Chapter 1 #3
For several moments, I let them study her face.
It was rounder than mine. I always thought her to be one of the prettiest women I’d ever known.
I didn’t let my worry for her show. In front of them, I didn’t make it personal.
Instead, I lifted my chin and focused back on the two kingpins sitting in front of me.
“The chambers of these guns were full when I started. I’ve still got plenty of bullets left for the two of you. One for each arm. More for your knees. I’ve got so many body parts to choose from,” I warned, and Tony’s face went stark white.
“I don’t know who she is,” he screeched, and I got so annoyed with him that I just pulled the trigger and put him out of his misery. I grasped a chair and pulled it out so that I sat directly across from Vinny.
I leaned back and put one gun down while keeping the other trained on him. I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he tried to figure out how best to handle me.
“It’s just us now. You know my name. Will you do the honor of telling me yours?” Vinny offered. This time, there was no challenge in his voice. I was seeing the real Vinny.
I grimaced. What did it matter? I was just going to kill him anyway.
“My name is Natalia,” I answered simply. I didn’t give him my last name.
“I take it that you’re more than just a simple woman off the streets of Belarus,” he said, treading carefully.
He said it more as a statement than a question and I nodded, not offering him any more details than that.
I gestured toward my sister’s picture with the barrel of the gun.
He nodded, getting the message. Without the others here with him, he seemed more relaxed, and I knew it would be more likely that I would garner the information I’d come for.
“She looks familiar, but she’s not one of my girls,” he continued. “I was telling you the truth when I told you she wasn’t in this hotel or any of the others I’m connected with.”
I aimed the gun straight at his head. He didn’t flinch.
“I didn’t say I didn’t recognize her face though,” he ventured carefully, and I relaxed my wrist. I kept the gun aimed in his general direction. From this distance, there was no chance in hell that I could miss.
He sighed and sat back.
“You’re not going to believe me,” he started, and I peered back at him with a confused glance. I gestured with the Beretta again.
“Try me,” I replied.
“My kind doesn’t exactly run Vegas.”
“What do you mean by my kind?” I asked.
“The human kind. Us,” he continued.
“The mafia runs Vegas. That’s a known fact,” I answered.
“Yes… and no. The human mob has its hot spots, but it mostly belongs to another creature,” he added.
“Creature…” I echoed.
“Vampires. Las Vegas is run by the vampire mafia clans. I have my own stake here and I make a good life, but if they wanted me dead, all they would have to do is say it and I would be,” he replied with a heavy sigh.
“Vampires are a myth. A tale to scare children at night,” I scoffed, and he shook his head.
“They aren’t. They’re very real,” he replied.
He didn’t appear to be the type of man that would pull my leg about something like this. He seemed like he was serious, that he believed it himself. I felt at a loss.
“This isn’t a joke,” I said quietly, and he shook his head. His dark eyes were sad, almost defeated. He crossed his arms over his chest and began to tell me about the history of the city. I listened to his story and didn’t interrupt him.
Once it had belonged to the Genovese family, along with a conglomeration of smaller families that vied for the rich territory along the strip and its subsidiaries.
Slowly though, the human mafia had begun to lose ground over the years.
Certain important figures would disappear and before long, the city was overrun with allies that whispered of a new family.
The Asamire.
They put their own political figures in places that directed federal authorities to capture strategic high standing figures involved in organized crime.
Several kingpins were detained, jailed and some were even killed, which dealt a number of devastating blows to the men who had built Vegas up from the ground.
The weird thing was that it all sort of made sense.
“And you? Why are you still alive if the Asamire are in power? Why keep you around?” I finally asked.
“Because I would never dare to overstep my bounds. Banu Asamire would have my head on a platter if I did,” he answered.
“The Asamire kingpin I take it?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you think they would have Irina?” I asked.
“The Asamire clan like to gather women, especially young ones that are untouched,” he replied, and I could sense the caution in his tone. I lifted my gaze toward his much older, tired ones and started to feel really uneasy.
“Meaning?”
“The vampires have a very great appreciation of virgin blood,” he clarified.
“How do you know that they have her? What if she’s just been trafficked to a different gang, or another part of Vegas? Maybe one of the presiding families already moved her to New York or even Chicago,” I countered, and he shook his head.
“No. My men took her from Belarus. We’d been watching her for a few weeks.
She appeared to be residing there alone, that no one would miss her if she was taken,” Vinny continued.
“I have a running roster of potential women that could fill my clients’ needs.
I didn’t know that she was connected to whatever you are connected with. ”
His eyes found mine and there was a glimmer of curiosity there, but I certainly wasn’t going to reveal my secrets to a man like him.
“When I bring girls here to the city, the Asamire send a representative to look over our stock. They take the ones they want and pay us for them. When they want a woman, we are not allowed to deny them. We did once and we paid dearly for it,” he explained.
“Do you have proof?” I pressed. I didn’t want to believe him.
His story was absurd, but it was almost too insane not to believe.
Vinny appeared to be a rational man. He’d been here in Vegas as the head of the Genovese family for more than twenty years now.
There was no way he’d gotten this far by telling crazy made-up stories and it was most certainly not the first time he’d faced the barrel of a loaded gun.
“Do you see the shelf over there?” He gestured to the side, and I glanced at it before I turned back. I wasn’t going to let my guard down either. I was smarter than that.