Chapter 53
Chapter Fifty-Three
SANTIAGO
He stands so close, I can basically hear his heart rate. It’s slow and steady, unchanged despite what he’s asking.
“Give me some space,” I warn without moving an inch.
Every situation is a test of dominance with Aleksei. There’s no conceding, no negotiation; it’s literally Aleksei’s way or the highway.
“You don’t need space, we’re pack.” He grins at me, always the predator.
I flick through the screens on my phone, tapping on the Trinity Alliance app.
“I get that on my phone too, right? Even as a silent partner. Yes?”
“Aleksei. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. You’re not in yet. You might not be in ever.”
He laughs, but as the screen shows Valentine, then Ronin accepting the call, Aleksei falls into instant stillness and silence. It’s unnerving and intimidating how easily and quickly he can shift personas.
“I don’t have the right frame of mind to be dealing with idle bullshite,” Ronin snaps before either Valentine or I can get a hello out.
“Always the gentleman, Ronin. Did someone piss in your Guiness again?” Valentine says, his air of superiority amped up because he knows how much Ronin hates it.
“I have a situation,” I say, interrupting them both.
Before I can get another word out, I’m being strangled. I drop my phone and fight to free myself from Aleksei’s powerful grip around my throat. I twist, getting a grip of his fingers and twisting them while smashing my fist into his face.
We fall apart as quickly as we crashed together.
I jab my index finger towards his face, but he catches it. “Your Omega is not a situation,” he hisses low, like a rattlesnake.
I punch him again, in the same spot on his smart-ass face, just as hard as the first time.
Snatching my phone back up, I hold his twisted smirk with a venomous stare.
“Sorry, I’m flying. Back to my situation,” I dare Aleksei, before I look at Quinn and offer her an apologetic wave.
Aleksei moves again, and I very nearly flinch. He knows it, too, given the twinkle in his eyes. He holds up his phone, showing me one of his contacts on his phone before he texts a message for me to read.
“First, though, have you found your wife, Ronin?”
Instead of aggression, there’s hesitation and reluctance from the new head of the Irish. I take his lack of an answer to my question as an answer.
“I hope she’s okay. You know anything I can do to help, all you have to do is ask. It’s been brought to my attention, you need to be looking for a dirty cop, pretty high up, called Black.”
“How do you know that name?” he growls like a rabid bear.
I ignore his question. “I recently ran into a woman named Olga and another woman…”
Aleksei makes a sudden gesture, and I hold back on sharing Catalina’s name. For the time being.
“Who are they?” Valentine asks, his impatience making it nearly impossible for me to tell the story how it should be told.
Ronin starts making noises, spluttering his violent anger. It’s justifiable, though.
I beat him in explaining the women to Valentine. “Both are involved in trafficking. They’re two people we need eyes on immediately. I have a third thing I need us to talk about, but the third is my situation too.”
Valentine and Ronin hum a similar noise.
“I want us to buy a building.”
“That’s lovely.” Valentine scoffs. “Dante wanted to buy Layne an island yesterday. Today, it’s a star. I’ll add it to the list. This can wait, Santiago.”
I snap out a bark so sudden and loud, it makes them shut the fuck up and take notice, and it makes Aleksei squat in front of me, grinning like a fucking lunatic with his thumbs up encouragingly.
I slap his hands away.
“It can’t wait. Trinity Alliance is buying a building, and I have a fourth party I want in on this deal.”
“Impossible!” Valentine barks. His voice changes the more speaks as he starts mimicking me.
“Who the fuck drops, oh I have a fourth person I want to add to our very private vigilante group. Don’t worry about screening them or anything about them, just trust me because we’ve been trusting each other with everything else, so just go in blind. ”
I silence him with another equally aggressive and impossible-to-ignore punch of my designation.
“You’re right, I'm asking a lot. I trust the person with my life, though, and you know I’ve only ever said that to the both of you.
I’m asking you to jump into this the same way we all jumped into Trinity.
We knew nothing about each other, but we also knew we needed each other.
We swore we would always have each other's back and always be there for each other, and this is that again. We promised if anything arose, we wouldn’t need details; we would just trust each other implicitly.
“You remember that, right? We’re buying a building, and I have a silent investor who will front over half the money immediately.
We diversify our investments, and we expand Trinity at the same time.
Clearly, you can’t buy a building in half a day, but I want Layne to start right fucking now on setting up a private equity firm that keeps anonymity—but we also start the process of acquiring the property very aggressively.
I also want the De Lucas doing surveillance on the building twenty-four-seven, ASAP.
A resident there cannot be allowed to leave the premises until I get there. ”
“A fourth with access to that much money? There’s not many suitable in our world. You trust them?” Valentine asks.
