Page 9 of Nemesync
“You were there that night, tied up next to another woman.”
What? I straighten, scrutinizing the man. Who is he? Why is he talking about that?
He chuckles very softly, almost reassuringly. “I won’t harm you. In fact, you’re important to me and some friends of mine.”
“Oh really? Who am I exactly to you and your friends? Because I can tell you that you’re not important to me, and I don’t even know you.”
He murmurs something to himself, hand in pocket, the other one scratching his beard. “He told me she was tough.”
“I am not deaf. You know a lot about me, and yet I don’t even know your name.”
He approaches, kisses the palm of my hand, and introduces himself, “Excuse my manners, Miss Dellé. Nikolai Moretti.”
Moretti? The Italian Cosa Nostra? The Zennites?
“Pleasure. So how can I help you? I think coming to talk to me in a cemetery, at this hour, after following me, while I was mourning at a grave isn’t very appropriate if you want to talk business. Usually, people address my father directly.”
“I certainly don’t want to talk to your father; I want to talk to you. You have something, a particularity, that could help us get answers and find people you’re also looking for,” he explains.
My heart tightens. Why would he want to find them?
“I would love to know more, but unfortunately, as I’ve mentioned, in this context, I’m not in the mood for business. I need to check up a bit on you before saying yes to anything, dear Nikolai.”
“And what if I proposed a meeting in a quieter place,” he suggests amused, “at a respectable hour and, above all, in a perhaps more relaxed atmosphere?”
Why not? To be honest, it’s just a meeting; and it’s the first time someone offered their help for my vendetta. Curiosity takes over. “Alright, I’ll leave you a number to contact?”
“No need, I already have it,” he says with a smirk. “Good evening, Dellé, and I’m sorry for your loss.”
He kisses my hand again and disappears into the darkness of the night.
What did he want? How could I help them, and why me?
Maybe this was a sign.
This was what I needed for revenge. If I had men to work with in these investigations, I wouldn’t have to worry about my safety.
Days had passed, and missions with my family had come and gone, but the man continued to watch me. Yesterday, during the announcement of the new Turkish leader, I saw him again.
But I had other preoccupations. Since the encounter with Nikolai, I’ve investigated him, asking my father’s contacts if they knew anything about him. I searched through my own files for pictures or any related information. All I found were some notes I had taken:
‘Moretti and Volkov, the two families took the lead in creating the most important and lethal alliance in the history of the underground industry. Bratva and Cosa Nostra became an entity on its own, The Zennites.’
Nikolai was one of the two Venom Reapers and leader of the Zennites. He didn’t fit the image I had in mind—younger but still terrifying.
He seemed sincere at the cemetery. If he had lied, I would have noticed. Moreover, he genuinely didn’t want to harm me that night, although he easily could have. There would have been no witnesses because dead people don’t speak.
What they were searching for and what I was looking for were the same answers to the same questions. The only problem was that I had to be very clever and attentive.
I was waiting for his call or message for more information. Curiosity was itching at me; I needed to know. And how did healready have my number? Too many questions lingered, never stopping troubling my mind.
As I readied myself, I overheard my father’s heated exchange on the phone. Drawing closer to his office, I caught his voice berating his right-hand man, Jad. “HOW THE HELL DID HE DISAPPEAR?”
“We don’t know, but his body was found yesterday, Emir.”
My father’s disbelief was clear. “What do you mean Luca Accardo’s body was found? I was with him in Troie less than a week ago.”
“We know. After your meeting, we never saw him again.”
