Roxanne (The Italian Cartel Book 2)

by Shandi Boyes

  “How? Why?” I shouldn’t sound as appalled as I do. I’m just stunned. Ravenshoe skirts Hopeton, and from the information Estelle and I have gathered the past six weeks, they’ve had a stronghold on that town for decades.

  Dimitri appreciates my disgust. “Don’t worry, I was as shocked as you.” He indicates to take a left before shifting his focus back to me. “I’ve considered a takeover a couple of times, but I can’t bring myself to do it.” The reasoning behind his decision makes sense when he adds, “Isaac threw himself into that town when Ophelia died. It’s his way of coping.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of his sister, but it’s the first time it came directly from the source.

  “Would he help?”

  “Isaac?” Dimitri asks through crimped lips.

  “Uh-huh.”

  His hair that’s a little overdue for a trim falls into his eyes when he shakes his head. “That bridge was burned a long time ago. Besides, we’re set to become enemies even more than we already are.”

  Now it’s my turn to be confused. “Why?”

  I wish he didn’t need to pause to consider if he can trust me, but I understand why he does. Trust doesn’t come easy for most people, much less the son of a Cartel hierarchy. “The man I was just visiting—”

  “Maddox.”

  Dimitri’s tightened jaw reveals he’s going to have a talk with Rocco about his waggling tongue the instant he returns to the compound. “Yes, Maddox advised a Russian sanction is endeavoring to set up shop in Ravenshoe.”

  “Shouldn’t that be Isaac’s problem?” I’m not being bitchy. I am genuinely curious.

  “If it were anyone but this man, I wouldn’t have an issue with it. Since that isn’t the case, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the proceedings.”

  Dimitri wets his lips when I ask, “Bad blood?”

  “It’s been stale for years but turned potent a couple of years back.” He doesn’t need to spell out the details for me. I know what happens when you steal from the Cartel. I saw it firsthand only a couple of months ago. “Have you ever heard of Katie Bryne?”

  The name freezes me for a couple of seconds. It’s a common name, but I swear I’ve heard it before.

  When the truth smacks into me, my jaw drops. “She was abducted a few years back, right?” I give myself a mental pat on the back when Dimitri lifts his chin, then almost vomit when past conversations smack into me. “She wasn’t abducted for the baby-farming trade, was she?”

  I gulp down a breath like I haven’t breathed the past three minutes when Dimitri shakes his head. “She was taken by Russians.” I nod, suddenly recalling that. The gossip spread through the local schools like wildfire, making it mighty uncomfortable for any foreign students with a Russian accent. “However, she was sold by my father years later to a Russian.”

  Oh. That can’t be good. Even a mafia novice could understand that this isn’t kosher.

  “Do you think Fien’s abduction has anything to do with Katie?”

  Dimitri’s pause this time around isn’t to contemplate what he’s going to tell me. He’s deliberating as to why he has never considered this angle before.

  My palms flatten on the roof of Dimitri’s recently-purchased ride when he yanks it off the road. Since his phone isn’t linked to the state-of-the-art Bluetooth system, he has to yank his cell phone out of his pocket to make a call. Usually, he conducts his calls in private, so you can imagine my pleasure when he hits the speaker button on his phone a mere second after dialing a frequently-called number.

  Smith answers a few seconds later. “What’s up?”

  “Did we ever find out what caused the delay between Katie’s abduction and her sale?” Dimitri’s question divulges he’s been looking into Katie’s case a little more than a standard case. Nowhere near as much effort as I’ve put into his family history, but still noticeable.

  Smith grunts before the whoosh of a headshake sounds out of Dimitri’s phone. “We figured it was training.”

  “What if it wasn’t? What if it was something more than that?” When Smith takes a moment to deliberate, Dimitri fills in the silence. “She was taken when she was fourteen. Underage or not, her training shouldn’t have taken as long as it did.”

  I don’t want to know what training he’s referencing, nor am I going to ask him about it. Sometimes it’s better to have your head stuck in the sand—kind of like mine was when news of my aunt’s death reached my ears.

