Chapter Eight
Joey
I made my way to the kitchen while Victoria headed for her room. Craig and Leighton were nowhere in sight, but three plates of food were sitting on the counter. Moving to pour myself a cup of coffee, I stood at the counter sipping it as I ate my breakfast. By the time I'd finished, I caught sight of Az wearing a grin and looking like the cat that ate the canary as he headed toward the nook where Rich was. I gave it a few beats before realizing Victoria wasn't making an appearance. Grabbing another cup of coffee and one of the remaining plates, I headed toward her door, fully expecting to find her splayed out on the bed in a state of satisfied bliss.
" Orgasms are for good girls. " Her voice carried to me mockingly as I gently pushed open her door. "What a fucking Az-hole. I should show him and fuck everyone else while he has to watch. Dick. An Az-less orgy would serve him right."
"Well, I volunteer as tribute," I said with a chuckle as I watched her stomp around the room. This wasn't the state I expected to find her in, but it was entertaining.
Her head whipped toward me before her eyes narrowed on the food and cup in my hands. "You brought food. You're a God, I swear." She smiled, sauntering toward me to take them from my hands.
I beamed at her and stepped into the room. "I just pay attention, Sweetheart," I said as I closed the door.
She sipped her coffee and moaned in satisfaction before setting the plate and cup on an empty nightstand. "I recall owing you a reward."
"I'm not turning you down, but you should eat before it gets cold."
"Meh, it's already cold." She shrugged, moving in front of me and dropping to her knees.
I felt my stomach muscles tense in anticipation as the look on her face went straight to my cock. I took a deep breath to steady myself and brushed an errant curl away from her face.
"You don't have to do this right now, Pet…" My voice trailed off as her fingertips brushed against my stomach when she reached for my belt. "But I will say, you look so pretty in this position."
"When do I do anything I don't want to do? Now hush and let me give you your reward for being a good boy ."
I couldn't help the smirk that crossed my face at the praise she gave. It would have been off-putting with anyone else, but I with her couldn't think it was anything but adorable. She batted her eyelashes at me with a little smile that said she knew she was toeing the line. I gathered a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back to look up at me.
"I'll let you have that one… this time." I said, my voice dropping low as my need built.
She looked up at me through her lashes, her tongue flitting out to wet her lips as her hands reached for my belt again. She was undoing the buckle when the door opened behind me, causing me to glance over my shoulder.
"Well, don't stop on my account." Leighton grinned, leaning against the door frame.
"Oh, for fuck's sake." Victoria groaned, throwing her hands in the air. "Does nobody knock anymore. Jesus fucking Christ."
"You can keep going. I don't mind." Leighton replied as she angrily stood, shooting him a glare over my shoulder.
"And you can drop fucking dead. A girl can't get any peace with you five."
"Hey-" I started.
"Nah, I don't think I'm gonna drop anytime soon, ma petit démone , not even for you." Leighton shot back before giving me his full attention. "I need a sec, Joey. Leave the hellcat here so we can talk."
Leighton shoved off the door frame and strolled away, only the slight tense of his shoulders giving away that he'd taken Victoria's words harder than he'd let on. I stepped away from her, adjusting my belt, and gave her a stern look.
"That was uncalled for, Victoria." I said flatly. "Drop dead, really?"
She blinked her surprise a few times before narrowing her eyes at me.
"He did me wrong, Joseph , and you know it." She snapped, her tone vicious.
"And I know that, I'm not taking that away from you." I responded, softening my voice. "And since then, he's saved your life more than once and has been working just as hard as the rest of us to figure out what's happening to you. He did wrong, but Leighton's…. Well, he's trying. You gotta give him the space to try."
"I know," she sighed, her shoulders slumping forward. "But that doesn't make it easy. You guys keep telling me he's different, that he doesn't know how to apologize like a normal person, but that doesn't mean my mind can automatically reconcile the way he did me with his fucked-up versions of apologies. It shouldn't be this hard for him to just say the words ‘I'm sorry' and mean them."
I stepped close to her, tilting her chin up so I could look her in the eye. The fire was gone and had been replaced by shifting and conflicting emotions. I brushed a thumb across her cheek and kissed her briefly before stepping toward the door.
"I know, Sweetheart. Have some patience, he'll get there."
"Yeah, yeah. Fuck you for being right. Now go do whatever gangster shit he needed you for. I need to reheat my food." she said, waving me off.
I gave her a wry smile and left her to feed herself. I turned and saw the guys gathered around Rich's nook and made my way to them. Leighton was reclining on the pullout next to Rich, smiling like nothing was amiss, even though I hadn't missed the tension in his frame when Victoria had lashed out at him. Deciding that was an issue for another time, I turned to Az.
