“You doin' alright Skelli?” I ask by way of announcing my presence, capturing the men’s attention.
Her face is swollen, and the guy in front of her is going to get his payback, I can see it in her eyes. She’s young, maybe nineteen, and pretty, blond hair up in a tight ponytail, face done in light make up, but now her left cheek is a bright red that’s already starting to bruise.
“Yeah, I’m good Priest. These assholes just seem to get off on smacking a lady around.” Her voice is defiant, and I know why Cobra brought her in. He’s always had a thing for a girl with a smart mouth, I should be proof enough of that.
I turn my attention back to the men, both have, though most wouldn’t notice the way the men’s jackets lay. Then again, they weren’t trained to see these things by Cobra.
“Bitch, this has nothing to do with you,” the one behind Skelli says, and I don’t contain the cold laughter I feel at that comment. Both men stare at me warily now, like I finally did something worthy of noticing.
“Actually,” I straighten to my full height of 5’10”, “you made it my business when you approached my friend Skelli. You also make it my business when you go around asking after me.”
Their bodies shifted, Skelli now forgotten, they surge forward, apparently capture on their mind. While I wonder what the hell has them looking for me, the daughter of an exotic dancer, since that’s all that is associated with that name, I shift my feet ever so slightly.
The one who slapped Skelli comes at me fast, so I take him down fast, delivering a quick but hard kick to the side of his knee, and hear the promising sound of what is usually a dislocated joint, while he buckles in pain. The second suit sees this and stops short, trying to quickly asses his best options.
Behind him, I see Skelli move, and since this is the first time I’ve come to the booth, I just notice the door, nearly invisible with how flush it is with the wall, covered in the same decorative velvet that’s draped on the walls. I notice it open, but my attention turns back to the second suit.
He’s pulling his gun and points it directly at me. It’s not the first time I’ve had a gun pointed in my face.
“You’re Elda,” he says, voice slightly incredulous, and while it doesn’t sound like a question, I feel the need to correct him.
“I was Elda.” I shrug, like this explains everything.
“I have to bring you in,” he says, like this should matter to me, “We can do this peacefully,” he says, and I laugh.
“You’re holding a Sig Sauer…P938 if I’m correct… in my face and think I believe that whatever this is, it’s going to be peaceful? What type of idiot do you take me for?” I can’t help but ask.
While I’m talking, he shifts closer, his eyes pinching tight, and while his index finger isn’t moving, I can tell he’s sweating by the gleam of the small led lights that flash to the music that’s still playing.
“I’ll put a bullet in your brain before you can blink,” Burly says from behind me.
I step to the side angling my body to look at the suits as well as Burly.
He has a Glock G19 pulled, and I’m not proud to admit that I’m not exactly sure where he pulled it from. For a second I think he has it directed at me, but quickly realize his big steady hands are trained on the second suit. I can see that he isn’t sweating, and he looks calm, cool, and collected while holding his gun, unlike suit number two.
I’m too busy watching them that I don’t pay enough attention. Suit number one, who never fell completely down is pressing his own P938 to the side of my head as Skelli calls my name a second too late.
“Really?” I mutter, not nearly as phased by this as I probably should be, but then again I live in a world that’s run by violence and while this shit doesn’t happen every day, especially now that Phoenix is well known, it has happened enough that I know showing fear and being afraid aren’t going to help me one bit.
“Drop your fucking weapon, Conti,” Suit One says.
I weigh my options as Burly, I mean Conti or whatever, makes his decision on if he’s going to comply. I could try to outmaneuver him; it’s possible, especially since Suit One is more focused on Conti than on me. But there’s always the chance he could hit Skelli, or even the Conti guy and while I don’t know him from Adam, he hasn’t done anything to warrant taking a bullet for me or anyone else that I can say.
In the split second before I decide to act and go for the gun I hear the tall tale sound of a gun being cocked and look behind Suit One to see Cobra.
