Page 15 of Kiss of Death
Smoke shrugged. “Haven’t checked the body yet.” He turned his attention to Gia. “Did Carter say anything when I handed you the phone?” Smoke had been too preoccupied with keeping Gia safe to hear what his pres was telling him.
“They found a body at Wolf’s.” She leaned in closer to Smoke like she was seeking out his strength to keep her steady. “It was a female employee...beaten to death.”
Otto and Smoke both cursed, knowing this was the start to the war Sofia said was coming. It was an interesting tactic that left Smoke with a few questions.
“Were the bodies found inside Wolf’s and Nico’s spot?”
“No, Dom said the body was…” Otto’s words died on his tongue as he put the pieces to the puzzle Smoke just connected, together. There was a wolf in sheep’s clothing at Tres.
A loud gasp brought their attention to the front of the club. “Oh my god. Is she…?” Ivy stood closer to the door with her hand covering her mouth. Her eyes bounced between the body on stage and Otto.
From Smoke’s stance, she didn’t appear as shocked as she sounded. It was almost like she was unfazed by death, and it made Smoke’s earlier assessment of her a little more accurate.
Smoke pressed his lips together, making a mental note to have his guy run the background check on all the employees again, especially Ivy. Something wasn’t right with her, and he was convinced more than ever, especially with her reaction to the body in Tres, that she was hiding something. He wanted to figure out what it was before Otto really started fucking with her and brought her into the Council like a Trojan horse and then they were all fucked.
IVY SAT DOWN ON ONEof the bar stools. Her entire body shook, and she was hit with a sudden exhaustion. It wasn’t so much that the dead body—Smoke had confirmed the woman was dead—that had shaken her.
She had become numb to it over the years with the number of women who had been raped and sodomized to the point that their bodies had no choice but to give out. She couldn’t even remember when it happened either. One day she shed tears for women she barely knew, and the next she just shrugged it off, thinking they were the lucky ones—they were finally free.
Otto’s hands squeezed her arms, and she felt his warmth through the fabric of her sweatshirt. He’d been talking to her, but she didn’t hear any of it. Her gazed bounced between the woman’s body and Smoke who hadn’t taken his eyes off of her since she walked in. She could see it in his gaze; he didn’t trust her. He probably thought she had something to do with this, and he wouldn’t be wrong.
Directly or indirectly, Ivy was responsible for the death that surrounded her. The bodies that fell here—because she knew this wouldn’t be the last of it—were because she was nothing more than a puppet on strings put in place to get a desired result.
“Hey, you okay?” Otto asked for the third time. Her gaze seemed to be latched onto Desiree’s lifeless form on the stage.
It wasn’t lost on him that it was the same woman Smoke took home last night, and his thoughts quickly went to a different scenario walking into Tres tonight—that could have been Ivy’s body they found instead. It hit him with a weird sense of urgency that he was going to lose her before he could come to terms with wanting her. What he was feeling for her hit him hard and fast. He wanted this to be nothing more than a case of insane lust, and if he was hopeful, maybe that’s all it would be, but looking into her eyes, he felt a pull in his chest that told him this had the potential for something else.
Otto tried to jar her from whatever trance she was in. “Hey, you don’t have to stay here” He wondered if this was the first time she had ever been this close to a dead body. “Ivy,” he tried again with a tight squeeze of her shoulder.
She jumped and focused on him. “I’m sorry, what was that?” she murmured.
“I can take you home, you don’t need to be here.”
“Are you closing the club?”
Otto shook his head. It was too late. The rest of the workers were going to start trickling in soon, and Sofia told them not to report the bodies to the police if they could help it. She didn’t want any law enforcement breathing down their necks and shutting the establishments down, knowing they were going to drag their feet on an investigation.
“What—what are you going to do with her?” She nodded her head toward Smoke who had wrapped Desiree in a plastic tarp Gia had gotten for him and scooped her up like she was nothing more than trash he had to take out. He climbed off the stage and headed toward the back exit.
Otto had no clue what he was going to do with her, but he wasn’t too keen on Gia being the Bonnie to his Clyde in this. She had gotten her hands dirty enough times. He didn’t want her to keep adding to it; shit like that wears on the soul.
“Don’t worry about that. Do you want me to take you home? You don’t have to work tonight.”
She hopped off the bar stool and shook her head. “It’s fine. I can work.” She walked past him, her eyes glued to the stage. “Um,” she started nervously. “You guys are going to clean the stage before we start right?” Otto nodded. “Okay, good. I can work.”
Otto watched her head toward the locker rooms, and he quickly called a cleaning service to get into Tres as soon as possible. He wanted all traces of the blood and the death that lingered in the air gone.
As soon as Otto hung up, Smoke came back into Tres with Gia on his heels. “How is she?” Gia asked. He looked his sister over, noticing how stoic and unfazed by this she seemed. He remembered a time when she was affected by everything she witnessed, especially at Tres. It was almost as if with Sofia taking over, she learned how to be hardened by this life, and Otto wasn’t sure if he was okay with that or not.
“She’s a bit shaken up. Seeing a dead body up close could do that to a person. I got the cleaners coming. What did Sofia tell you to do with the body?” Otto knew Desiree was one of the few in here who didn’t have family—at least, none she was willing to talk to. As far as Otto knew, they considered her dead already, and as callous as it sounded, no one was going to miss her, so there was no need to notify anybody.
Smoke waved his hand. “Don’t worry about that. We need to see your security cameras. I dropped shorty off at her apartment after you left with Ivy.” He grabbed the back of his neck, and his gaze shot to Gia before he continued. “I watched her walk inside her apartment, and she wasn’t scheduled to work today, so it wasn’t like she was coming in early.”
Desiree’s was the only body that had been found inside the establishments owned by Sofia. The dead bodies at Wolf’s and Smoke and Mirrors had been dumped out front for anyone to see. As far as security footage showed at those places, the most they’d come up with was a car model and the size of whoever dumped the bodies. At Tres someone had to have been let in, and Desiree didn’t have the security codes; only a handful of the employees had them and a copy of the key. Whoever broke in would have to have broken a lock or a window or known the codes to the doors to get in.
Otto nodded toward the office above them. “Upstairs in the office. Though, I have a pretty good idea who was behind this.” He at least thought he knew who made the call to kill the women. This wasn’t so much Bruno’s M.O., but from what Otto had pieced together about Boris, this seemed more up his alley. Otto knew more bodies were going to drop before this was all over.
He also came to the startling realization that someone in Tres was still working for Bruno. It was the only way anyone could have gotten in without tripping any of the alarms.