"Just so everyone is aware, Az is responsible for the Princess's shitty attitude today. Apparently 'orgasms are for good girls.'" I announced, making finger quotes in the air.
Az smirked and shrugged. "I'm not wrong."
"Well, if this isn't the math mathing." Leighton spoke contemplatively. "We really need to work out a schedule, so I know when you're gonna be an Az-hole and piss her off."
Craig cleared his throat just as Az opened his mouth to retort. "Can we get down to business. We need to discuss this before she decides to come out of her room so Joey can fill her in on what to expect."
I moved to one of the empty folding chairs one of them had clearly gathered around Rich and sat, motioning for them to proceed. Craig went over everything he and Leighton had uncovered in a hurried whisper, but my attention kept being drawn to my brother. Rich was clearly out of it, his eyes glazed as he leaned back against the pillows that propped him up.
"You paying attention, Joey?" Craig asked.
"Yeah, just wondering if Rich is gonna keel over on us or not." I mumbled.
"I'm fine." Rich replied gruffly, causing me to arch a brow at him.
"As I was saying," Craig continued. "You need to break it to Bunny that we have her best friend on video breaking into the club and referring to her as a honey and a suspicious email from the man she considers her uncle. We don't want her blindsided by this, especially not in her current mood."
My eyes flicked to Az; he was holding the print off of Tiffany's face, glaring at it as if it would be enough to make her drop dead on the spot.
"After that dinner she brought a Devil to, I'm not surprised she's making moves with us gone." He spoke. "We should call Phil to bring her in and question her."
"As much as I'd love to play with Bitch Barbie, you sure that's the right call right now?" Leighton asked.
"I'm as surprised as anyone about the fact that I agree with L here," Craig said. "Despite the fact that we came out on top, the last showdown was…" he trailed off, gesturing to everyone but me, "rough on all of us."
"I'm fresh out of machetes at this point, too." L shrugged.
"No, you're not, and we all know it." Az said matter-of-factly.
Leighton clutched his chest with a dramatic gasp. "How dare you insult my honor!" He chortled.
" Anyway …" Az said, rolling his eyes. He looked down at the picture of Tiffany and considered it for a moment. "You're right; we need to play smarter this time. I'll need one of Leighton's burners to contact Phil. We'll put a tail on them for now."
"Oh. My. God. Did the Az-hole just admit that someone else is right?" Victoria said, causing us all to turn and look at her.
Az rolled his eyes before nodding at me to take Victoria aside. Standing from my chair, I moved to take her by the arm and gently led her to the front porch.
She looked at me with concern as I shut the door behind us, shifting uneasily.
"Joey, what's happened?" Her voice shook slightly, her doe eyes taking in my face. I sighed and scrubbed a hand across the back of my neck.
"We found some evidence…" I trailed off, not knowing how to put it to her gently.
"Just tell me."
"It's not quite a smoking gun, but it doesn't look good, so we wanted to prepare you for it before we laid everything out." I took a steadying breath before continuing. "We have some evidence to suggest that Tiffany and Theodore may be involved in what's been going on with the Jackals and possibly what happened with Rinaldo." I finished, making sure to stay deathly still in the event she wanted to lash out.
"That… that can't be right." She frowned. "Tiff and Uncle Theo wouldn't…."
"You'd be surprised what people can and will do Sweetheart," I replied gently. "I think the only way you're going to be able to wrap your head around this is to see what we found for yourself."
Victoria squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Show me."
When I led her back inside, the others had already set up in the den. Craig was standing by the television with a sympathetic look on his face. Az and Leighton stood off to the side, wearing shockingly similar expressions to Craig's.
"Rich nod back off?" I asked as I guided Victoria to the couch.
"Yeah," Craig replied. "She ready for this?"
"No, but I suppose it's better to rip the Band-Aid off than sit here wondering why you five think my best friend and uncle are out to get me." She answered somewhat sullenly.
Craig shot her a look of understanding before moving to play the footage from the club. I didn't have to look to know that all four of us were studying Victoria closely, monitoring her for her reaction. She remained surprisingly stoic, her back straight and expression blank, as Tiffany's break-in played out on screen. I cringed on her behalf when Tiffany called her a 'honey,' instantly regretting not explaining the term before we'd come back inside.
"Is that it?" Victoria asked as the screen went black.
"There's more," Az replied, moving to hand her the printed emails.
She read them silently, her eyes flying across the page as she flipped through them. When she'd finished reading, she carefully sat them on the couch beside her and turned to look at us.
