By the time the exhausted group had settled at Red Lobster the restaurant was closing, but there was no way the hostess dared refuse to seat the bleary-eyed group of bikers. The men claimed a massive corner booth and devoured a few baskets of biscuits in silence. They glared at the menus and gave their orders in clipped voices. The waiter had enough sense not to try any small talk.
Luther ambled in to join them before the food arrived.
“Crisp texted me back,” Luther announced. “He found out the vans were stolen outside Sommerlin three days ago. The weird part is that he traced them to a guy named Xi Li, runs a garage. Xi Li. That ain’t Italian is it?”
“No shit, Sherlock,” grumbled Dolce. “Li ain’t Italian. Good job. You cracked the case.”
Even Dolce’s ribbing was half-hearted tonight. No one really acknowledged Luther’s new information, bothered to ponder what it meant. Jesse sensed he was not the only one feeling utterly sideways about the day. He waited while the energy of the people around him spiraled down to meet in the center.
Finally, the air settled.
“This isn’t our usual chapel, where we go to draw strength,” Axle began. The men shifted around the table, acknowledging but not moving. “And I know we’re all tired. Shocked. But we can’t afford to waste any time. This is got to be our church tonight, for all intents and purposes. It’ll have to do. What happened to us today to our honorable club and to our innocent loved ones is unforgivable. Our patch has never held a higher demand on us than at this moment, when the very soul of our family is under attack.”
Axle drummed the plastic table with his index finger for emphasis, meeting the eyes of every man around the table. His voice softened to a dangerous purr.
“My daughter-in-law was shot today – Rex’s wife. My unborn grandchild… murdered.”
Rex was staring at his hands, shredding his coaster into tiny bits.
“It’s my job to protect all of them,” Axle continued. “My duty to protect the club, every part of it. Today, I failed. A sweet butt and a prospect from our charter are dead. Rusty, Georgio, and Colt injured from brother charters.”
Jesse was fiddling with his Zippo, watching the flames shoot up and vanish with the flick of his thumb. He hadn’t touched any biscuits.
“We all failed, boss,” Jesse rasped. “We are all brothers, all Ruiners, all patched. All of us made the same oath as you, and none of us were able to stop what has happened today. It lies on all our shoulders to right it. The enemy out-maneuvered us this time, that’s all. It’s inevitable in a war. Casualties are inevitable.”
Rex muttered something.
“What’s that?” Axle asked. “Speak up, VP.”
“Never civilians,” Rex said more clearly, but his voice was still almost a whisper. “It’s not how it’s supposed to work.”
“Yeah, but so what. Supposed to?” Jesse let his Zippo clatter to the table and ran his fingers through his short, wavy hair. “I’m sorry, brother. ‘Supposed to’ is nothing. You want to talk about ‘supposed to’? Then there is nothing to say, because ‘supposed to’ does not exist.”
Rex stared at Jesse, the anger dying in his eyes, and then he dropped his gaze back to the table.
Jesse sighed. “We’re here to talk about reality, not ‘supposed to,’” he said, conviction fueling his words. “Things never go the way they’re supposed to go, not in his world. We fight for our life, our peoples’ lives. Let’s not talk about supposed to. Let’s do something here! Axle, you are still our leader. You’ll lead us through this. I’m with you.”
“That’s right,” Dolce echoed, solemnly. “I second Nitro, boss. We’re all with you.” He glared at Luther.
“Yeah, that’s right,” Luther gulped, belatedly.
“That’s right,” Smiley chimed in, over bright.
They all looked at Rex, who drew a rattling breath and finally looked up from his destroyed coaster. His brows furrowed deeply but as he looked around the table his eyes were dry. Finally, he nodded at his father.
“That’s right,” Rex agreed. “We’re all together here. Brothers forever. It’s our only chance to survive.”
Axle tightened his lips. When he spoke again his voice was thick with emotion.
“All of us at this table know that this attack can only be from Cosmo Auditore. This problem has been going on too long, growing too big. We have to act fast to retaliate, to cripple them before they have another chance to blindside us like this. Any ideas?”
There was a heavy silence.
