agreement, and he opens the door.
Catch is a member of the Black Vipers—a motorcycle gang that runs this part of Wyoming.
It’s not uncommon that meetings like this one take place in motorcycle gang territory.
They operate similarly to the mafia world but on a smaller, local scale that we can respect.
Mafia families run most efficiently in big cities, but the rural areas tend to belong to gangs like this one.
Meeting here, instead of on Consoli’s turf or mine, forces us to stay civil.
If I were to go to Chicago, chances are I wouldn’t make it two steps in the city before having my head blown off, but here we’re on even footing with a host who won’t hesitate to make good on his warning if either of us steps out of line.
But it means I have to work on their timeline. I wanted to have this meeting yesterday, but Catch wanted to be here to ensure our meeting is free of violence.
I step into the bar exactly an hour earlier than Consoli and I agreed, but I already knew he beat me to it.
He and his underboss, Logan, sit at a table with beers in hand.
Gabriel Consoli is an older man with greying hair and a permanent scowl stamped on his face. His green eyes are narrowed, identical to his son. The younger Consoli has dark hair that barely curls on the ends. He’s built larger than Mason, with a broad frame that suits a family heir.
One day, he’ll make a formidable foe.
I’m careful to keep my unbothered smile in place.
My once-perfect plan may currently be a mess of epic proportions, but Consoli doesn’t need to know that. As far as he’s aware, I have him exactly where I want him.
If only his daughter were better at doing what she’s told, then I wouldn’t have to stall with this stupid meeting in the first place.
In some ways, I can easily see how Elise fits into this family. Her anger, her strength, and her fire are pure Consoli. But the innocence and gentle spirit that has driven me crazy since I met her is unsurprisingly absent from these men.
“About time,” Logan deadpans, leaning back in the booth like he’s the one with leverage here.
Well, he isn’t.
“You'll have to forgive me for not coming sooner. I’ve had my hands full these last few days,” I say with a wink as I drop into the chair across from Consoli.
Logan’s smile falls as mine grows.
“What’s the point of this meeting?” he asks. “We know your demands.”
“That’s a relief. I was starting to wonder if you’d forgotten what was at stake. I thought you might benefit from a reminder.” I punctuate my statement by reaching into my pocket and tossing a picture on the table.
It was taken the day I met Elise. She wears her ill-fitting bakery uniform, her hair pulled into a messy ponytail. Her cheeks are bright red as she smiles at me. Ryder had taken the picture from the street as I asked for her number.
“She’s a pretty thing,” I say absently, letting my eyes linger because it’s less a taunt than the truth.
Elise is beautiful.
“Where is she?” Consoli asks in his toneless, gruff voice.
“Safe—for now.” I lean forward, elbows resting on the table.
His expression is unchanging, but his son’s glare intensifies.
“What have you done to her?” he asks.
I dig into my pocket, pull out the next photo, and toss it beside the first.
There’s no trace of Elise’s radiant smile in this photo. It was taken after she threw up all over my shoes. Her legs are bruised and streaked with blood. Her skin is a sickly pale. Her cheeks are hollow and gaunt, and her eyes have dark circles beneath them.
I’d taken the photo for this exact moment, but the sight brings me none of the pleasure I openly display. Consoli needs to know I’ll do whatever it takes to get what I want from him—I can’t afford for him to get the slightest whiff of my growing affinity for his firecracker of a daughter.
Consoli takes a long look at the photo, expression unchanging. Logan doesn’t look at all, and I suspect he knows himself well enough to know it wouldn’t benefit any of us if he killed me where I sit.
“I saw your proof of life video. What I’m asking is specifically what you have done to her.”
Consoli could be talking about what he had for breakfast this morning for all the passion his tone implies, but when his eyes lift from the picture of his daughter, I see the first hint of fire behind his signature scowl.
Now we’re talking.
I shrug again. “An introduction to my switch—hardly the big guns. You should be proud; she held up great for her first interrogation. I think she lasted”—I curl my lips thoughtfully—“half an hour before begging me to stop.”
Logan’s hands flatten against the table like he’s about to flip it—then strangle me—but we’re interrupted just then by a busty waitress who looks old enough to be Consoli’s mother. She carries three beer bottles and wears an unimpressed look.
“I’m sure I don’t need to remind you, gentleman, that civility is a requirement if you intend to walk out of this establishment alive.” She doesn’t wait for our answers before leaving the bottles on the table and walking away.
“It goes without saying that Elise’s life is very much tied to my own. Should something happen to me, what happens to her will be a hell of a lot worse than a few marks from a switch.” My smile is smug as I lean back in my chair, taking a long draw from the beer.
Logan’s eyes light up, and it’s identical to Elise’s fiery anger.
He leans forward on the table, speaking in a deadly low tone.
“And when she’s home safe and sound, I’ll revel in slowly severing your head from your body and mounting it on a spike outside my home to watch the birds pick at your decomposing skull until it’s nothing but bone. Then I’ll hang it on my wall.”