  I thought Dimitri’s reluctance to let me attend the search of my family ranch was because he was being an ass. I had no clue it was because my mother told her drug counselor there was at least one corpse buried near the home where she grew up.

  Curious, I ask, “Could Katie have been placed into the baby-farming trade before being sold?”

  Dimitri shakes his head. “We had considered that, but Kirill only ever purchases virgins, and he doesn’t take anyone’s word for it, either.”

  I’m glad Dimitri pulled over to make his call. It saves the leather interior of his new ride being coated in my vomit.

  “Is she all right?” I hear Smith ask while Dimitri’s hand circles my back in a soothing motion. I told Estelle eggs aren’t supposed to smell fishy. She didn’t believe me.

  Dimitri’s eyes flick between me and the minute bit of vomit on the edge of the road surface for several long seconds before he mutters, “She will be.” After switching off the speaker feature on his phone, he squashes it against his ear. “Send Rocco to correspond with Megan’s release. I need you to share the information Maddox disclosed with Rico before looking more closely at Katie’s sale.” His eyes float to me before he says, “We’ll find Demi after I’ve ensured Roxanne has eaten.”

  “I’ve eaten,” I mumble, denying the accusation in his eyes with words. “Not a lot, but enough.” My last comment is barely a whisper, but Dimitri still hears them. His jaw stiffens a mere second before it works through a stern grind.

  He has no right to be angry. He dumped me in a house with groceries older than dirt, and his goons weren’t overly friendly when we suggested for them to get us supplies. They thought we were trying to play them. In reality, we were endeavoring not to starve to death.

  When I say that to Dimitri, his face reddens to the color of my favorite crayon when I was a kid—blistering red. “Send Clover extermination orders for Roxanne’s ranch.” He waits for panic to make itself known with my face before he adds, “Warn him if he so much as rustles a hair on Ms. Armstead’s head, the next rodent I exterminate will be him.”

  I don’t know whether to be turned on by his threat or spooked. I love that he’s protecting Estelle as fiercely as he protected me weeks ago, but not only is it after he put her life at risk, so it’s a little too late to act chivalrous, his reply exposes he knows Estelle’s last name. That can only mean one thing. He’s been looking into her past as much as he did mine at the start of our arrangement. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Estelle has always been the more attractive one of our duo. That’s why I bring the spunk. I thought it would even things between us. I’m not so confident now, though.

  I’m so deep in my pitiful thought process, I don’t realize Dimitri ended his call and recommenced our trip until he asks, “When was the last time you ate?”

  “Other than regurgitated slop I just threw up?” I relish his lowered lids for a second before putting him out of his misery. “I ate last night.” I cringe, hating my inability to lie. “If you class three in the afternoon as nighttime.”

  “You last ate yesterday afternoon?” When I nod, his eyes lock with the dashboard of his swanky new ride. “It’s now ten in the morning.” I can’t work out a single thing he says after this. It’s all grumbled and spaced by a heap of swear words. They make me smile until he says more clearly, “You won’t be smiling when I tan your ass for thinking this is funny.”

  Once again, I don’t know how to respond. Should I be turned on or scared by his threat?

  I lose the chanc
e to deliberate when Dimitri pulls into the first gas station he finds. It’s skanky, stinky, and looks like it hasn’t been updated since the nineties. “I’d rather drink water out of a toilet bowl than eat here.”

  Ignoring me, he throws open his door, clambers out, then locks his eyes with mine. Not a word seeps from his lips. He doesn’t need to voice his commands when his eyes can take up the slack. I either follow him inside willingly, or he’ll drag me in there and tie me to my seat.

  “Considering you released me from our contract…” I stop my climb out of his car to air quote my last word, “… you’re a little too possessive for my liking.”

  The brutal closure of my door should gobble up his reply. It doesn’t. I hear every painstaking word. “Uncaging a bird doesn’t mean you’re done with her. It can be quite the opposite, actually. What’s that saying? Set her free. If she comes back, she’s yours. If she doesn’t, she never was.”

