Chapter 24
MAfter the last couple of fires, it became apparent that I needed to take a closer look at my car dealerships. The person who is targeting my dealerships is making this personal. While I do make a lot of money from assassinating people, my car dealerships also bring in a lot of that sweet cash.
I have Oliver and Josh overseeing my dealership in Sarajevo today while I am conducting business in Tuzla.
Winter has a way of making Tuzla breathtaking.
The city has a glow in wintertime—its hills dressed in white, the salt lakes catching the faintest shimmer of light.
Chimneys smoked lazily, curling into the cold air.
It isn’t a postcard kind of beauty—it’s lived-in, scarred, and still standing.
And that’s the reason why I love this city.
Because it reminds me of my mom. She was strength hidden beneath softness, of warmth in the middle of the cold.
And this was her hometown.
My mom came from a wealthy family. Her dad was the general manager of a coal-mining business, and that’s how she met my father.
Daddy dearest came here on business to assassinate someone and saw my mom in a bar while he was winding down.
What I understood from my mom’s explanation was that my father was mesmerizing, and she became blind.
He promised her the world but gave her Hell.
The only thing that kept her going all these years was me.
And I miss her dearly. I wonder if she would be proud of me because I became something she despised.
“M, are you good?” Adam asks me as we are drinking coffee in the center of Tuzla. The smell of Bosnian coffee seeps into my nostrils, and I revel in it. There is truly nothing like Bosnian coffee. And it will keep you awake for five business days.
“I am. At what time is our meeting with those cunts from Good Buildings?”
“We have to leave in about ten minutes. Our meeting is in about thirty minutes.” I pay our bill, and we head out to Good Buildings on foot.
I like to walk in Tuzla during wintertime; it clears my head.
But our walk is to said cunts. I want to buy property just outside of Tuzla to build another dealership, but those assholes are playing hard to get.
Good Buildings owns almost all of the commercial properties in Tuzla, and they are playing their “we are gods” card.
Ugh.
“Are you nervous?” Adam asks. When I look at him, we both start laughing.
“No. They should be.”
“M, we can’t have another debacle like with the last person who tried to blackmail you.” Ah, yes. The man who lost all of his fingers.
“It’s going to be fine as long as they don’t try to fuck me over.”
“The snow on the ground isn’t even as cold as you are.”
“My father is.”
“Your father is a pile of shit.”
“He is,” I say with a sigh. “Come on, we are here.” Adam and I step into the building and announce ourselves to the kind receptionist. Our meeting was at 1 p.m., and it’s now twenty minutes past one.
Patience is not one of my virtues, and these assholes are starting to get on my nerves.
Having a potential rich client waiting in the reception area is bad practice.
Punctuality should be the norm, not celebrated.
And these two are treating it like a minor inconvenience.
“Adam, if these two don’t get here in about two minutes, I’m going to flip the fuck out.”
“Fine. Let’s ask the receptionist what’s holding them up.” Adam walks up to the receptionist, and I see her pointing to the elevator. Adam motions for me to come.
“She said that it’s weird that they are still not down here, but that we could go upstairs to their office.”
“Let’s do this.” We press the elevator button and get in.
“What negotiation tactics are you going to pull out of your ass today?” I roll my eyes at Adam’s question.
“I’m going to behave like a true gentleman. I’ll try.” My friend doesn’t even try to hide his bored look. Once we get to the fifth floor, we head toward their office. The door is slightly open, and something feels off.
“Adam.”
“I know, M.” It’s a good idea to bring Adam, as he is a master at assessing situations even before chaos breaks out. We check if someone is here to look at us, but it seems we are the only ones on this floor.
We get inside, and I reach for my knife while Adam grabs his gun as soon as we see the scene before us.
“I guess you won’t be needing any negotiation skills today.”
“Damn. I really hoped I would be the one to cause harm.” The two brothers, the CEOs, are lying flat on the floor, with a bullet in their skulls.
“I know that they weren’t likable, but they were clean. Hana checked them out and told us they were okay.” Until they weren’t, the only R-word I feel is regret. Regret that I didn’t kill them. Maybe someone murdered them because they were constantly fucking late?
I step over the bodies and notice something in the window—a crack. With my finger, I trace an invisible line, and it matches up to what I’m expecting. Someone sniped the brothers.
“What do you think?” I ask Adam after I explain what I think happened. He nods in agreement.
“Somebody murdered them, and they did an amazing job. I can’t find anything.”
We are dealing with a professional, and a good one.
Even though some individuals may call themselves “assassins,” they are not; they lack the sophistication and the ability to wait for a job before executing it perfectly. Not this one, this one is really fucking good.
“What are we going to do?” Adam inquires.
“We are going to go downstairs and pretend like we just stepped into this scene and let them handle the rest with the police.”
“Affirmative.”
***
After we informed the authorities, the father of the two dead cunts came and did damage control.
He offered us to use the building at a discounted price, not even caring that his sons were gunned down.
Is being a shitty dad something that’s common in business?
I couldn’t care less if somebody got assassinated, I got a building out of it.
I told the shitty dad to contact our lawyers. Money well fucking spent.
We are in the car and talking about what we are going to do tonight.
“I’m going to chill out with Sara, if you know what I mean.” Adam is probably going to do freaky stuff with Sara, and I want to block that image.
“Adam, I don’t need to know that.”
“Liar. Anyways, how was your date with Lana?” Now that, I like to talk about.
“It was the best night of my life. I wanted her to accompany me to the wedding I’m going to tonight, but she is actually working the event.”
“I admire her work ethic.”
“You and me both, Adam.”
“Where is she now?”
“She is out doing errands for her dick-ass boss.”
“What kind of fucking errands?”
“Picking up his fucking laundry, products for the restaurant, and so on.”
“Why?” I love how mad Adam is getting.
“Because he doesn’t want to pay for a service and because he is a fucking asshole. I told her to stop working for him.”
“I would cut off his hands.” It’s a reasonable response. Her boss shouldn’t be asking her to do menial stuff, and he shouldn’t be feeling her up.
“I know, but she needs that job.”
“Give her money, asshole. You have lots of it.” Again, a reasonable response. And maybe I should do it.
“I’ll talk to her about it. Fuck, I hate that I’m going to the wedding. I really don’t want to.”
“Who is getting married anyway?”
“A client who rents one of my properties in Sarajevo.” It’s mainly a courtesy because the guy is actually solid. I drop Adam off and am now heading to my primary residence to get ready for the event.
***
I’m wearing a suit that fits like a glove—black and tailored the way I like it, topped off with a dark gray tie. The cut does the talking, and the jacket hugs my shoulders, the shirt’s top buttons undone just enough to breathe, to tease. To tease my little hummingbird.
I get into my black Audi, and the engine revs as I hit the gas.
On my way to the wedding venue, I can’t help but think about what she is doing right now.
Time to find out.