Chapter 28 Santos
SANTOS
There was a war brewing deep in my mind.
From the moment Guillermo slipped me the photo of Cecilia across that table, a million questions swirled through my head like a tornado cutting through a forest.
Who the hell was Cecilia Gomez? Why did Los Muertos want her dead? What did she do that deserved a hit being put on her? And how the hell was I going to get out of this one?
There wasn’t a foreseeable way out unless I wanted to take that bullet for her myself.
Cecilia Gomez was destined to die by my hand.
Even if I somehow put it off, it was just a matter of time before Guillermo sent his own men to cash in whatever bounty her head would earn them.
There was an unfamiliar feeling creeping inside me, a loathing created from the mere essence of distrust her name coated my tongue with.
Out of everyone, everyone, I didn’t expect the betrayal to come from her.
I simmered and brewed until I reached my boiling point on the flight home, doing everything I could to keep my shit together and not get arrested for attempted terrorism for just needing to get home faster.
I paced the aisles until every flight attendant eyed me suspiciously, and one eventually got the nerve to ask me to take my seat, the air marshal making himself known, flashing me his badge, and giving me a warning nod.
There was no way out of this for me, and unfortunately for Cecilia, she put her trust into the most damaged of the three of us, it would be the root of her demise.
Once my phone came back on, hundreds of notifications, missed calls, and SOS texts popped through, urging my attention. My stomach sank, and I texted Ronan immediately, knowing that trying to go through it before talking to him was a worthless waste of time.
I just landed. Catch me up
Half a second after my thumb hit the send button, his name flashed on my screen. “Fill me in,” I said, answering his call.
“We got hit,” he said, speaking quietly but the hurt in his voice rang loud and clear. “It was bad.” He breathed out without giving me anything to go on.
“Do we know who it was yet? Is anyone hurt?” I prodded for more information while I ran through the airport, grateful I decided not to check my small bag at the last minute, so I didn’t have to wait for baggage claims.
“It was fucked, they came from the top brother. Thirteen dead, six injured. Fletcher is in intensive care, nothing is guaranteed for him right now.” His voice was wavering and cracking like he was doing his best to stay strong. Somehow, I knew this wasn’t the worst of it.
“What else?” I asked him, almost knowing damn well exactly what was going to come out of his mouth next.
“They took her,” he didn’t need to say who, it was obvious by how broken he sounded. The war in my mind waged on and I struggled to feel any sort of relief under the overwhelming sense of failure.
She came to me for help.
I failed her.
“I’m hitting the road.” I hung up and got in the BMW 760i that was waiting for me in the lot.
As if the universe sensed my urgency, every light turned red, and traffic became as impossible as ever.
I gripped the steering wheel tight, trying my best to focus my rage.
The nearly twenty-minute drive turned into forty, and it gave me far too much time to get lost in my own thoughts.
I specifically told those assholes to take care of her, and they fucking lost her?
Whoever hit us had to have known we left the high-rise, or they would have never been so bold.
I muscled my way through the clusterfuck of soldiers and family members all evacuated into the lobby waiting for instruction or some message from their leaders.
They looked to me for some crumb of information or a sign that everything was going to be okay, but I didn’t have it.
I had no idea what the hell went down here yet, and I wasn’t going to be the one making any speeches about what I didn’t know.
It would have to wait. My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out to see a text from Guillermo.
15
GUILLERMO
Fuck. The asshole was giving me a countdown.
This meant Cecilia had fifteen days to die by my hand before the Black Crows would no longer be considered allies to Los Muertos.
He would use it as a reason to come after us, and he would send his own men to finish the job I couldn’t do.
There were too many lives at stake in this building, and after the shock of the attack, I knew the priority was keeping our people safe and making sure they felt protected.
I got through the three thousand security codes and locks that waited for me at the technical lab, and when the door hissed open, I pushed my way in. I marched straight to them, and as if I’d been possessed by a demon, I watched my arm fly directly into Mateo Kane’s face.
“Holy hell!” He shouted as he ducked away from the next swing.
Zerkos grabbed me from the back, pinning my arms behind me, but he didn’t need to.
I knew that was the only shot I could get with him before he could put me on my ass.