“Cosmo has to die,” said Rex in a cold monotone. “His whole family with him.”
“No, that is not right. We do not become like them,” said Jesse firmly. “We kill the man, yes. Destroy his power, his gang. Not the innocents. Otherwise, we are worse than them. We become devils.”
“Fine.” Rex’s nostrils flared. “Just the gang and Cosmo.”
“But how do we get Cosmo?” Luther looked, as always, a little baffled.
“It kills me to say it, but Luther has a point,” said Dolce. “How do you get Cosmo Auditore with his pants down? The guy’s no idiot.”
“Yes,” said Jesse. “Cosmo Auditore is difficult to isolate. It’s like trapping a ghost.”
Not like his brother. Joey had been very easy to corner.
“Maybe we don’t start with a hit on Cosmo. That’s the top of the pyramid.” Dolce leaned over the table, crossing his elbows confidentially. “Maybe we build to that gradually, but think about it. There are a whole lot of steps to go through before Cosmo’s within reach. Like Nitro says, the guy’s practically a ghost.”
Rex nodded slowly. “The rat bastard’s either campaigning in public as Mr. Community-minded Businessman of the Year, which makes it awkward to kill him, or he’s bunkered in the belly of one of his casinos, which makes it tough to locate him. We can’t blow up an entire casino just to get Cosmo.” He blinked. “Can we?”
“Technically yes,” Jesse admitted. “But is it a good idea? Or should we just focus on Cosmo?”
Axle stroked his chin thoughtfully.
“Cosmo,” asserted Dolce. “Which is why we have to draw him out somewhere isolated, get him vulnerable. I got an idea how.”
“But above all, whatever we do next it has to be quiet,” Axle weighed in. “Today with the police and the ambulances crawling all over the place, it was a nightmare. It’ll be splashed all over the goddamn news like the meth lab bombing with Joey. It’s no good for us, our image. We want to stay out of the headlines as much as possible, or else we become part of gangland and somehow the Auditores stay clean like always. We need to sink this war back under the radar, disable Cosmo’s ability to escalate and kiss the press’ ass until we can either kill him or expose him.”
“I’m telling you, I know how!” Dolce almost grinned.
“Well are you gonna fucking share the wealth and spell it out or do I have to use the magic word?” Rex’s eyes narrowed. He was interested.
Dolce was warming to his topic. “I’m telling you, VP. We already iced the brother, easy, right? Joey was sloppy, easy to trace. Cosmo is trickier to get to, but clearly we struck a nerve here, right? This afternoon was the calling card of a very pissed off guinea. If Cosmo is pissed, that means we’re on the right track. Pissed means he’s more likely to make mistakes.”
“He’s made none so far, so obviously we have to be smarter about it,” said Rex.
“Right,” Dolce rubbed his hands together. “Here’s how we get smarter; Cosmo’s got kids. Don’t you bozos read the papers? A son and daughter of his just took jobs in his gaming corporation Strip Kings LLC, here in Sin City itself.”
“We don’t touch innocents,” growled Jesse. “No civilians!”
“We don’t have to kill the innocents, Nitro, I’m saying we just use them to our advantage. No one gets hurt in this brilliant idea. Swear to god.”
“Spit it out already,” commanded Axle. “We’re listening.”
“I’m not suggesting
we cross the line that the Auditores crossed today,” continued Dolce, “But if we’re gonna play with cheaters we gotta cheat a little too. I mentioned his kids in Vegas, a son and a daughter. I don’t know how involved the son is with the family business, probably Cosmo’s grooming him to take over next. But the daughter seems legitimate: no criminal traces whatsoever, no speeding tickets, graduated top of her class at Harvard, no racy photos, known as a bit of a hard ass at the job. She’s squeaky clean. Hot little piece, too. Papa’s pride and joy. Probably had him twisted around her mob princess pinky finger from the moment she was born. My point is we kidnap her.”
“Yeah,” cried Luther, “Yeah, like that movie Taken!”
“No, you imbecile,” spat Dolce. “In Taken the kidnappers want to sell her for white slavery and the bad guys all get killed by Liam Neeson. In this situation there’s no Liam Neeson and most importantly WE are the good guys. God, I don’t know why I bother explaining to you.”
