Hannah shriveled back at my tone, eyes wide, shaking her head. “No—not the fire. She didn’t run out with everybody else. They took her with them.”
My teeth clamped down on my lip, hard. The metallic taste of blood made me realize and let it go.
I nodded to myself and took a deep breath so I could speak calmly. “Ok, thank you Hannah. Do you know where Carlos is?”
“He left in an ambulance. The Triev guys did a number on him, and a few of the guys had to help him out.”
Mel was another of the top girls in the club. A petite frame and a sweet, angelic face. She had a lovely singing voice.
In my house, I sat at the bar, without the lights on, thinking. About the strip club, about Mel, about the Trievs.
It was as if they were determined to get under everybody’s skin.
My dad called, and in less than an hour, I was walking into his office, stopping in my tracks because of his expression.
“Something about the Triev?” I asked, casting a suspicious eye on the package sitting on top of the coffee table. The news about the club was still cooking inside me. I hadn’t told him yet. I thought I could keep it until tomorrow when the wound wouldn’t be as fresh.
My father nodded, the death stare on his face rigid as he gestured for the package. “There’s a note too,” he pointed at a folded birthday card lying on the edge of his desk. “This is getting out of hand now. They’ve become too aggressive.”
I didn’t flinch when I got closer to investigate the package.
Blood, bone, sinews. Beautifully platinum blonde hair matted, ratty, and stained with blood and shards of bones.
It was Mel.
In the card was a warning.
No, it was a threat.
“I’ll have this disposed of,” I said solemnly, kissing my father on the side of his temple and reaching for the office phone.
This was the very last straw.
Chapter 11 - Alessandro
“It’s gotten out of hand now,” Frankie said with a scowl on his face, as if nobody could tell by watching a reporting channel or reading a fucking newspaper. The situation with the Trievs was well beyond “out of hand”. “The Calientes, Marnovzs, Viskovas. Yesterday, they planted a bomb in one of Yuri Petrenko’s strip clubs. They’re like wild dogs!”
Dom was relaxed on the couch, legs widely apart, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world, like all of this was of no interest. “Well, all that isn’t technically all that bad for us. They’re all high-standing mafia families that aren’t allies…kind of sounds like a not-our-problem type of thing.”
Despite his words, he wasn’t drinking, hadn’t even looked at the fridge since he got here, and had been toying with his flick knife. Both my brothers were deeply bothered by the matter. It didn’t take much to get Dom pissed. But it took a lot, a whole fucking lot, to get him anxious about anything.
Frankie let out an exasperated sigh. “That’s not the point, Dom.”
“Yes, I know, but still….”
“They’re trying to start something,” I said finally, drawing myself out of the sea of thoughts I’d almost drowned in just moments ago.
Since Katya had run off at lunch yesterday, I hadn’t been able to think about much else. Then, I heard the news about Nebesa, and I’d almost grabbed the keys to my car and gone to her house to see if she was okay.
But that wouldn’t have gone well. I knew enough about her to know that she was not somebody that needed a hug at times like this.
She’d be pissed off and out looking for blood. Even worse, she had it in her to go find it too.
Since the stunt with the first property, she had tried to take from under my nose, I’d had Katya’s number saved on my phone.
I had debated all night about calling her, just to hear her voice so I could finally fucking relax. In fact, even up until this meeting, my fingers had been itching.
We’d never talked on the phone before. I didn’t want her mixed up in all this.