Riding Filthy

by Abriella Blake

  “Sure,” he said. “I’ll just pause in the middle of whatever felony I’m committing at the time and ask for your wise-ass gringa help. Bronson’s lucky to have such a ballsy ole lady, though, props to him. It can’t be easy for either of you.”

  Rowan’s tone softened. “Jesse you don’t know how this craziness with Celestina will end. Just hang on.”

  “Oh I know how this will end,” he muttered darkly. He tossed his cigarette to the ground, stomped it out, and trudged back toward the house. “There’s only one possible outcome in a war.”

  Rowan watched him disappear back inside the house and rubbed her hand thoughtfully along the outside of the black-tar heroin bulge in her pocket. For all her studying and practice and academic knowledge of addiction, this situation was certainly not in the books. Falling in love, sure, that was always tricky. She’d had her own struggles with her own biker. But to fall for your enemy’s daughter, right before you kidnap her?

  Rowan had to admit to herself that she had absolutely no idea what to say to Jesse to help him.

  Chapter Ten

  For the first time in his life Cosmo Auditore had a headache or, more accurately, an acute pain in the ass. He rubbed the toe of his wingtips along a greasy broken safe door in the burnt-out money room at Caesar’s Palace, kicking it open. Inside were the charred remains of bundles of cash. The casino and hotel floors had been shut down and evacuated for the first time in decades to give his staff a chance to assess the damage and clean up.

  “Fuck me,” he breathed, his teeth digging into the butt of his cigar.

  Cosmo was mad. Mad as a hatter. Ready to kill.

  He squeezed his eyes shut, calculating, while his Italian associates buzzed around him relaying messages, digging, sweeping. Where had he gone so wrong that he could allow this to happen? The Ruiners had probably been planning this since the day Joey fucked up what was supposed to be Bronson Ramsey’s last fight. Ramsey hadn’t died. It not only cost Cosmo a shit ton of money, but it let the Ruiners wiggle out of Cosmo’s. With their new funds and freedom, they turned around and bombed the meth lab, killing Joey. Now the money room…and where the hell was Celestina?

  Cosmo checked his personal phone again in what he knew was the futile hope of seeing a response to his frantic calls and texts. The phone’s screen crushed him with its digital coldness: 0 missed calls. His blank face belied the boiling rage within.

  “Where are you, Celestina,” he murmured, squinting at the ashes of the blast.

  It had been impossible to keep this blast from the authorities, of course. Just like the meth lab bombing, they were crawling over the place like ants by the time Cosmo got there. Miraculously, this time no one had been killed and few injured. No, the real target of this bomb had been a different kind of casualty: money. For this reason alone, the Lieutenant in charge of the investigation had accepted Cosmo’s hefty bribe and gone home for the night.

  Cosmo hunkered down to a squat, as if being closer to the ground would give him new insight. The blast was orchestrated carefully and affected only the money room floor, destroying all adjoining safes and security systems. Whoever had planned it was an expert, executing a bold surgical strike at the hub of Cosmo’s cash flow.

  “Merda,” Cosmo muttered. Shit.

  He threw the butt of his cigar into the blackened, twisted metal mess in front of him and stood, turning to face the two capos waiting anxiously behind him.

  “We know who is behind this,” he rasped, balling his fist. “I’ve been expecting blowback from that drive-by. But what I fail to figure is how the fuck they did it. And also, how did they know that Caesar’s money room was our processing hub for the drug and gun money? How did they figured the timing, and know to press the button just at the precise moment when the room was choking with cash waiting to ship out? How the fuck did they pull the wool over our eyes? HOW.”

  Veins were bulging from his neck, spittle dripping from his lips.

  “They got the whole last month’s revenue,” Cosmo groaned, rubbing his hands over his face until his eyes bulged red. “Everything. And my daughter isn’t answering her phone.”

  Nico shifted his stance and popped a bubble in his gum. “You think she turned rat?”

  Cosmo’s backhand answered the unfortunate capo who cringed away from Cosmo’s blow and cupped his bleeding mouth, eyes averted.

  “Don’t ever let me hear you speak about my daughter like that.” Cosmo whispered, pressing his finger into the man’s cheekbone. “Or you’re a dead son of a bitch. No she didn’t turn rat. How about you leave the thinking to someone with a brain?”

