21. Dax #2
“Francois is a tricky bastard. He always seems to appear in the oddest places,” Ghost muttered. “Why would he be with Tommaso? I thought the only one who was in on this was his sister?”
“That’s what we were led to believe,” Eagle grumbled. “Seems he didn’t like that we left without giving our answer.”
“What are our options here?” I asked. “Can you make them arrive on any floor?”
Magnus nodded. “Yeah, I can send their asses right back to the main floor too if I wanted.”
“You said there was another apartment that we’d be using?
I want to see what they have to say, but I don’t want them in your home,” I explained.
“Something tells me I really want to hear what they have to say. Tommaso looks just as upset as I feel. Not the face of a man who’s come along on this trip willingly. ”
“We can do one better,” Jaxson said. “We own both apartments on the lower floor, the second one is empty and we just use it for storage. That way, they have no idea where any of us are staying. Mag can also change the number on the display, so they don’t have the right floor if they try to come back. ”
“Smart,” Cam agreed.
Wes leaned over and looked at the phone. “You’re gonna need to tell me how you did that and connected it to an app on your phone.”
“Oh, the great Weston needs me to teach him something?” Magnus teased. “Yeah, I can show you what we did.”
“We should probably head down unless you want to leave them waiting in there,” Harper pointed out.
Magnus glared over his phone at her. “You’re sure as hell not coming with us. I don’t want you in the same room as Francois if I can help it. He looks at you like he’s trying to steal you from us.”
Standing, she walked over and draped her arms around his neck, kissing his cheek. “Lucky for you, I’d never let that happen. He’s far too old for me, and besides, you already proposed twice. If I were going to cut and run, I wouldn’t have said yes twice.”
“When the lady is right, she’s right,” Ghost commented, smiling at them.
With large amounts of grumbling and reluctance, we all took the stairs down a level. Jaxson let us into the space and it was just full of random boxes here and there. When I opened a lid, I found grenades just chilling in packing peanuts.
“What the actual fuck, you guys? This is what you store in the spare apartment?” I asked, raising one to show everyone. “Someone could just break in here and blow the whole building up.”
“That’s where I left those,” Jaxson blurted. “I’ve been looking for those at each house we stop at. I knew we had more somewhere.”
“Well, if you look on the bright side, if they have an army of Italians downstairs, we can totally take them,” Cognac reasoned.
Yup, it's official. All of us were batshit crazy. I actually felt like that was a totally logical point to make.
Magnus smacked Void in the chest with his hand, motioning for him to follow. “Let's go get the fuckers and see what the hell they want.”
Void followed as I placed the grenade back and glanced at the other boxes just to see if there were any more explosives we should keep an eye on.
Everything else looked like it was gear they needed for various jobs but weren’t commonly used so they were stored here.
Really with the things in this room, we could get out of this building seventeen different ways, from repelling to paragliding.
We all went for our weapons when the door opened again as Harper moved behind Ghost. Void entered first, then held the door open for Tommaso and Francois, who were being prodded along by Magnus.
“This wasn’t quite the reception I assumed I would be getting, but I understand.
No one likes people to drop in unannounced when they shouldn’t even know where you live,” Francois said, his hand up showing he had no weapons.
“Oh, Miss Peirson, it’s so good to see you again.
Are you happy to be back in the States?”
“Enough,” Magnus snapped. “Tell us why you’re here, Francois.”
“Yes, yes, we shall get right down to business if you so choose.” He sighed. “Tommaso, why don’t you fill them in since this is your doing?”
When I looked at him, I noticed the black eye he was sporting. I hadn’t been able to see it from the way he was standing in the elevator. “What the hell happened to you?”
“I don’t know how but my father figured out we met with you after the meeting.
He was furious, saying we didn’t need you to pull this off, but he’s wrong.
There’s no way for us to pull this off if you’re not part of it.
We might have the numbers but not the influence needed to hold a position like that for long.
” He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
“I told him as much, and he got pissed, which is how I ended up with the black eye.”
