Chapter Eight
Zahra
“It’s almost as if they stocked this place knowing I would come,” Dog said, taking the fresh beef out of the freezer. Milk helped herself to sliced vegetables while Upper and I sat at the kitchen table.
Dog dropped the meat on the table, slapping it almost sexually, before giving me a silly wink.
“You’re gross,” I told him.
“You love it.” He grinned.
“So according to my info, Dion has changed his bodyguards three times in the last two months,” Upper cut in, adjusting his glasses as he clicked open another window on his laptop screen—they must have searched our studio apartment because we were provided with all our gadgets the moment we returned from the meeting with Elio.
I jotted down that information. The only reason he changed his bodyguards was because of the three consecutive attempts that had been made on his life in the past four months.
His paranoia was probably responsible for why he changed his bodyguards. He trusted no one—not his mother, not his boss, not even his right-hand man. Getting to him might be hard.
“That’s suspicious,” Milk said as she gathered chopped vegetables into a bowl. “Intuition tells me he wasn’t just annoyed one of them had a mole on the face.”
Dog nodded. “They probably weren’t as guard-y as their resumes implied.”
“Or he just didn’t trust them,” I contributed, toying with the pen in my good hand.
“They made him feel unsafe,” Upper reasoned. “Can’t be a coincidence Marino wants intel on the Pablos now. Dion’s the weakest link, and Marino probably tried to take him out, hence the change in bodyguards? The why could possibly be a very bloody impending hostile takeover.”
My tongue poked the inside of my mouth, knowing the threats on his life had nothing to do with Marino.
“That or Marino is interested in the same reason we paid Dion a visit,” Milk said.
I halted my toying with the pen, my brows dropping. We had gotten a private mission months ago to find a painting, but after we got paid, the client disappeared, so we couldn’t get more information about the mission, and Dion’s lead was a dead end …
Dog frowned, shaking his head. “I doubt it. What the fuck would The Wicked want with some dumb painting of a chihuahua, and why would he kill for it? At least with Dion we know he’s a big lover of dogs, hence why our lead for the painting got him on our radar in the first place.”
“Marino doesn’t exactly scream ‘dog lover’ to me,” Upper said.
“So it’s gotta be something else then,” Milk concluded.
I blinked, coming out of my thoughts. “Who knows? It’s better not to get involved in their shit and just get the job done.”
“On a scale of one to ten, what are our chances of actually pulling this off?” Dog asked.
“A ten. It’s not the hardest job we’ve ever done,” I answered.
“But it’s the only job where we’d be seen for the first time,” Milk said.
“Disguise has never hurt anyone,” Upper responded, looking up from the laptop with a double take towards the front door. His brows drew down in a concerned frown, and I followed his gaze to find Devil walking towards us. His features were tight, frown hard, and knuckles … bruised.
Silence settled as he walked past Upper and me, and then around the kitchen counter to the fridge. Wordlessly, he opened it, grabbed a beer bottle, uncapped it with his teeth, and took a big gulp before he walked out of the kitchen without acknowledging any of us.
“Something’s up.” Milk’s voice came out in a whisper.
“Boy’s fuming,” Dog pointed out.
I got off the stool the same moment Upper did. “I’ll check—” we said simultaneously, and I paused, frowning in confusion at him.
Upper blinked before gingerly sitting back down, clearing his throat, and adjusting his glasses. “I was—I was only curious. You know me. Sticking my nose in everybody’s bloody business is my forte.”
“No, it’s not,” Milk stated.
He blinked again, unable to mask his fluster. “Well—I’m making it my bloody forte now.” He looked around the kitchen before his eyes settled on Milk. “Why … are you … wearing that pink shirt? Why didn’t you wear another bloody color? See, that’s me being in your bloody business—”
“Do you know you use the word bloody excessively whenever you’re trying to lie your way out of something you don’t want others knowing?” Dog said.
“I don’t bloody do that,” he responded, then blinked in a pause.
Dog’s lips thinned as he nodded. “We’ll pretend you didn’t just prove me right.”
“I’ll go check on him,” I said, ignoring Upper and his weirdness as I made my way to the room he shared with Devil.
The door was wide open, and he was sitting at the edge of his bed, head downcast, holding the beer bottle in a tight grip.
I knocked gently, and he raised his head, haunted eyes locking with mine. “I don’t wanna talk.”
I sighed. “It’s unfair to tell me that when you look like you want to spill your guts, Devil.”