"I take it ' honey ' means something I'm missing here." She said, in a tone so matter of fact I was sure we'd broken her. "And it's clear that Tiffany is involved with something , but the only thing that seems like evidence of something nefarious is Uncle Theo promising Rinaldo a gift. The foundation doesn't do gifts."
"A honey is a woman being trafficked." Leighton spoke, biting the bullet for all of us. "Your friend Barbie is involved with known Golden Devils and attended some sort of trafficking exchange with the Jackals. I'd say that is pretty nefarious."
The room stilled, waiting to see what Victoria would do with Leighton's information. Tension rolled off her frame in waves, but she stayed still. Leighton looked like he was preparing to defend himself from an attack. For the first time I could remember, he didn't seem like he was going to enjoy the confrontation.
"I know this all looks bad, but Tiffany is involved with Georgialynn, who's entire life's work is outreach to impoverished and battered women. Those two things don't really mesh." Victoria said finally.
The four of us exchanged a loaded glance, wondering if we should break it to Victoria who Georgialynn really was. Before we could decide, Leighton spoke up.
"Georgialynn is a gangster." He deadpanned. "She's a Golden Devil through and through. Friendship tattoo and everything."
"We saw it at the dinner," I said in a rush before she could respond. "It was definitely the Devil's Mark. Though, they aren't generally associated with trafficking, it's true–"
"The only things we know for sure about the Golden Devils is that they have their hands in a lot of things, and they play everything close to the vest." Az cut in. "There are still some inconsistencies, but the point is that this doesn't look good."
Victoria sighed heavily, scrubbing her hands over her face. "It's been nothing but inconsistencies since the Gala fire. None of this makes any sense to me. If Tiffany is a Devil, trafficking women, how does Uncle Theo play into this? His email is strange, but it's not exactly damning evidence either."
"For this to make sense, you'll need a little bit of context." Craig spoke up, stepping back toward the entertainment center. "We… uh… While…"
"While I was rotting in jail, we had an associate tailing you when we thought you were responsible, and he brought us this," Az said shortly.
"Don't worry, it wasn't the kinky kind of stalking. He didn't steal your panties or anything." Leighton snickered before releasing a sad sigh. "I miss Gary."
"Who's Gary?" Victoria asked.
"He's dead. And you didn't even know him, L." Az responded.
"When a man gives you his hand, you take it!"
"He didn't give us his hand." Craig sighed, pulling up another video. "The Jackals sent it to us after they killed him."
"Semantics. Now roll the tape." Leighton snapped his fingers into finger guns and plopped onto the loveseat.
I couldn't help the smirk on my face at the brevity, but it only took a look at Victoria's tense control over her expression to be a sobering reminder that this was heavy for her. The video started, and he tried to fast-forward to the relevant part, but when she saw herself on the screen, she called for him to just let it play.
He looked at her cautiously before backing it up and letting the cut-together video play in its entirety. Her conversing with Lenny Moretti at the Gala before the fire broke out, the slides of photographs with her surrounded by Jackals' members. And finally, the video of the Jackals' street thug, whom Leighton called Sanso, whining about having to take a beating for one of the kidnapping attempts they were going to make on Victoria and pin on Craig.
None of us really paid attention to the video as it played; we were watching her take in the evidence that had led us to her doorstep in the first place. We pointed out the members of the Jackals as it played when it was relevant, but otherwise, the room was silent.
"Well… that definitely explains some things as to why you were all so convinced I was a criminal mastermind. But… how does this relate to Uncle Theo?" she asked as the video concluded.
"The conversation between Sanso and the Jackal we couldn't name happened about a week before Theo sent his email to Rinaldo about having a gift for him." Craig answered, switching the television off.
"Right. But the original kidnapping attempt was at the Gala during the fire. This was all after that–"
"And there was the attempt outside the shop, and one at the fight, and we can probably assume the shootout at the club was one, and the one at the house," Leighton counted off the various kidnapping attempts on his fingers, as he lounged casually on the loveseat. "And we can't forget the big showdown where the manor went boom."
"The manor wouldn't have ‘gone boom' if you hadn't thrown a grenade indoors ." Victoria snapped and raised a hand to cut Leighton off when he started to say something. "But point taken. There's been several attempts. But, again, those don't point to Theo without some heavy mental gymnastics."
"It's one thing to not understand, Princess, it's another to be willfully ignorant." Rich's voice came from behind us, gruff and tired. We all turned to find him leaning heavily on his cane for support. He looked frustrated and pained as he leveled a grave look at Victoria. "All of this circles back around to you being offered as a gift to Rinaldo and an expected delivery time. Just because we've thwarted all their attempts and they've had to keep trying doesn't mean that they didn't expect to deliver you each time. And Theodore was promising a gift that the foundation doesn't give. We can only assume, at this point, that gift was you."