“While that sucks, I’m not sure how that tells us why you’re here, in New York, looking for me?” I pushed.
“My father called Valter and told him that Betta and I went rogue. They got to Betta before I could warn her, so I pretended I wanted to talk, make amends, then killed them all,” Tommaso explained. “The coup is in motion, and I’m here to beg you for your assistance.”
I waved my hands to get him to stop talking. “Whoa, back the fucking train right up. You killed Valter?”
“Yes, and my father. He refused to side with me, and I couldn’t risk him going to Diego,” Tommaso answered.
Cognac whistled his shock as he crossed his arms. “Damn, man, that’s cold, but you had to do what you had to do. Nothing about a hostile takeover is easy or black n’ white. You make split-second choices and hope to God it was the right one.”
“Did you get to Betta?” I asked, understanding how protecting family could make you do drastic things.
“Yeah, she’s at the hotel. They beat her up pretty good, trying to get information out of her, but she didn’t talk,” Tommaso answered, pride in his voice.
“I know I said you could have time to look over the agreement, but we don’t have that now.
Things are set in motion, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. ”
Wes came to stand at my shoulder as he addressed Tommaso. “Then what’s he doing here with you? The plan didn’t include outsiders.”
“Francois is the representative from the head of the Italian mafia. He’s here because it’s proof that they support my claim over Boston’s branch and will also back me in taking over the De León Cartel,” Tommaso explained.
“Now, all I need is the Queen of the West Coast to add her endorsement, stating that she will aid in my fights if it comes to it, knowing that it will give me enough time to establish my own base and loyal followers.”
Eagle frowned at that. “Wait, are you telling me you’re taking over all of this, and you have no one but outsiders backing you? None of your own people are waiting for the signal to help make this happen?”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying. Think about it, though.
The Italians have been a small fish in this game, and I’m about to take a massive slice of the pie.
People will be pouring out of the woodwork to try and take this from me,” Tommaso argued.
“I’ve got men at the ready to make this happen.
I just need to know if you’re in this or not? ”
“I can’t give you that answer right here right now,” I stated. “This is not just my choice to make or whose life I will be putting on the line, so I need tonight to discuss things, and I’ll give you my answer in the morning.”
Reaching for his back pocket, he pulled out a folded manila envelope.
“This is just to show you what value I bring to the table. Giving this to you means you don’t need me as much as I need you.
I hope it proves that I want this to work.
The criminal world needs to be brought into the twenty-first century, and only having fresh blood is going to do that. ”
Taking the papers, Void and Magnus escorted them back to the elevator, leaving the rest of us to look at what he’d given me.
Opening the envelope, I pulled out papers but also pictures of a woman in her twenties and a guy who seemed around her age.
There were pictures of them in the city, leaving a building and getting in and out of cars together.
My guess was since she looked so much like Gabby, it was her daughter.
“Look at that, she’s got both ears and all her fingers,” I pointed out, handing one over to Picasso. “Now we know for a fact those belonged to someone else.”
Shuffling through the papers, I found one for the son where Elena was living with him.
I was glad she wasn’t going to be in the main building.
It would make taking it down easier. Out of all the planning we’d done, trying to balance firepower and ensuring we could get her out alive was tough.
You can’t take over a whole office building and not risk shooting someone you don’t mean to.
“He gave us everything we needed to get Elena out of here tonight if we wanted to,” Eagle commented. “Is this what he meant when he made it so we didn’t need him?”
When I looked over the next page of information, my brows shot up.
“Ah no, pretty sure it's the detailed schedule they have of Diego’s habits, mistresses, and restaurants he frequents. If we didn’t want to hit the office building, we don’t have to at this point.
Fuck, he even has the locations to his two homes, one in the city, one over in the Hamptons. ”
That had everyone converging upon me, looking at the information. Thankfully, no one tried to snatch it out of my hands. Then I might have stabbed someone.
“Let’s get back upstairs, and we can really map this out and talk logistics,” Jaxson suggested. “We have an office with all the things we need.”
Once more, we climbed back up the stairs, grabbed a beer, and got to work.