  “Sorry boss,” Nico muttered. “Someone must have leaked, though. How else would they know?”

  “Exactly!” Cosmo folded his hands under his nose, meditatively. “How else would they know?”

  The banging of a slamming door interrupted the powwow. A pair of mob soldiers burst in through the staff stairs, dragging a cursing man between them. With an effort they threw him ahead into the corridor, kicking him in the ass to urge him forward.

  “Boss, look what we found sniffing around upstairs,” said Dominick, the younger of the button men, grabbing the prisoner’s vest by the collar to display it to Cosmo. “A Ruiner. Says he needs to talk to you, something about Celestina.”

  Cosmo’s eyes narrowed. “You have my attention and one minute before you die.”

  The man was rubbing his stinging ass and turned around slowly, one sharp eye flitting from face to face, the other immobile and glazed under a scarred brow. He was completely surrounded by the soldiers, the capos, and Cosmo, and when he finally met the don’s eyes, he snickered and shrugged.

  “Just me, boys. Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Shit, it’s only Dolce,” Cosmo sighed, turning his back. “What do you want?”

  “Jesus, Skinny,” said the Ruiner, “I can’t say much for your hospitality. But then I seem to have caught the Palace at a bad time. I was here a few months ago gaming, you know, and the drinks weren’t bad actually. The waitresses, though – shit! That you gotta work on. Ugly as dogs. Most of them looked like my Great Aunt Mildred. Don’t you offer retirement packages? Gotta get more Rowan Thomas types in action; know what I’m saying? That was a piece I’d bone, I tell you what.”

  Cosmo flicked a hand dismissively at Dominick, ignoring Dolce’s air humping. “You can go, Dom. Tell my son not to wait for me, he should go home.”

  Dom nodded and departed. Alone with his captains and Dolce, Cosmo was ready to be blunt. “Dolce, I thought we had an arrangement. Right now I am having difficulty thinking of any reason not to rip your good eye out of its socket and stuff it up your dick. Why didn’t you give me a heads-up this was happening? Isn’t that why I keep your sorry ass alive?”

  Dolce gave his best shit-eating grin. “I had no idea this was in the pipeline, Skinny,” he shrugged, surveying the damage. “This had to be all Axle, no voting, it never came up with the officers. Swear to god. But look, I think you’ve got it backwards. This is how this works: you make me an offer here. You make me the biggest, fattest, most tempting offer you can think of, and beg me for my help. Because right now I am pissed as fuck and I know a lot of shit you want to know.”

  “Dolce,” said Cosmo, “I got no patience your bullshit right now. All I know is if I don’t hear something useful from you in thirty seconds, my capo here is gonna rip your balls out with his teeth and I am watch, and I am gonna laugh.”

  Dolce yawned. “It don’t work that way Cosmo, not this time. If you hurt me you lose the war right now, guaranteed. That’s just how it’s stacked. Let me just catch up for a second with you here, so you can see that we really are on the same page after all.”

  Assuming a didactic air, Dolce began to tick off points with his fingers. “Item A, You lied to me about my girl Lola running off with Bronson Ramsey. I now know that to be bullshit; in fact, our whole deal seems to be bullshit. Which brings me to Item B; I haven’t seen any fucking money from you for
my Bleeding Cheeks Run intel. By the way, your nimrods were late, shot up some women and kids. That wasn’t part of the deal. What’s the skinny on that, Skinny?”

  “Fuck your women and children,” Cosmo interjected. “I got bigger problems than keeping a few lowlife breeders alive.”

  Dolce shrugged. “Wow. That’s cold, man, even for me. So Item C; what I need to hear now is what you can offer me in exchange for an end to this unpleasantness between our organizations. I’m prepared to throw in the safe conduct of a certain curvaceous member of your family.”

  Cosmo’s face turned purple.

  “Yup,” Dolce nodded emphatically. “She’s a real peach, daddy-o, that kid of yours, in full bloom as the poets say, and I doubt I’m the only biker who has noticed. So I suggest you listen to me and give me what I want because, and this is my final point, Item D I guess; I know where she is, and the people she is with are not your kind of people.”

