3. Andre
ANDRE
“S orry, Andre. I have nothing for you.”
I hung up on the motherfucker. He’d been in my circle for years, ever since I took up my part of Vicente’s business. He was the last fucking one I could see who had any idea where Vicente would have taken Amorette.
I spun in my chair, dropping my head back with a bang. Had I even slept over the last three days? Hell. How does Lafe function without sleep over one day, much less several?
Scrubbing my hand down my face, I let my mind wander through colleagues and adversaries. What favors was I owed? Which favors were a waste to call in?
Two favors had been wasted already.
“Andre,” Grey barked as he slammed his fist on my office door in greeting.
“If you put a hole through my wall, I will fucking kill you,” I mumbled and closed my eyes again.
“Stop. Just fucking stop.”
I opened my eyes to face a very irate Grey.
I was furious too, but I was also at my wit's end. Exhausted. Depleted. And what had Grey been doing over the last few days? Stalking around and punching anything or anyone that offended him. Very fucking productive. “What do you want me to do that I haven’t already done, Grey?”
“Fucking find her!” He yelled so loud my ears rang.
The tips of my ears burned as I threw myself forward, pressing my chest against the desk and spearing the clean glass surface with a finger. Damn it. It was goddamned smudged.
“What do you think I’ve been doing? Sitting on my thumb and having a good whirl?
I’ve called every single person I can think of to probe about Amorette.
She’s a fucking ghost as far as the Institution is concerned.
” I sucked in an irritated breath. “I’ve called in two favors to have Vicente’s properties searched, and nothing.
We wasted good fucking favors for absolutely nothing.
” I tossed myself back against the seat.
Grey curled his lips, and his eyes sparked. “This is your fault. Your fucking fault!” He leaned over the desk until our noses were centimeters apart. “You were supposed to watch her while I fought!”
I shoved up out of my seat, and he straightened up. “And let you die? Absolutely fucking not! I’m trying to get her back! I’m killing myself trying. But in no fucking universe would I let you die to save her.”
“Hey. Hey,” Parker waltzed in with his hands in his pockets. Not his typical self with the dark bags under his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I threw my hand out to encompass how off he looked. Grey glanced at him and dismissed him in the span of two seconds.
“If you want to lay blame, look at your own self in the mirror. You wanted to take her to the fights. You made a show of kissing her. She’s on Vicente’s radar because of you .” It was a low blow for anyone who cared. That obviously wasn’t Grey.
He shook his head. “She would be on Vicente’s radar because she lives with us.
She’s with him now because I couldn’t trust my fucking brothers.
Call in your favors, pin down your contacts, fuck his whores.
I don’t give a damn. But we’re getting her back.
You have a week. If you don’t have her back by then, I’ll take over the search. And you won’t like the way I do it.”
Damn right, I wouldn’t. He’d get himself spiked on a pole outside the mansion before he found her.
Grey growled and spun around, punching a hole through the plaster.
“Fuck you, Grey!” I yelled as he backtracked and punched Parker for good measure.
“Argh!” Parker howled as blood poured between his fingers. He didn’t go after Grey, and that was very telling. Usually, they’d be rolling around on the floor, choking and hitting each other.
I grabbed the tissue case from the back corner of the desk and tossed it to him. He caught it against his chest with greater reflexes than I expected, with his face covered.
“Why are you still here?” I asked as I sat and watched Parker clean up his face. He didn’t get all the blood smears off, not that he cared.
“I still haven’t heard from Mia,” he sneered, his voice nasally.
“Not my problem.” It was his own damn fault that he got Mia in hot water. And hers. She knew how reckless he was.
“What if he’s holding them together? Or hell, killed them both.” He linked his hands behind his head as he stared out the window. Anger zinged through every tense inch of him.
“I’m sure, knowing you, you have a never-ending stream of plots to get away from Vicente. Why are you even still here?” I rolled my mouse to wake up my computer. Over the last few days, I’d consumed myself with getting Amorette back.
Parker and his motivations didn’t deserve the headspace, and I could give two fucks if he left. That was clearly what he wanted. To get away from us.
“Fine. Be a bitch.” He twisted one of my chairs to be angled toward my computer screen.
"I expected nothing less. When your feelings get hurt, you pout. But this is bigger than your fucking feelings. Yes, I am most likely the cause for Vicente taking Little Love. I’m most likely the reason for him doing whatever the fuck he’s done with Mia.
But I will not— will not —pretend to look the other way while you fumble on getting them back.
You want to be angry. Fine. You want to get pissy and fight me?
Fine, too. Although, brother, I will fight you back.
The only reason I haven’t fought back with Grey is that he’s truly attached to her.
You’re just scrambling to bring her back, so Grey doesn’t detonate and get himself killed. ”
Not true. I curled my fingers into tight fists next to the keyboard. He would think that. And maybe that would have been true a few weeks ago, but I did feel some level of responsibility for her, damn it.
Even if I wouldn’t change a damn thing about jumping in to save Grey.
“Don’t lie to yourself or me. You just don’t like your things being taken away from you,” I growled.