I nod my head unnecessarily as I answer Valentine. “Unreservedly.”
“Excuse me?” Ronin shouts. And he might be barking at anything I just said, considering I dumped shit on them both from out of nowhere.
I ignore his outburst, still breathing through my own. “Please. I do not ask you for anything. I drop everything to help whenever you need. I’m begging here.”
Valentine is more level in his emotions and his way of questioning. “Is this your situation?”
“In a roundabout way.”
“How roundabout?” he insists.
“I would prefer not to say. Can we please agree to put in a very hostile offer within a few hours? And as part of that, we have immediate access to undertake our due diligence.”
“Who is it you want there?” Ronin asks. Having burned out his initial emotions, he’s steadier and easier to talk to.
My entire focus, my soul, my heart. Every cell in my body aligns to my bebe. One day, I want them to meet her—maybe—so I answer as best I can.
“Ambassador Victor Hernandez has been working with the Russians behind the scenes to restart trafficking. I’ve seen his reach, and he needs to be stopped.
He’s recently decided to stop hiding behind his diplomatic immunity.
Instead, he’s relying on the philosophy of the building I want us to buy.
I don’t know how long we will have this chance at getting him.
Valentine, the building is right on your doorstep. ”
It takes Valentine a handful of seconds to put a name to the building. “Prostasia Towers.”
Aleksei lifts his thumbs again. I shut my eyes, so I don’t laugh at his antics. He’s so unpredictable and infuriating, but despite my arguing, the only thing different about us is our delivery. Making our Omega our priority is something we also share with Kade.
“That’s right, Valentine. Prostasia Towers is neutral ground.
It’s technically situated in no-man's-land within your territory, and I’m all for being able to live in peace, but we need to draw lines on what is acceptable and what is not.
Victor Hernandez is not acceptable, and what he’s doing is not acceptable.
“I’m happy to walk through the front door of the towers as soon as I get there and deal with the fallout of taking out Victor, but if there’s a tiny chance we can do that without breaking the entire fucking criminal code, I’d like to try.
Plus, by having our interest documented, we are technically required by law to have insurance to cover our investment.
If I don’t have access to the building and can’t get to Victor via the stairs or the lift, I will be setting fire to the building. ”
“You can just do that, and we don’t have to engage my wife,” Valentine says before adding, “She is busy enough. She doesn’t need any new clients or cases.”
“I’m sorry, Valentine, but no. We need this.
Victor has highlighted to me that there are other pissants in our world hiding in places they think we can’t get to.
They’re hiding under our noses. We set up other buildings all over the world, and we run them with the same ethos as the tower is being managed now.
Being the owners, we’ll have the management rights, and as part of that, we add a few bylaws stipulating we have the right to take out the trash if needs be. ”
Ronin starts laughing, his Irish accent evident too. “Santiago, if you weren’t such a smart prick, I’d be sending Keegan your address and taking you off my radar. I’m in. I support his plans. And now I have to go. I can see my wife, but there’s a blizzard blowing in, and it’s obscuring my view.”
“Where the hell are you?” Valentine asks suspiciously.
“Let’s just say, if you need me picking up some proper biscotti, I probably could if I was so inclined. I’m not that way inclined, and the world is a big place. Keep me in the loop, Santiago, let me know when the documents arrive and I’ll sign them.”
“Will do.” Relief floods my system at Ronin’s agreement. “Give your beautiful wife a kiss.”
“I hope I get to do that one day, Santiago. I really fucking do,” he says cryptically before his whole demeanour shifts.
“How’d you go with the Russian prick? It’s not something I’m going to be able to drop.
I’m just dealing with more important issues at the minute, but I want that cunt’s head.
I’m going to mount it on the wall in my bathroom and piss on the asshole every day for the rest of my life. ”
Aleksei ducks into my view line again, flipping the bird at Ronin this time. Ronin hangs up, but I hold a finger up, silencing Aleksei.
“Is he okay?” I ask Valentine.
“I suspect Ronin’s finding out there are some things you’d move heaven and hell for. Speaking of, my wife has arrived. I’ll arrange a team to get out to Prostasia, stat. And I’ll see if Layne has time to set up everything you asked for.”
“I appreciate that.”
I can hear Valentine walking. “How long until you’re at Prostasia?”
“At least a day.”
“For you to do all this, Santiago, it must be an important situation. I’d like to meet her.”
And then he ends our call.
Before I return to my Omega, I shoot off the details of Hernandez to Valentine.
It’s probably unnecessary—he would have been Googling the ambassador while we were speaking—but I feel better knowing he has everything at his disposal.
I also have complete faith that Victor won’t be going anywhere.
If he puts up a fight, Valentine will shoot first and apologize later.
Which means we can now put all our effort into helping Quinn and saving her brother.