  Cosmo ground his teeth, biting out livid words. “My daughter is with Ruiners?”

  “All I want in return for bringing her back is your help killing people you already want dead: Axle, Rex, and Bronson. Probably Nitro too, who I’d say is definitely the architect behind all your fireballs lately. Oh, and just one more tiny, little thing: your guarantee that you’ll protect the Ruiners with me as their President in our glorious shared future together. We get a piece of the drug scene and provide some muscle for you. Simple.”

  Cosmo went perfectly still. “Let’s clarify. You know where my daughter is?”

  “Yeah.”

  Cosmo’s gun was in his hands in seconds, the barrel pressed against Dolce’s temple as Cosmo slammed his body into the wall.

  “Where’s my daughter, motherfucker?” Cosmo roared.

  “Think Cosmo,” shouted Dolce. “I know you’re pissed. But so far, have I helped you or hurt you? Have I reduced casualties? Huh? Given you good info? Let’s make this mutually beneficial here. If I disappear tonight, my club knows something is wrong. They move locations with your daughter and my information won’t be any good to you. Think.”

  “Fuck!” Cosmo punched the wall, pacing quickly to vent steam. “All right asshole, you made your point. I’m calm. I’m reasonable. I will shake with you on this deal – my support and protection for your take-over of the Ruiners – on the condition that you’ll pay tax on your club earnings to me and abide by the territory distributions I assign. But before any of this happens, you deliver my daughter unharmed to me personally. If you fail to deliver by midnight, the deal is void.”

  Dolce checked his watch and whistled. “Unharmed, scout’s honor. Oh, and one more thing. Your boy Ramsey is back in town.”

  Dolce spat on his palm and extended it. They shook hands.

  “Not for long,” growled Cosmo, teeth bared. “Now get out of here and don’t let me see you again without my daughter.”

  Cosmo glared at Dolce’s retreating back until the door slammed behind him. He turned to his capo.

  “Nico,” said Cosmo, “I want you and some of Kang’s men to follow that rat bastard. From a distance, of course. Text me updates, locations, trajectories. I want to know everything, where he’s headed, the moment you see him with Celestina, where I can meet you. Make sure he doesn’t pull any fast ones and above all make sure Celestina is safe.”

  “Sure, boss.”

  “Everything, Nico. Text me everything. I’ll meet you when I can.”

  Nico shuffled away, still rubbing his stinging face. On his way out, he passed a small delegation of brawny Asian men hustling down the stairs to Cosmo. Cosmo’s head jerked in their direction.

  “Yeah yeah,” Cosmo muttered, “I’m coming. Where is he?”

  “High Rollers Room.”

  Cosmo followed the men at a brisk pace, muttering and ignoring the apocalyptic grey dust covering the normally gleaming interior of his casino. He slowed his gait only when he reached the twin marble statues guarding the proscenium entrance to the high rollers room. Steeling himself, he stepped under the palm fronds and inside.

  The high rollers room was mostly clean and unaffected by the blast and sprawled quietly and eerily in the unnatural quiet, protected by the thick velvet curtains that separated the space from the rest of the casino floor.

  A handsome, immaculately dressed young Chinese man was sitting at one of the abandoned poker tables facing the entrance, his laptop open and connected to various lines of cable plugged in from around the room. He might have been a movie star or a boxer from another time with that face and bearing and flawless suit, his powerful body seemingly relaxed and alert. Dangerous. He looked perfectly at ease in the lush surroundings, and acknowledged Cosmo’s presence with a miniscule nod of the head.

  “Hello partner,” Cosmo grunted, dropping into a chair at the table. “Any luck?”

  Charles Kang, gun supplier and money launderer extraordinaire, closed his eyes modestly and inclined his head. “Yes. I’ve found something. You must see this.” He typed rapidly and waited while a file uploaded. “I have accessed your private backlog of security footage from your hidden camera, the ‘broken’ one not fed through hotel security, and believe I have found our culprit.” He paused, seemingly uncomfortable. “I must warn you, this footage will be…unsettling for you. It is from Verona Security’s first day of on-site consultations.”

  “Unsettling?”