  On that note, he enters the restaurant, leaving me standing in the dusty lot with my jaw hanging open and my heart in tatters.

  I thought he let me go to save me from the madness. I had no clue he did it to save himself from a lunacy not even someone as strong as him can survive.

  Twenty-Three

  Dimitri

  My hand stops creeping for my gun when Roxanne soundlessly begs for me not to respond to an insolent man’s overfriendly approach. Things have been different between us the past hour and a half—I fucked up by speaking before thinking—but one thing hasn’t changed. Roxanne’s ability to look a madman in the eyes and see the good in them.

  This beggar has been watching her from afar since we arrived. He doesn’t want the money I tossed at his feet, nor the scraps of our meals. He wants Roxanne to dance with him, knowing having her in his arms for a second will make up for a lifetime of injustices.

  I’d rather he fuck off, but Roxanne is refusing to let me send him away. She finds him endearing. Why? I have no fucking clue. He stinks, his clothes are four sizes too big, and his toes are peeking out of his shoes, yet Roxanne looks at him as if he’s a man who’s just a little down on his luck.

  My jaw almost cracks when Roxanne holds her index finger in the air. “One dance.”

  “Roxanne.”

  The gravelly deliverance of her name snaps her eyes to mine in an instant. Even though she’s panicked, she holds her ground. “It’s one dance.” I’m about to tell her I don’t give a fuck if he was going to pay her a million dollars for thirty seconds worth of work but lose the chance when her next comment stuns me as much as my earlier one did her. “If you let me go this one last time, I promise I’ll come back.”

  I’m too shocked to talk. This has never happened before. Usually, I go in guns blazing. I don’t want to do that this time around. So instead, I let her stretch her wings.

  With a smile that makes me regret every decision I’ve ever made, Roxanne mouths, “Thank you,” before she accepts the hand the man is holding out in offering.

  While he whizzes her around a shoddy restaurant, I watch them like a hawk, uncaring if I look like a deranged stalker. If his hands move within an inch of an area I deem unacceptable, the guests at this establishment will be eating mutton for the next six months.

  Disappointment is the first thing I feel when the man keeps his hands high on Roxanne’s back for their entire dance. His unusual gallantry stays with me long after I’ve bundled Roxanne back into my car and recommenced our trip. It played in my mind when I stopped for gas and lingered well into the three hours it took us to arrive at my cousin’s last known address. It only clears when the reason for the sparkle in his eyes finally dawns on me.

  “Who did he think you were?”

  Roxanne’s smiles compete with the low-hanging sun. “His daughter.”

  She adds a giggle to her grin when my lip furls. The man would have been well into his seventies, and I’m being kind considering most homeless people age quicker than their sheltered counterparts.

  “His head is a little muddled,” Roxanne explains when I pull into the driveway of a standard house in the middle of the burbs. “He still thinks he’s serving in Vietnam.”

  “You learned all that by looking in his eyes?”

  She shakes her head. “It was a little more complicated than that.” When I wave my hand through the air, encouraging her to reveal the secrets I see in her eyes, she says, “He had a squadron tattoo on his hand. The research I did for the one I saw at Joop revealed it was from a combat unit that was deployed to Vietnam in the early seventies. His boots, although holey, were from his infantry days, and although it was badly faded, the photograph he keeps safe in his bootstrap had the faintest red coloring on the edges. It could have been a dress, but I took a chance on it being the color of his daughter’s hair.” She twists to face me like it’s an everyday occurrence for a two-hundred-thousand-dollar car to be parked in the driveway of a house worth half the price. “How did you know he mistook me for someone?”

  Untrusting of my mouth not to make the mistake it did earlier, I hit her with a frisky wink before exiting a car that will be sold for parts by the end of the week. If you think Smith secured our ride the legitimate way, you still have a lot to learn about my operation.