Ignoring the comment, he slammed his hand on my fucking desk. “Goddamn it, Andre! We need to call Jorge. We need to call your man in the mansion. And maybe even Maikel. He owes Lafe for not putting his head on the chopping block.”
I sighed and faced him. “No on Jorge. He has no connection to Vicente, so he’d be useless.
We need to keep what happened as close to the vest as possible.
” He worked his jaw, but he didn’t argue.
“My man in the mansion is a loose rat. I can’t trust him not to turn us over under the right circumstances. As for Maikel. Fuck you.”
Parker’s brows dropped over his eyes and he bared his teeth.
“What do you think is going to happen, Andre? No, really. I want an answer. What do you think is going to happen? Your entire fucking life you’ve tiptoed around Vicente to keep us all alive, and for what?
So we can literally get shit on any time he feels like it?
So we can live in a cage of his making and call this the good life?
” He scoffed in disgust. “By taking Amorette from the fights, by letting Bruno almost kill Grey—rigged or not, he declared war on us. This isn’t a time to hem and fucking haw around each potential contact and determine the five fucking consequences that could happen as a result.
I would wager every fucking body in the Institution knows we’re on the outs.
You have got to stop fucking pussy footing around and make some goddamn decision, pendejo .
“This is when you call in your favors, use blackmail, and make an example of the men who betray us. Otherwise, we might as well shoot ourselves now and never look back.” Parker panted through his anger as he pinned me with his dark gaze.
“I didn’t tell Grey this, not that I needed to, but the likelihood of getting either Mia or Amorette back is slim.
If we do get them back, Amorette especially, we stand an even lesser chance of her mind being intact.
She’s strong, but she’s not that fucking strong.
“We can work together on this, or you can fly solo and get us all fucking killed.” His laugh was like broken glass pricking my skin.
“I might get us killed too, but you know what? At least I fucking tried. We talk about Lafe being the coward, but you’re the coward too. You just don’t show it the same.”
He stormed out of my office, leaving me to sit there in shock. Two brothers in less than five minutes reaming my ass.
Parker’s words sunk into my thick stupid skull. I was being an idiot. Approaching this from the same lens I’ve approached everything in this cursed life. And where did that get us? Fucking nowhere.
I spun back to the computer and unlocked it. Opened my contacts and catalog of favors.
Blackmail. That wasn’t such a bad idea. Who did we have shit on that would have some idea of what Vicente would have done with her?
Against my better fucking judgment, I started exactly where I knew I shouldn’t. Dialing Maikel, he picked up on the second ring.
“Andre, to what do I owe this pleasure?” The smug note in his voice made me wish he was here in person so I could shove my foot up his ass.
“Maikel,” I responded coolly. “I have some questions for you.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound very good. I should first let you know that Vicente is my brother. If your questions are related to a certain pequena perra , my loyalties first lie with my brother.”
One side of my mouth twisted up. Maikel was loyal to no one. If he couldn’t steal it, he broke it. He only used his relationship with Vicente as the cover to act as he fucking pleased.
“Is that right?” I hated this, but maybe Parker was right. I needed to push my limits to get the answers I needed.
“I like you, son. But not enough to stick my neck out for you.”
“Let me tell you what I think, Maikel. I think you’ve been skimming the business for a long time.
Longer than this most recent infraction.
We have proof. We’ve been good little boys and sat on that information because it didn’t serve any purpose for us to get you killed.
Or tortured. The loyalty you say you have for Vicente—he has none for you.
Not a surprise. Psychopaths can’t feel true attachments like that.
As soon as you stop being an asset to him, you’re done.
And we both know you’re not an asset, right, Maikel? ”
His labored breathing got worse with each word that fell from my lips. “Now, I would hate to turn that over to spite you. But I would. Because I have no loyalty to you either. Now, are you going to answer my questions?” The words were light, but my tone was cold.
“I don’t have any answers for you. Save your threats. I haven’t seen her.”
As much as I hated to let out any kind of reaction, I blew out a relieved breath.
Part of me had thought he would have sent her back to Randall.
Given her to the man who would torture and brutalize her just because of our apparent attachment to her.
But he wouldn’t have seen that as an actual punishment, not when his favored women still worked the Gallery.
“You haven’t even heard whispers about her?”
“No,” he gritted out. “The only thing traveling through the circuit is how you fucked up, and he took your toy.”
“What’s that rumor?” I pushed. “Why are people assuming we fucked up?”
Maikel laughed. “You’re his enforcers when he needs it.
You four run different lucrative businesses for him.
The only reason he’d so publicly go against you is because there’s an expiration date on your lives.
” He paused. “I don’t know what you did.
But I’d watch your back. Consider that a good favor, nephew. ”
The three beeps of an ended line were harsh on my ears.
Was this good or bad news that Amorette wasn’t at the Gallery? My one favor at least confirmed she wasn’t at the mansion, so she wasn’t in Vicente’s Gallery either. Not that I expected her to be.
Pilar, as much as she hated the position I was in, would have told me if Amorette was anywhere near her.
My stomach sank as I scrolled through the list of leverage we had on members of the Institution. Most were useless in finding Amorette. But I scrolled anyway.
It would destroy Lafe and maybe even Grey, if we didn’t find her.
Alive.