“Kidnapping is off the table,” said Axle. “No way.”
“Why the girl and not the boy?” asked Rex, drawing a grimace from his father.
Dolce wasn’t deterred. “Guys, listen, I know it sounds crazy. The boy, he’s a player, so less emotional leverage. The girl, she’s Daddy’s trophy. It’ll drive him nuts.”
Jesse opened his mouth to argue, but Dolce cut him off.
“We’re not gonna do anything to Miss Auditore other than hold her for leverage,” Dolce asserted. “Ok? We don’t touch a single hair on her head. Think about it, though. If we have her in our custody, we can stop Cosmo from…hell, anything. Say Cosmo wants to stop us from seizing his drug warehouses. We threaten to kill her. Say Cosmo wants to stop us from using our old routes for gun delivery. We threaten to kill her.”
“All right,” moaned Rex, “We get it already.”
“Guys the pros are endless here.” Dolce’s good eye was alight with mischief. “We can clean out his warehouses, his drug and gun operations. We can send him back to Florida. We can have him personally deliver a ransom and assassinate him. As for cons…well…it’s a little dangerous, but if we do it right, no casualties. So no real cons. What do you think?”
Around the table, the men fidgeted uncomfortably. Axle exhaled loud and slow through his lips, his grey eyes troubled. Rex’s eyes narrowed even more, the wheels in his head visibly spinning, as he rubbed his fingernails loudly through the stubble on his chin. Smile loudly wiped his nose with a napkin. Luther nodded enthusiastically. Jesse went still as stone on the outside, his stomach churning.
“Kidnapping.” Axle’s voice was heavy, an anchor pulling them down the rabbit hole. “It’s not our way of business.” His tone was enough to show he was wavering.
“It’s not pretty,” Jesse muttered cryptically. “It’s not good.”
No one challenged him. They knew he knew what he was talking about.
“No,” admitted Dolce. “But it’s a strategy. Anyone else got a strategy at the moment?”
The silence that pulsed around the table was answer enough. Before anyone said anything more, a bedraggled group of food runners appeared with massive black trays and passed around platters of fettuccini, fish, and burgers. They refilled the water glasses, replaced the biscuit baskets and scurried away again.
The Ruiners brethren stared at their food blankly.
“What are we doing at a fucking Red Lobster, guys,” muttered Dolce. “This is weird.”
Irritated, Axle snapped, “Everybody eat! What the fuck you waiting for!”
For a few minutes, chewing was the only sound. Only Jesse sat unmoving, staring at his plate of lukewarm fish. Fishbowl. Fish in a barrel. Fish out of water. He pushed the plate away in disgust and leaned against back against the booth, brain spinning.
Jesse had no appetite. The big black hollow had returned inside him, eating up the stirrings of warmth and connection he had felt in the afternoon with Celestina. Those feelings didn’t make sense now, not anymore. What Dolce said was the only thing that seemed to make sense, try as he might to dismiss it.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. How else could they get a leg up on the Auditores? The Auditores’ budget was bigger, their honor nonexistent. How to beat such a foe? Treachery was the only way. But the thought of hurting Celestina in any way sat ill with him.
Then again, hadn’t her family hurt his today, unforgivably?
It had been foolish of Jesse to believe for an instant that anything could be possible between him and Celestina, not even a brief passion that burned itself in one night. He shouldn’t have gone there.
Stupido.
Celestina was an enemy. He should have drawn the line at that, not blown smoke in his own eyes. Pleasure, companionship, passion – these were not for him. He’d only made it harder on himself by indulging today. He should have remembered who he was, that he was not his own.
He had never been his own. When he was a child he had belonged to his mother. Those were the best, happiest times he had ever known, but of course they didn’t last long. His mother had been killed in the raid that burned their hacienda to the ground. He was kidnapped then, and then he belonged to the cartel. Jesse shivered thinking about it.
When he had finally escaped, for a time he belonged wholeheartedly to heroine. Then the Ruiners had found him, cleaned him, and helped him get back on his feet. He’d gone to the war in Afghanistan, and belonged to that for a while. And now that he’d returned safely he belonged fully to the Ruiners, his rescuers.