He looked away, staring at the wall as if he were trying to burn a hole through it.
I walked into the room, sitting beside him, and letting out a shaky breath. “What happened?”
“Can’t talk about it.”
I shifted slightly. “Did he … make another bargain? Threaten us? If it’s about—”
“It’s not about you or Street. Just forget it; I can’t talk about it, Z.”
I was confused. What could they have talked about? What could Elio have said to Devil to get him in this mood?
Could it be …
“Wait—did he tell you shit about who you are? Because in that meeting, it seemed like they knew us—like they dug deep into our background and probably knew stuff we don’t even know about ourselves. Is that what this is about?”
He closed his eyes, letting out a slow, steady breath, almost like he was trying to calm himself. “No, Zahra.”
“Then what the hell happened? Why do you look like you’re stopping yourself from punching something?”
“Drop it, Z. I said I didn’t want to talk about it.” His voice was heavy yet cutting.
“You can’t expect me to just ignore—”
He turned sharply to me. “You know, just because we fuck from time to time doesn’t mean you get to push when I clearly don’t want to talk about something.”
I backed up at the bite in his voice, ignoring how his words poked the wrong nerve, before speaking again. “I care, Devil; that’s why I’m here.”
“Then don’t fucking care. I didn’t ask for it; we don’t have that kind of relationship, so what the fuck is this?”
His gaze searched mine, silently pleading for me to stop trying to get through to him, to turn around like I usually did. To pretend that I cared but not do anything about it because it would complicate things.
“Okay,” I said softly, getting to my feet.
His jaw clenched as he watched me with glassy eyes.
I brushed my hair away from my face. “When you feel better, join us for dinner; we’re looking over some details about Dion. Um … just—feel better because we need your head in the game.”
When he didn’t respond, I moved for the door, but his hand gripped my wrist, stopping me before I could walk past him. I turned to see him drop the beer bottle on the ground before pulling me to his lap. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for it to come out like that. I just—”
“I know—”
“No—it’s not as if I don’t want to talk about it … I do; I really fucking want to tell you everything, to tell someone—it’s just—he won’t let me. I’m not allowed to; I’ve never been allowed to.”
I was more confused but knew not to push it, so I just nodded and asked, “Is this thing—bad? Like, does it put you in any sort of danger?”
He shook his head. “No.” Then he chuckled sadly before releasing a sigh. “I think it’s the only reason we are still breathing.”
“Is it … personal?”
He squared his jaw before nodding.
“Does it answer why you somehow know every nook and cranny of this whole compound?”
He hesitated before nodding again.
“Did you punch him?” I asked.
“Several times, yes.”
I smiled sadly at him, wrapping my good arm around him in a hug. “Good,” I whispered, and he held me tighter. I buried my head in the crook of his neck, breathing him in.
He didn’t have to tell me. It was pretty obvious—either they were very close friends or … they were family.
There was only one way to confirm this, and it made me look forward to when it would be dark again.
“This won’t … complicate things, will it?… Between us?” he asked.
I chuckled, raising my head to meet his gaze, my knuckle coming to graze his cheek.
“I don’t know why we’re so scared of that.
I mean, I care about you, and you care about me.
This crew, we care about each other, and though we have other stuff going on, it shouldn’t stop us from showing support when any of us are in need of it. ”
He nodded.
I brushed his hair back. “I know how these things work, how feelings could get mixed up, how we could ruin our friendship … but I just don’t see it happening with us, do you?”
His lips curled in a smile. “No. You’re my best friend, Zahra. I don’t want to lose this too. Maybe that’s why I don’t want to blur the line. I need you.”
I leaned in to press a kiss to his lips, before brushing my thumb softly against the bottom one. “I’m here,” I whispered. “I’ll always be here for you. I might not know the right thing to say, but I can listen, and I can hold you, and you can cry if that’s what you want; I’d never tell anyone.”
“But then you’d have something to hold against me.”
I smiled. “I have to get you in line one way or another, Devil.”
His forehead rested on mine as he closed his eyes, breathed, and swallowed. “You already have me in line.”
Escaping the soldiers assigned to watch our building was the easy part. The hardest part was climbing up the stairs to the roof, where I had spotted Elio from Upper’s—unauthorized—access to the Marino security feeds.
Who in their right mind would build a place as high as this, without an elevator or even a fucking stair railing for people who have fucking anxiety!