Page 8 of Dimitri
“Because I was hosting a surprise baby shower for her. I had no clue there were men there waiting for her. You didn’t even see them when you walked her to the door.” Her words are breathy and weak, strangled by the fierce clutch I have on her neck. I’m not just furious at her, I’m angry at myself. I glanced away for barely a second, andpoof, Audrey was gone. “I would have never hurt her, Dimitri. She was my best friend… myonlyfriend.”
I don’t want to believe her. I want to hang her out to dry as I’ve desired many times over the past nine months, but there’s too much truth in her eyes for me to ignore. Women like India and Audrey don’t make friends. They’re ridiculed for their beauty like they should be punished God gifted them with enticing features, and we won’t mention the fact they’re foreigners living in a country known for its disrespect of women. In my motherland, women are treated like goddesses. It’s one of the reasons my father rarely visits Italy.
After a few big breaths, I weaken my grip on India’s throat. Once I’ve worked my anger down a few notches, I sink back to my side of the bench seat before straightening the disheveled collar of my trench coat.
My clothes are drenched through, but you wouldn’t know it from the fiery heat teeming out of me. It’s so blistering hot, I’m confident I’ll be bone-dry in seconds.
Certain I’ve got everything in order, I stray my eyes to Smith’s side of the cabin. “Once you cleared the footage, commence implementing the ruse we discussed last week. Any chatter regarding me moving on is to come directly through me.”
“Understood.” Smith gets straight to work like he’s already cleared away the footage of the unknown blonde getting fingered in the alleyway and was dying for another task. He likes to keep busy. “Do you want the compound included in the catchment zone?”
India doesn’t move her head, but I can feel her eyes on me when I dip my chin. “Word got out about my marriage. It was a guarded secret, so either someone in this car is a snitch, or we have eyes and ears in unknown locations.” It sucks to admit you can’t trust your own blood, but this isn’t the first time I’ve felt this way. Why do you think I kept my relationship with Audrey a secret?
“And tonight’s plans?” India asks, jumping back into the conversation like she wasn’t almost choked to within an inch of her life.
I don’t look at her. I can’t. If I do, I’ll want to finish what I started. “Will continue as planned.” While tapping out a quick message to my father, telling him we’ll be delayed a couple of minutes since I stopped for some lighthearted entertainment, I add, “While you convince Miceli your husband’s claims about you disliking oral sex are fraudulent, Clover, Smith, Rocco, and I will convince his crew they’d rather settle anywhere but Hopeton.”
By convince, I mean we’ll get heavy. New York was run by three separate entities of the Italian Cartel, however Hopeton most certainly isn’t.
Famiglia prima di tutto…until it isn’t.
Chapter Four
Dimitri
Ignoring my cracked and bleeding knuckles, I raise a recently printed photograph of my daughter off a dust-coated desk. Unlike last month’s shotty and blurred image, this one shows every inch of Fien’s chubby cheeks, toothy grin, and birthmark-blemished stomach with precise clearness.
The figure attached to her picture speaks a thousand words. My ruse is working. I’ve been requested to deposit one hundred fifty thousand dollars into a foreign account on the third of each month without fail the past nine months. This month’s demand only cites one hundred thousand dollars.
Her kidnappers didn’t lessen the amount of her ransom because her upkeep this month is less than the previous nine. They’ve lowered it because they’re worried I’m weeks from forgetting her. Why pay out of the eye to keep someone safe when you can replace them within months? It seems demoralizing and cruel to even consider, but it’s exactly the way men in my industry operate. They wouldn’t pay to keep their blood safe, especially if that blood has female hormones running through it.
My father loved my mother, yet, he profited from her death instead of mourning it. If he’d known how beneficial her death would have been, he would have put plans into play years earlier. Guaranteed.
My mother was killed during a joint FBI and CIA sting many years ago. Her death sparked controversy across the globe. The outrage ensured my father would never be prosecuted for his crimes. The uproar about the loss of an innocent was louder than the calls for my father to serve time. If he were put away, his many children would become wards of the state. No one wanted that, not even the men who had spent years hunting him.
Once the heat settled down, my father sued the state for an undisclosed record-setting amount. He won. My mother was a good woman. She was the only person capable of getting through to my father. Our family dynamic drastically changed when she was killed.
For years, I blamed authorities for the hell I was raised in. If the large, balding Russian standing in front of me hadn’t convinced me otherwise, I’d still be avenging her death. A bullet from an agent’s gun killed my mother, but that was only because my father pulled her in front of himself as a shield.
Why believe the Bureau over my own flesh and blood, you ask? Tobias had footage no amount of manipulation could alter. It was as gory and as terrifying as the video on a USB drive stored in my safe.
When I place Fien’s photograph on my desk, Tobias continues with the conversation we were holding before her ransom note arrived. “I have strong intel on a new Castro compound popping up in the New Mexico region. A crew was deployed there last week.”
“Where exactly in New Mexico?” The land there is rugged and spread out. I’m sure Smith would eventually unearth Rimi’s location since he can’t demand money without using some form of electronic communication, but I’d rather Tobias spell out the details for me. It will be quicker this way, although it could also be a heap bloodier.
Rimi isn’t keeping Fien in one location. He’s bouncing her around the country, constantly altering her location, so I can’t get a solid lead for longer than a day, two at most.
“I can’t tell you that.”
The stiffness of my jaw is heard in my reply. “Then what can you tell me?” Although I’m asking a question, I don’t wait for Tobias to respond. “Your department has been sitting on their hands for months. I’ve shared intel with you, trade fucking secrets, and what have I been given in return for it? Nothing. Not a single fucking thing.”
Tobias doesn’t rattle easily. “I placed men on your date to ensure she doesn’t get snared by the same trap as Audrey.”
I slouch low into my chair before making a teepee with my index fingers. Since my beard is thicker than I usually wear it, my jaw’s tick isn’t as obvious. “Don’t act like you did that for me, Tobias. Your wish to keep Justine out of harm’s way has nothing to do with me, and you know it.”
There it is, the brutal pulse a vein in his neck gets any time I’m on the money. I don’t know who fucked Tobias over, or how well he was fucked, but I guarantee you he doesn’t look at Justine with the same set of eyes as me. I doubt he even views her how her brothers do. He sees a person, not an asset.
“Whether it’s downright sinister or ingenuously brilliant, my plan is working. I received Fien’s proof of life earlier this month, and the ransom is lower. Rimi is growing worried, which means he’ll get sloppy.”