My answering chuckle is just as deadly low. “I can see colorful threats are a family thing. They’re a lot more convincing coming from you. Elise struggles to get the same intimidation factor when she’s tied down to the bed.”
Logan’s face goes blank, and for a single second, I think I’ve pushed him far enough to get all of us shot, but Consoli slams a fist on the table, stopping his son and me from our verbal pissing match.
Which I won in a landslide.
“So far, you’ve done nothing but boast about abusing an innocent girl. What assurances can you give me that she’s safe and, from this second on, untouched? I see no reason to trust she’ll return safely to me when all is said and done.”
That’s because she won’t, I think bitterly.
Though, it’s no one’s fault but her own.
I pull out my phone and call Ryder, all without taking my eyes off Consoli.
“Yes, sir?” he answers on the first ring.
“Show me the girl,” I order, holding the screen to Consoli as the call switches to a live video.
Once it loads, the screen shows Elise lying on a bench in the garden, the same one she fell asleep on the last time she was there. Instead of sleeping, she holds the book above her head, flipping the page with an openly bored expression.
It’s one of the older books that had been in her cell before I changed her room. She has a stack of the modern books she requested, yet she chooses to read one she already had. If I weren’t with her brother and father right now, I’d probably antagonize her over it.
“As you can see, she’s perfectly safe,” I say, hanging up the phone before one of them tries to get her attention. “As for remaining untouched, that is completely up to her behavior. You’ll be unsurprised to hear she’s not exactly the most docile hostage.”
It’s fast, but for a moment, both men do look surprised to hear that Elise has been difficult for me.
Had they expected her to roll over and accept her fate?
I mean, I had, but that was before I spent any time with her. They’ve always known her argumentative personality.
“Your demands are too vague,” Consoli says briskly, like he’s eager to leave.
“I need your detailed proposal on how this would work. You want the Houston base, but I can’t just hand it over as it stands.
Closing it down, relocating my men, and clearing the database aren’t exactly overnight endeavors.
You can’t honestly expect me to give it up as is. I have soldier’s lives to consider.”
I don’t expect him to hand it over as is. That would be suicide to his empire, and while I want his Houston base to establish my Austin base, I’m not looking to dismantle the entire Consoli family.
Not yet, anyway.
“I can’t help but feel like I’m doing all the work here.”
“Closing things down will take at least a week, and clearing out could be another few days,” Logan says, sitting up straighter. “Until then, we’re proposing a trade. You let Elise go and take me instead.”
“You?” I deadpan.
He nods. “You’ve put her through enough. She won’t last until this deal is over. Take me and let her go.”
Something in the way he assumes his sister’s weakness bothers me. I only need to study him for a moment to know that he’s serious. He truly sees Elise as a helpless victim.
She is, but she sure as hell refuses to act like it.
“I’m supposed to believe you’d come as my willing hostage in her place?”
“You have my word,” Consoli says, and Logan nods.
“Let’s see,”—I tap the table thoughtfully—“I can either take you at your word or keep you by the balls… I think I’ll stick with Elise.” I gesture to Logan. “Something happens to you, and there are three brothers to take your place, but Elise? She’s irreplaceable.”
Getting what I want from Consoli fully relies on his belief that his daughter’s life is on the line, but for some reason, it bothers me that they view Elise as weak.
It’s for this reason that I add, “Besides, I’m getting used to the little spitfire.” I gesture to my cheek, which is still lightly bruised. “She’s got a wicked elbow.”
“Elise did that?” Consoli asks with a raised brow.
After she failed to bash a statue over my head, I think wistfully.
“She won’t again,” I tell him instead.
Gabriel Consoli pulls in a deep breath, then levels me with a hard glare.
“The night the Venturi’s murdered my wife, they threw a party to celebrate.
One week later, they threw another. One week after that, every single member of that family was either dead or in hiding.
” He leans forward, and each word is said as a promise.
“You may have my daughter now, but that will not always be the case. Enjoy your parties while you can, because when I decide to end your power trip, I will burn everything you and your father built to the ground.”
I finish my drink and tilt my head. “Do you think Elise would enjoy a party? She seems more like the stay in with a bottle of wine type, but that could just be because you never let her do anything else.” My smile is wide as I stand and fix my jacket.
“Who knows, she might decide staying with me is better than the pretty cage she calls home.”
“You’ve made your point,” Logan snaps. “Leave Elise alone, and we’ll handle this like real men—without torturing innocent girls.”
The jab is fair enough. I don’t make a habit of hurting anyone outside of our world. Unfortunately, I know what these two have been denying for twenty-three years—Elise is a part of our world. It’s not my fault they hid her away instead of training and protecting her.
I drop my smile. “I’m done waiting. Have the proposal sent to me by tomorrow, or Elise pays the price.”
As I walk out the door, my smile creeps back. All this talk about Elise has made me eager to get back to her.