He’s coming out of the door hidden by the matching velvet, he was probably in whatever room lays beyond the door waiting, biding his time for his perfect move, like the creepy ass chess player he is.
“Drop it,” is all Cobra says with that James Earl Jones voice of his.
Suit number one drops his gun without a thought, not willing to take chances with his life it seems. Before the second suit can make up his mind, Conti or Burly or whoever he is, he’s on him in one of the most impressive tackles I’ve ever seen, simultaneously shoving the gun out of his hands as he shoves him to the ground. Cobra is shoving his own handgun to the back of Suit One’s head.
Conti grabs Suit Two in a hold pinning him down.
“Priest?”
It’s all Cobra has to say, after this long I know what he’s asking.
“Yeah, I’m good, Cobra. Don’t know who suit one and suit two are, big guy met me at the stairs, and the suits were asking after me…well after Elda…Oh and they called the big guy Conti” I say, now leaning against the half wall that lets Skelli look on the crowd. The commotion by the door seems resolved by the sound of it, though I don’t look to confirm.
Cobra nods his head and looks at Skelli, and she nods and after clicking a few things on her laptop that’s situated at her station, she heads downstairs, probably beelining it to the bar to get some ice on that cheek.
“So, who wants to talk first? It’s not every day I have men threatening my DJ or a mafia man in my house.” Cobra says and I know that this last part was for keeping me informed, and to let the man know that Cobra’s more plugged in than what most might think of him.
Burly gives a dark chuckle, looking me directly in the eye, his dark eyes feeling like shadowy pools ready to drag a woman into its depths before pulling her in an endless embrace or dragging her to its dark hole and burying her there. I can’t tell which way he’s thinking in my case.
“I’m here for her,” he says, answering Cobra but eyes still on me, “I’m Alessandro Durante. I was sent to protect Elda Joan Conti, by Alonzo Conti.”
I arch my eyebrow, and look at Cobra, and for the first time since I’ve met him, Cobra looks uncomfortable …like he was caught.
“I’ve been known as Elda,” I say, “but, I’m a Seely. Never heard of any Contis before.”
Alessandro
Giovani is going to be glad that he sent me instead of Luca. One look at our new charge and Luca would have ended up strong up by his toes and beaten for looking at Alonzo Conti’s daughter. She’s beautiful, but more than that, she exudes the same dangerous don’t-fuck-with-me-and-mine aura that Alonzo has. That aura draws men like us to her like it does to him, because men like us need someone to control the leashes, to keep us bound by rules.
That aura combined with her curvaceous body, long curly hair that was obviously bleached a honeyed blonde, perfectly brown skin, and green eyes made her stand out even more.
“Never heard of any Contis before,” she says, her mother’s Bajan accent strong.
Luca might have ended up getting himself killed.
She’s looking at the other man, Cobra Taylor according to the information the privet eye uncovered. Cobra, head and founder of the Phoenix gang, with Priest, or Elda, as one of the founding members.
“You might not have heard of any Conti’s before, but you are one, Elda,” I say lazily, readjusting the Russo thug sent to snatch Elda.
She waves a hand at me, seeming slightly annoyed, “Ai
n’t Elda, stop calling me that. It’s Priest,” she says, her eyes still staring at Cobra, “and it’s Priest Sealy.”
I look at Cobra and don’t envy him.
I know that he knows the truth. He knows that she is Alonzo’s daughter, that the stripper he loved before her passing was Alonzo’s wife. He knows what’s really on Elda’s birth certificate.
From what Alonzo told us as well as what the PI found, Lene Esmeralda Conti received multiple threats on her and her unborn daughter’s lives and when Alonzo couldn’t track down the threat to eradicate it, he and Lene had decided to send her into hiding. No contact until Lene had had the baby.
What wasn’t discovered is why she didn’t come home after having the baby like they had planned.
Alonzo hadn’t been able to find Lene, not until he got a file with her murder case on his desk. That’s what had prompted us in looking here, hoping to find the baby she’d given birth to.