  Charles turned his laptop at an angle so that Cosmo could see the screen and pushed the spacebar, kicking the video to life. Cosmo watched a gritty black-and-white shadow of his daughter and her secretary leading two men into the money room. The figures split, the younger man moving restlessly around the room tapping.

  “That’s just Mark Terrance,” Cosmo said, tracing the figure with his finger as it left the image. “He’d be incapable of this kind of thing on his own. Total civilian. Unless someone got to him.”

  Mark Terrance and the secretary left the screen. The video fuzzed and refocused.

  “Yes, but look at the young man.” Charles paused the tape and pointed. “See how much time he spends under the table. Enough time to plant a pre-made charge like your Iraq war IEDs or the cell phone bombs terrorists favor.”

  Cosmo’s jaw clenched. “You’re telling me this huge fucking mess came from a phone?”

  “Perhaps.”

  Cosmo shook his head. The times, they were a-changing. “Got any clear shots of this bastard’s face?”

  Charles shifted awkwardly, catching Cosmo’s attention. Normally the man was an iceberg, suave as fuck.

  Cosmo fought a wave of impatience. “Well?”

  “Well…yes.” Charles admitted. “Prepare yourself.”

  Charles pressed play, and Cosmo’s impatience was quickly replaced with nausea as he the footage rolled on, showing his daughter and the young man leap rabidly into each other’s arms, shedding clothing as their bodies writhed. Cosmo winced and turned away.

  “I am sorry, but I have two reasons to show you this.” Charles said quickly, pausing the tape where the young man’s shirt was ripped off. “See, the tattoo?”

  Cosmo glanced and nodded grimly. “Ruiners.”

  “And here.” Charles fast-forwarded the video until the images of Celestina and the mystery man spun around to face the camera. He paused the screen and blew up the image of a rugged Latin face, handsome and animated in the throes of passion. He had stormy arched brows, dark eyes, a Roman nose, high cheekbones, full lips, a square jaw, cleft chin. “I’d say he’s our bomber. Recognize him?”

  Cosmo fought down the growing bile in his throat, tasting the toxic bitterness. “No.”

  “I’ve memorized the faces of several Ruiners I will personally destroy,” said Charles. “Your little friend Dolce is one of them. A personal score to settle, as I am sure you recall.”

  Charles had fallen victim to the Ruiners’ moneymaking hustle when Bronson Ramsey was running a prostitution scam, trying to buy Rowan Thomas for the night and instead receiving a broken nose.

 
“I remember,” Cosmo said, trying not to smirk. “And you can have Dolce soon, I promise. That was really the beginning of this mess, wasn’t it? No one saw that coming.”

  “There seem to be many things you don’t see coming.”

  Cosmo ground his teeth, ignoring the insult.

  “Back to the tape,” said Charles. “This amorous Ruiner, with your daughter, his face is new to me. Do you know who he is?”

  Cosmo rapped his knuckles on the table, impatient to leave. “No. I never seen him before. Whoever he is, he dies tonight.”

  Cosmo turned to leave.

  “There’s a second reason I showed you the video Cosmo,” Charles said, halting his steps. “I am very sorry to be the one to say it, but we’ve caught your daughter in bed with the enemy. Literally.”

  The two men locked eyes.

  Charles held his gaze firm and continued carefully, “You must realize she cannot now be trusted, Cosmo.”

  “She can’t have known,” Cosmo snapped. “There’s no way.”

  “It doesn’t matter what she knew, she was clearly a part of their plan. She let them in. A bomb exploded. And, by the way, where is she now?”

  Cosmo let his head drop for a moment and wrestled with an army of empty black feelings. He wanted to tear Charles Kang apart. He wanted to tear Celestina apart. He wanted to tear himself apart.

  Cosmo thought of his daughter as a black eyed, black haired little girl leaping into his arms when he got home from work, could almost hear again the sound of her pure happy laughter. He had tried to keep her clean from this life, setting her up with the best education and lifestyle that money could buy, but it just wasn’t possible. Cosmo had to make a hard decision very soon, but not now. Not yet.

  “This is a problem, Cosmo, that we cannot ignore.”

  Without another word, Cosmo turned his back on Charles Kang and left.