  “Whose house is this?” Roxanne asks after joining me on the footpath. The confusion in her tone is understandable. Not only does she comprehend the reason for my silence, Demi is blood-related. You wouldn’t know it from how rundown and derelict her house is.

  This property has been in the Petrettis’ vault of arsenal for the past two decades. I’ve never seen it this derelict. The gutters are paint peeled and hanging on by a single screw, several roof shingles need replacing, and the outside looks like it hasn’t been touched with a paintbrush or a lawnmower in years.

  “Stay behind me.”

  Although peeved I didn’t answer her question, Roxanne does as instructed. The removal of my gun already has her on edge, much less the faintest creep of a shadow across the front living room window.

  “Demi…” We walk up the cracked, overgrown footpath slowly. The shadow was larger than Demi’s svelte frame, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t her. We’re not on good terms. The fact I let her boyfriend be put away for life means we haven’t spoken in over a year. “Ox sent me.”

  I feel Roxanne’s curiosity rising. The hand she’s gripping the waistband of my trouser with is very indicating, let alone the increase in her breaths. Although only a handful of people call Maddox ‘Ox,’ I’m confident Roxanne has heard of him before.

  Our cautious approach sends my nerves into a tailspin. I’m not used to taking things slow. Just like I fuck, I approach danger with the same fierceness—hard and fast. I can’t do that this time around. I put up an impressive capital to keep Roxanne safe, so you sure as hell can guarantee I won’t put her life on the line for anything.

  When my knock on Demi’s door goes unanswered, I scoop down to gather the pistol strapped to my ankle. Some may say I’m a fool to hand Roxanne a loaded weapon—things have been tense between us today—but I’d rather have her weaponed-up and ready to fire than be a sitting duck.

  Roxanne peers at me with wide apprehensive eyes when I say, “There’s no safety. Just aim and fire.”

  She looks as if she wants to drop my gun like it’s a hot potato when I place it in her palm. Then she swallows, puts on her game face, and raises her gun like I forced her to do to her mother.

  Her kick-ass fighter stance crumbles when I kick open Demi’s door with my boot. It isn’t my unexpected show of strength that has her knees knocking. It’s the horrendous smell vaping out of Demi’s house. If she thought her daddy stunk up my compound while building the courage to blow his brains out, she had no idea. This place fucking reeks.

  “Stay behind me,” I instruct again when Roxanne’s morbid curiosity gets the best of her. She isn’t moving for the window we saw the shadow creep across. She’s heading for the bedroom responsible for the smell.

  A
lthough pissed at her inability to do as she’s told, her mix-up saves me from making a fatal mistake. The shadow didn’t belong to Demi. It was from the big black beast standing over her beaten body, protecting her with fangs bared and a vicious growl. It’s her Doberman—Max.

  Twenty-Four

  Roxanne

  Demi’s one blue eye not hidden by a smattering of bruises across her face peeks up at me when I place down a mug of coffee in front of her. Even with the fireplace of my grandparents’ ranch over stacked with wood, she’s still shuddering like she’s in the middle of Antarctica. Her jitters are understandable. I’m still hyped up with adrenaline, and all I did was view the man she gunned down in self-defense from a distance.

  I can imagine what she’s been through the past three days. It’s clear from the extent of her bruises that she fought with everything she had before she resorted to the gun her boyfriend made her hide under her pillow. It was horrendous holding a gun to someone’s head. I couldn’t imagine firing it while they’re squashed on top of you. Just the thought of crawling out from beneath a dead body sends shivers rolling through me. They have Dimitri watching me even closer than he has the past three hours.

  He’s been endeavoring to find out what happened to Demi without being insensitive, but with her shock too high for her cousin to break through, Dimitri has been left to handle his inquiries alone. Considering those investigations are taking place here, at my family’s ranch of all places, exposes who his lead suspect is. If your relationship with your son is disgruntled enough he doubts your participation in the captivity of your only grandchild, why would he think a niece would fare a better chance, especially one who seems out of the loop on all things Cartel.