“What do you want to do with these guys?” I ask, cause while I can hold this Russo asshole all day, I don’t need the other to decide to fight his way out of Cobra’s care.
“You have a suggestion?” Cobra asked.
I can’t help the menacing grin that spreads across my face. Cobra shifts, uncomfortable by my face I’m sure, but Elda Priest, is bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“You got a place to keep them?” I ask, not really sure where a gang does their dirt.
Priest smiles, a quick flash of teeth before she pulls back her arm and punches the guy in front of Cobra with pure force. His head snaps back and I can see his eyes rolling back before he slumps to the floor completely crumpled in his unexpected knocked out state.
The Russo I’m holding swallows, and I chuckle because I can feel the fear rolling off of him. Russo has never been good at teaching his boys how to swallow that fear.
Cobra lowers his gun and puts it in his waistband, “You’re gonna need to knock him out,” he points at the man in my arms.
I look at Priest, and nod at the guy in my hold, “Wanna do the honors?”
She doesn’t know that this moment is a test, a test to see if she can handle what it will take to gain my trust. I will not follow anyone who can’t do what they ask of me. If they can’t get their hands dirty, I won’t do it for them.
She doesn’t say anything, just walks forwards as the guy in my arms tries to struggle, even knowing it’s useless his panic is riding him, controlling his body when he should be trying to rely on his brain. That’s why the Russo’s are always beneath the Conti, they don’t think.
She punches him much the same way as she did the first man, but this time I am behind him, so I feel just how strong she is. She might be smaller than me, and all the enforcers, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t throw a wicked left hook. I let the guy fall to the ground like a sack of laundry.
“Priest, get Bones to help carry them out.” Cobra tells her.
She starts heading toward the stairs, but looks over her shoulder.
“Don’t think I’ll forget,” she says, then she’s gone, her timberlands hitting the stars with soft thuds.
I look at the man, and watch as his shoulders sag as he mutters, “I know,”
I wait, knowing he got rid of Priest so he could talk to me. It doesn’t take him long to pull himself out of the mental doghouse she’s placed him in.
“What’s brought this down on my head, on my territory?”
I chuckle darkly, like he doesn’t know, “You should have brought her to him after Lene was murdered. Instead you erased her,” I tell him, shaking my head. “You should have expected this to happen eventually, and yeah it took us way too long to figure it out, but her father has been looking for her for twenty-three years. Do you know how pissed he is? This while time, right in his own backyard? The thing he searched all of Barbados for, was right here.”
Cobra is ballsy I’ll give him that. It’s no wonder that Alonzo never thought to look to Cobra, the man had refused to take any stand for or against the family when he’d still been an active member.
He just shrugs his shoulders, “I made promises to Lene.”
“What kind of promises could you have made that were worth potentially forfeiting your life for a woman who’s dead?” I ask, honestly curious.
He looks me directly in the eye, “That when I sent her to Alonzo, she’d be able to do more than be a doll or tool used against him or killed. That the violent world wouldn’t be able to tear her apart.”
I look at him in shock, because that’s probably the only thing that’s going to save him from Alonzo’s wrath. Alonzo has been planning on doing much worse than killing the man that had stood in his way of finding his daughter, but this, this is gonna pull him up short.
“So, you created a violent world of your own? To what, make her flourish?”
He shook his head, but amusement is evident on his face, “I might be the founder, but this isn’t my gang. Sure, they listen to me…because Priest has made it so. The only reason I call the shots is because she hasn’t figured out that she could take it from me. That they’d all follow her.”
He nods his head over the DJ booth, and I look down like he’s indicating. She’s making her way across the dance floor, and every member of Phoenix looks at her…like us enforcers look at Alonzo, with trust, reverence, loyalty.
Cobra Coretti has groomed Alonzo’s daughter to garner the same respect.
He’s protected her…as well as put a target on her back from every rival family, because they want nothing more than to see Alonzo and the Conti family fall. He’s guaranteed that we won’t fail.