I was the smallest of the three of us, and though I was a cold-blooded killer who could use a soda can as a weapon, I knew they both outmatched me when it came to brute strength.
I breathed heavily through my nostrils, shaking off Ronan and crossing my arms over my chest to show I was done.
“Fuck.” Mateo continued, “That’s like three times this week now fuckers, I’m not gonna let you keep getting free hits on me.” He pinched the bridge of his nose where previous bruising was now darkening from the impact of my fist.
He would though, it was just in his personality to do so.
He and Ronan got into it again apparently, no doubt over her.
Maybe it was a good thing she was gone, maybe we could focus on things that mattered, things that the Black Crows needed to do to keep thriving.
We had so many plans half-cocked, that were on a permanent freeze since the minute Cecilia walked back into our lives.
It was about time we went on with our usual programming.
But then the thought of her being alone and afraid somewhere hit me like a freight train, and I purged all those whispering, wicked thoughts from my head again.
“I wanna know what the fuck was so important that you idiots thought it was a good idea to leave the high-rise without leadership while Allisher Sokolov is hunting for whoever stole his merchandise?”
“You think this was Bratva retaliation?” Ronan asked me, as if the thought never occurred to him.
“I can’t be sure, but it’s a good guess.
Whoever it was, they knew the three of us were gone and used it as an opportunity to attack.
” I looked back at Zerkos, realizing he thought this was clearly something else.
“You were thinking this was someone after her?” I wondered what my brother would think if he knew just who was after her.
“If what you’re saying is true, and someone had intel that we were gone. Well then, that means, we either have a rat in our forces, or it’s someone big enough to be able to monitor us.” Kane said, taking the wadded tissues from his nose once the bleeding finally stopped.
“Or both,” Zerkos said, letting his distrust show. The very same trait was created by none other than the same witch he was doomed to pine over for the rest of his days.
“Well, I’d say let's start with the Bratvas then, Cecilia can’t be mixed in with anyone big enough to have infiltrated our forces or monitor us.” Mateo said confidently, and I scowled, knowing it was absolutely possible.
I wasn’t ready to share what I learned yet though, mostly because I didn’t really know what any of it meant yet.
All I knew was that Cecilia must have been mixed up in something big and dangerous to have Los Muertos sign her death warrant, and I couldn’t risk my brothers trying to stop me from doing what needed to be done.
The look in Kane’s eyes promised me she had just as much of a hold on him as she had on Ronan, and I knew right then I couldn’t trust him with my secret.
Taylor played the surveillance back for me, my heart nearly breaking as I watched our most loyal guy get gunned down to protect the girls. I looked back to Zerkos and Kane, who seemed just as devastated watching it for the second time around.
“Taylor, you said that the asshole from the chopper had three ghost identities, what were they?” Mateo asked when the last bit of the clip played, and his complicated little mind began to compose a symphony out of the puzzle pieces in the video.
“Anton Rabinovich, Adrik Kuzmin, and Aleksandr Bugrov.” She listed out, and he rubbed his temple to alleviate his constant headache.
“Ok, let’s try something different. Run a search for Anya and Oksana and use the same last names,” he said.
“These are all very common names, we’re going to get thousands of results,” she warned him.
“Then go through them all until we get what we need.” I cut in, the coldness of my tone shocking nearly everyone in the room. The realization set in for them that I wasn’t taking this issue lightly.
Ronan scowled at how I spoke to one of his long-time friends, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of letting his gaze affect me. They fucked up royally while I left the Black Crows under their watch, so now we’d do things my way a bit until we got this shit fixed.
Taylor nodded at me, understanding the severity of the situation, and sat down on her tech throne, promptly getting to work. “It could take longer than a day, but we’ll drop everything and prioritize this. I’ll let you know as soon as I get anything.”
“We’re looking for anyone that matches these two faces.” Mateo showed her close-up photos of the Russian sisters we’d harbored under our noses the last few months, and another thought came to me.
“Let’s go pay a visit to the fifth floor.” I looked at Ronan, who gave me an approving nod. Dezmond Senior followed us back out of the tech lab but knew better than to come with us to the fifth floor.