2. Obi #2
“Yes,” I replied as we headed back to the hallway. When we pushed our way past the door hanging off its hinges, we saw Leona trying to calm down the couple who lived in this apartment.
“Head downstairs,” she said. “Emergency services are waiting there. You can come back up once they’ve cleared the building after the fire.”
She ushered them into the stairwell, only turning around once she had pushed them inside and shut the door. “Whew. The police can deal with them later.” Her eyes locked onto my arm. “Obi, you got fucking shot.”
“Yes,” I said as Ryuji yanked the man forward. He stumbled over his own feet, his skin already pale from blood loss. “He got it worse.”
Her eyes raked over me, lips pressed together, before she stomped over and yanked my chest down to press a kiss to my lips.
“I’m fine,” I murmured. “I’ve had far worse.”
“I know,” she said, eyes burning into mine. “Now let’s go.”
Ciel tapped away on his tablet. “I got the security feeds back up. The elevator is running. No one else is here yet. I think the alarms and the call to emergency services spooked anyone else coming after us.”
I nodded, wiping the sweat from my brow with the sleeve of my forearm. “Down to the garage.”
Together, we walked halfway down the hallway to the elevator and stepped inside when the doors pinged open.
The ride was cramped, exacerbated by the grunts of pain and desperate pleas of our assailant.
He begged for his life, and we ignored him until his attention latched onto Leona.
After he tried to speak to her, Wynn pressed a knife to his throat while Ryu held his arms behind his back, and then he went silent.
The doors pinged open on our private garage level, and we pulled the man forward.
Our collection of cars stretched before us. We couldn’t take everything with us, but we needed at least two options for the future in case one went wrong.
“SUV?” Caspian asked, still carrying Volpe while Leona supported Volpe’s other arm.
I pointed to our two most heavily armed vehicles. “We’ll take those two for now. Get our bags and the weapons inside. Bring the man to the back of the SUV.”
Ryu pulled the man near the trunk and dropped him to the ground. Leona followed, standing close to me while the operative curled inward into a little ball. “Is he coming with us?”
“Please, please,” the man whimpered.
“What are you?” I demanded of the man, my knife at his neck. “Tell me, and I’ll kill you quickly.”
“Mercenary,” he gasped, curling tighter. “My squad was just hired an hour ago.”
I exchanged a look with Ryu. Mercenaries meant contracts. The dark web. More men hunting us.
“We need to deal with that,” Ryu said. “Fucking quickly, too.”
“Tell Ciel to monitor the dark web and take down the contracts or buy them ourselves. We’ll put out a few of our own.”
“How much?”
I dragged my knife across the man’s throat. His blood spilled onto the concrete. “Fifty million.”
Leona’s eyes went wide. “That much?”
“I can easily go higher,” I said with a sigh as I stood. “It’s not about the money. It’s about showing that this is war, and if mercenaries or assassins want a piece, they’re choosing a side.”
“This is how it works, hanii,” Ryu said. “We need to show we’re serious, or else we’ll be under constant fire.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, looking down at the man’s body. “I get it. Don’t fuck with the Shadows.”
We’d leave his body here, in full view of the security feeds, which Lucia Greco—Piero Greco’s granddaughter and one of the consistent thorns in our side—would no doubt hack into shortly.
“Take a picture, Ryu,” I said, wiping the blood off the knife. “Post it to the dark web in warning.”
“What about Max?” Ryu asked while he snapped the photo.
We could leave him behind. We did not know what had turned the alliance between Volpe and the Camorra sour. He had led them right to us, exposing us all to danger. It would be even riskier to take him with us, especially if they wanted him dead.
But he could also be valuable. His connection with them meant he had information which we could use to take them down.
In all my planning, I hadn’t considered the Camorra would travel to the States, nor that we’d have to face this battle so soon. I needed all the information I could get. I would not let a decade’s worth of blood and sweat go to waste.
As my brain tried to reform my plan around what knowledge Volpe could provide, I glanced at Leona. Her look said she was ready to fight if we left him here.
Fine. If he wanted to stay alive now, his allegiances would change. He would be a tool, and tools were kept so long as they remained useful. Otherwise, they were discarded.
“We’ll bring him with us.”
Leona sighed in relief, glancing at Caspian and his efforts to slump Volpe’s limp body into the backseat of the SUV. After he successfully got him inside, everyone huddled around, staring at the vehicle. Waiting for orders.
“Where the fuck are we supposed to go now?” Caspian asked.
“We could go to my father’s house?” Leona offered, though her voice was unconvinced.
“Too risky.” Ciel shook his head. “They’ll know where you lived. They’ll check there first.”
“Fallon?” Wynn asked, wrapping a possessive arm around Leona’s waist. He pulled her to his chest, and she leaned her head against him. “Philadelphia?”
Leona looked up at him. “I don’t want to leave the boroughs. If we leave, we’re giving up the city. Our men are here. Our lives are here. We should stay.”
She was right. We couldn’t run to the Irish every time we needed help.
“The Russians, then?” Ryu pulled his phone from his pocket, but I held out my hand to stop him.
We needed to stand our ground, but we also needed security to regroup and plan. Somewhere no one would know.
“I know where we can go,” I said. Only our realtor and I knew the address. It was the safest option we had. “Ryu, you drive and take Ciel and Wynn. Leona, Caspian, you’re with me.”
“Where are we going?” Ryu asked as we both headed to our respective driver’s side doors.
“Follow me.”