“Go ahead and call your boss. Tell him his lost treasure is of even greater value…he can thank me later.”
Cobra goes to leave, but I’m still looking over the dance floor when I see a rat.
“We have a problem,” I say, stopping Cobra in his tracks, he joins me in our birds-eye view, “that’s Vin Russo following her around. These are his men. We need to get her out of here.” I say holstering my gun back at my ankle. Sure, it’s a little clunky, if you don’t know what you’re doing and haven’t carried a gun there for years like I have.
Cobra mutters something under his breath before calling someone on his phone, I’m already heading down the stairs after her, my cell pressed to my ear as I dial the guys.
“Alex,” Gio’s voice is commanding, as always.
“Vin is trailing our girl. I might need back up if it gets ugly.” I say, shoving bodies out of my way when they block my view as I cross the dancefloor. I can see her blond hair bouncing with each step as she makes her way to the bar, and I can spot Vin’s pretty boy hair.
“Damn it all, that’s what you’re there for Alex,” Gio grumbles.
“Actually, I’m supposed to guard her, it doesn’t say I’m supposed to be doing it alone, which is why you guys are outside,” I remind him before hanging up, crossing the ground fast, but Vin’s right behind her.
She’s at the bar, him just a few steps behind when I lose sight of her because a wall of the local football team steps in my way. When I get a visual back on them, she’s next to the guy I think is Bones.
Vin’s next to her, offering her a drink, which she takes, but is staring at him like he’s a bug to be investigated, and I pull myself back, watching how she handles him, because she doesn’t seem pleased by his attention or his presence, and that’s unusual for most woman.
Bones goes to take a step toward him, but she raises her arm stopping him, and he glares at Vin. I inch closer so I can hear and be close incase Vin tries to take her.
“Vin, right?” she asks, holding the glass awkwardly away from herself like she would rather do anything than hold that glass.
“Yeah,” he grins.
“Do you know who I am?” she asks, and while I don’t think Vin can hear the seething rage in her voice, I know Bones hears it too as he quickly looks at her sharply, confused. Vin on the other hand stiffens, more at her words if I were to gues
s.
“Umm…what?” Vin stammers.
“An easy question, no?” she asks, not breaking eye contact.
“Look we just had a dance and I was trying to,” she cuts him off by slamming the drink on the counter of the bar and hails the bartender.
“Get me a glass of my regular, Sage,” she says, the bartender nodding and pours her another drink, setting it closer to her than the one Vin gave her.
“I don’t know what your thought was, because you must take me for a fool.” She says, still looking at the two drinks, but Vin doesn’t respond,. He’s trying to edge away but Bones stops him with a headshake.
“I don’t know,” Vin starts again but she turns around fast and grabs him by the back of the neck, hauling him closer to the bar and the drinks.
“Pretty boy thinks he can get one over on me, Bones,” she growls shoving Vin’s face toward the glasses, “one of these things is not like the other,” she says in a singsong voice.
Vin pales.
“Wonder what happens if he drinks the drink he bought? Bones, what’s your guess? GHB? Ecstasy? Ketamine?” she asks, getting more and more angry as she talks.
I feel three bodies next to mine, and know that Giovani, Antonio, and Luca are going to get to watch the beast that will someday be our boss.
“My guess is GHB, man doesn’t look like he could get pussy any other way,” Bones says, his voice like a raging storm, body held tight wanting to spring into action. He’s ready to kill Vin if she would just let him, you can see it in his eyes.
“How-how,” Vin stammers, fear evident in his voice but he’s scared of the wrong player, he’s looking at Bones, when his eyes really should be on Priest.
“You must take me for a genuine idiot if I you think I can’t tell that this glass has been tainted. Sure, it smells like whiskey, but it’s cloudy, not the perfect crystal-clear amber. The bottom of the glass has a slight film settled at the bottom, and the scent, while close still has that odd chemical scent.” She pours the drugged glass over his head that’s bent to the bar, and I can see his body tense with anger and humiliation.
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