If kidnapping Celestina were the only way to help them, he’d have to do it. And he couldn’t see a clearer way. So what if he wanted her for himself. Big deal! He couldn’t put his own wishes before the club – he had forfeited the right to be greedy when he patched in and tattooed their name on his back. For him to sit quiet now would be to betray his brothers.
Besides, Celestina would never want him again if she knew he was one of them. If she knew they belonged to warring sides.
Everyone belongs to something.
“Kidnapping a civilian,” ventured Smiley, tentatively breaking the mealtime silence. “It just doesn’t feel right.”
Jesse closed his eyes. If you had never met her, what would you say?
Wrestling with himself all the way, Jesse heard himself speak, “No one is a civilian who is an Auditore.” His firm pronouncement startled the rest of the table. For a moment, he almost convinced himself this was true. But then the emptiness ate at him again, gnawing. He knew he wouldn’t sleep again tonight, maybe never again. Something inside ripped. It made him angry, the strange pain and confusion he felt. He pressed forward aggressively. “No one here has a better idea to get at Cosmo, do they? That’s what I fucking thought. Let’s vote, Mr. President. I say aye.”
“All right.” Axle wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “Let’s vote. I vote aye. VP?”
“Aye,” said Rex.
Dolce closed his good eye. “Aye.”
Luther was still nodding enthusiastically. “Aye.”
Smiley turned a troubled gaze on Jesse. He sensed his friend’s turmoil but didn’t understand it. Jesse gave him an encouraging wink.
Smiley sighed. “Ok, I guess I vote aye.”
“It’s unanimous.” Axle closed his eyes, letting his face fall into his hands. “I guess we’re in the kidnapping business now.”
Chapter Eight
The pinging sound of the bronze elevator doors in the foyer of her penthouse pricked Celestina’s ears and inspired a flush of warmth in her cheeks. Goosebumps prickled up her spine in anticipation. She whirled in a circle, taking one last critical look around the living room. Everything was perfect.
Celestina had spent the last forty-five minutes in a creative whirlwind, transforming her elegant retreat into a sensual palace. Thick white candles were lit and tucked into every nook and cranny on side tables, up the steps to the loft, on the mantle over the white marble-framed electrically powered fireplace – which was switched on to a low smolde
r. Flickering shadows danced over the high ceilings. Low, sultry tango music played over the sound system. The bay windows to the balcony were thrown open and translucent white curtains fluttered in a warm evening breeze. The entire room smelled like gardenia, thanks to her carefully applied perfume.
“Come in! I’m down the hall,” she called.
Celestina could hear the heavy footsteps approaching, the scrape of thick boot-soles scratching along the intricately patterned mosaic flooring. She had only seconds left and frantically re-adjusted the meticulously constructed corset top of her strapless red dress, checking her cleavage. She took a step toward the divan she had planned to drape herself dramatically across, but before she could reach it he was there.
The sight of Jesse under the archway of the hall took her breath away: the masculine pride in the way he stood, the haunted and chiseled beauty of his handsome face. He was a man with secrets, history, and resilient vitality, and he carried himself with a powerful confidence that challenged and excited her.
He was wearing the same beat-up jeans, this time with a leather jacket and freshly washed hair. Celestina could see that he was tired or upset and felt a deep flicker of empathy. His eyes were lined with dark circles, but it didn’t detract from their intensity. She could trace his heady cologne in the air and almost taste his presence. Desire washed over her, drowning all thoughts of the rest of the world. Their eyes locked and Celestina saw her own wild attraction mirrored in the dark shadows that crossed his expression.
“Hello, princessa,” was all he said.
The way his lips caressed the word brought a smile to Celestina’s face. “I can’t,” she whispered, incredulous. “I can’t even wait with you.”
It happened so fast she wasn’t even sure how she managed to get into his arms. Maybe she leapt like a tigress, maybe he snatched her hungrily from the air. The space between them imploded with a cataclysmic gasp, and she could feel the hard lines of his body tantalizing her just on the other side of their clothes.
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