Page 6 of Kiss of Death
Ethan wasn’t with them, but he wasn’t necessarily against them yet, either. The fact that he neither denied nor accepted the claim let the rest of the table know there was a possible relationship brewing between the two of them. It would make them wary because while Boris and Zhao had the money, Ethan had the heavier manpower that would come in handy if they all went to war.
Sofia slipped out of Otto’s hold and pushed her way past both him and Dom. She knocked on the door three times, and that had seemed to be the only sound in the room as Boris looked at Sofia’s back in rage. Otto saw him flex his hands and the rapid rise and fall of his chest like he was itching to shoot all of them where they stood.
As soon as Otto heard the door swing open, he turned and watched Sofia brush right past the guards like they weren’t there. Otto and Dom were hot on her heels, and while Otto tried to keep watch to make sure no one came at them with butcher knives, he quickly scanned the restaurant for the woman he saw earlier.
A part of him wanted to find her again, just so he could commit her face to memory and get her name. It was uncanny how much that woman and Ivy looked alike, and it didn’t sit well with Otto that she had come out of the same room he’d just been sitting in.
Was she a victim or was she a pawn? If she was Ivy’s sister, where did Ivy fit into all of this?
Otto pushed his thoughts to the back of his mind, needing to keep focused on getting out of Bocca Felice. He felt eyes on him, and his body tensed waiting for the other shoe to drop.
The meeting had gone a lot smoother than he anticipated. He still couldn’t believe they were being allowed to walk out of there not riddled with bullet holes after Sofia all but told them she wasn’t going to follow their rules. She pushed open the doors to the restaurant, and he braced himself to be greeted by something other than the crisp fall air.
“That went smoother than I expected.” Otto murmured as they made their way toward their cars. “How bad do you think they’re going to retaliate?” he questioned, knowing bodies were going to be dropping soon enough.
“Bad enough that we’re going to take your car back and not ours.” Sofia laughed like it was more of a joke than a life-or-death situation. “Boris is over in Sheepshead, right?”
Dom spoke up.“Yeah, he’s actually pretty close to Tres. You want me to hit up Nico and Bebo and see how quick they can get product into that part of Brooklyn?”
Sofia nodded. “I’d rather not wait for him to hit us. I have a feeling he’s going to want to bury us—well, you guys—me he’s going to want me alive as long as possible so he can kill me slowly or sell me. I have a funny feeling he was either a buyer or the one who was running the women through Tres. Especially since Otto’s little girlfriend came out of that room—it was odd for her to even be there and not have been removed before we got here.”
She stopped walking and turned toward Otto. “It’s almost like she was there on purpose. I wonder why though.”
Otto stopped alongside her, wondering how Sofia’s mind seemed to work faster than the rest of the world. It was like she could see things that had yet to come to fruition. Otto had the same thoughts as Sofia, but only because he had met Ivy already. Hearing Sofia say out loud what was running through his mind made him wonder if Ivy was in Tres for a reason other than making a quick buck.
Otto cleared his throat. “I’m not sure about the woman, but if Boris is the one behind the sex trafficking, it would make a lot of sense. Bruno used to tell me to let the guy have whatever he wanted when he would come in on Thursday nights. It was getting hard to find girls to entertain him without a huge price incentive.”
Sofia nodded. “His eyes are familiar. I’ve dealt with eyes like his before in Columbia. It was always men like him who challenged my rule. Men who only see women as property. Something to fuck and abuse at their will.”
“And what happened to them?” Otto asked even though he knew the answer; she didn’t make it to the top in Columbia by playing nice.
Her eyes took on a faraway look like she was reliving a past she’d almost forgotten about. It was the first time Otto had seen any emotion filter through her gaze that wasn’t anger or love when she was looking at Dom. It was now that her mask truly fell that Otto saw her. He knew once upon a time she was just a kid caught in the wars her father was constantly in. She had a past, like they all did, but Sofia had come from two parents who loved her. Her father probably never wanted this life for her and hadn’t prepared her the way Columbia had.
“The thing about this life.” She spoke so low Otto had to lean in a little to hear her. He wasn’t even sure she was still speaking to him with the way she seemed to look past him. “You’re either bred for it or you have to adapt to it, and the only real benefit about adapting to this is your need for survival is higher. You can’t afford to be complacent, and you’ll do anything to make sure you’re the only one still standing when it’s all said and done.”
Otto leaned back, and he could have sworn her eyes were watery, like she was fighting back tears. He watched Dom come up on her left and grab her wrist, and she fell right back into the woman he’d met at Tres a month ago. Her eyes were dead, no life in them like there had been moments ago.
“Let’s head back to Tres so we can call Nico and Bebo and Wolf to see how we’re doing with the casino renovations.”
Dom and Sofia walked ahead of him like nothing happened. It was over so quickly, Otto thought he might have imagined it. He had no clue what brought on the tears, but it made Otto look at her a little differently. He thought for sure her capacity to feel anything only extended to Dom and maybe it did.
Or maybe the Ice Whore, as they called her, wasn’t so frigid after all.
IVY SWALLOWED PAST THE NERVOUSlump in her throat. She wanted to brush Smoke’s question off—to laugh at it even, just to prove that she had no reaction to Otto, but she remembered he’d been there when she took the stage for her practice round. Smoke and Gia had a front row seat to the silent foreplay between her and Otto, which only intensified when they were finally introduced.
She couldn’t deny how attractive he was with his tall build and dark eyes and a beard she wanted to feel brush up against her inner thighs. She enjoyed the way his palm swallowed hers when he took her hand in his, and she loved the deep timber of his voice when he spoke; it reminded her of a time when sex had been used as enjoyment instead of pain.
The man had “delicious sin” written all over his quiet demeanor. There was a part of her—the one that wasn’t weighed down by the need to escape this city with her baby sister—that wanted to spend a few nights with him just to see what type of beast lurked beneath his skin. She wondered what pleasures he’d be able to reintroduce to her after years of being someone’s property.
Smoke stepped farther into her space, catching her off guard, he grabbed her chin and forced her gaze to his. His hands were as cold to the touch as his eyes had just become, and she shivered. She had no clue what Smoke was about, aside from the cut he wore and the way he seemed to hang around Gia. He didn’t seem dangerous, but neither had her ex, and the only reason she was in this shitty situation was because of him.
He smiled at her and it was all venom, like he enjoyed her being scared, which managed to piss her off. She was so tired of men in her life constantly trying to intimidate her and keep her scared beneath their thumb.
She tried to jerk herself free and brought her knee up to connect with his balls. He deflected her attempts to get away like she was no more than a playful kitten. “Easy there, spitfire. I’m not trying to hurt you. I just need to look at you in case you try to lie with that pretty little mouth of yours. Why are you working at Tres?”
His question caught her off guard. “What?” She wondered if she heard him correctly. Didn’t he just ask her about Otto? Why did he want to know about her picking Tres as a place of employment?
“You heard me, spitfire. Why are you here?”
