Luka hung his head in frustration, but called out, “Yeah?”
“You need to get the fuck back here,” the other man commanded sharply. “Our guy is looking for you. Let’s get what we came here for and get the hell out.”
Luka’s nostrils flared as he worked to get himself back under control. He slowly removed his fingers and helped straighten my clothing. After pulling me to my feet, he quickly scooped up my destroyed panties and shoved them in his pocket. Nothing was said the whole time—I don’t think either of us really knew what to say. I knew I was too shaken up to find the right words.
What if the man in the white suit had seen us? What if he recognized me and told El Escorpion what he saw?
Then Luka would be marked for death.
I had no idea what business Luka was dealing with down in this pit, what kind of information he was looking for. But he needed to find it somewhere else. He couldn’t possibly understand the kind of fire he was stoking with a man like the one in the white suit in the mix, not to mention the one chasing me. He might have thought he did, but he didn’t.
For as capable as Luka was with his fists, El Escorpion was much worse. Because he never played fair.
Luka was my angel.
The man who hunted me was my demon.
Demons don’t let go. They attach themselves to their host until they eventually drive them so mad that their life ends, one way or another. Then they haunt the empty space that person once occupied, poisoning more and more lives. The only way to get rid of a demon was to exorcise it.
My gaze caught on the silver crucifix hanging around Luka’s neck.
The one he always wore. Like a talisman.
Could he be the answer to banishing the man of my nightmares forever? Was this man strong enough to condemn my stalker to Hell where he belonged? After all, demons were the servants of the Devil.
“That’s my brother,” Luka said angrily. “I have to finish this.”
Finish what? What had he really come down here to do, other than fight? I wanted to ask a million questions, but my tongue felt numb after our feverish kissing.
“Go back to the apartment,” he ordered. “Lock every door behind you and stay inside until I get there.”
I was still in such a state of shock over the events of the last thirty minutes that I couldn’t form a single response.
He curtly nodded at the stairwell behind me. “Go, Cat. Don’t stop anywhere else. Because if I get to the apartment and you’re not there, I’ll burn this entire city to the ground until I find you.”
He watched me walk up every single stair until I was on the street before he disappeared back inside the tunnel.
Back into Hell.
With the Devil.
“What the fuck?” Rome snapped when I reached him at the end of the tunnel.
“Not now.”
I brushed past him, dangerously close to doing a header right off the damn edge. I couldn’t stand the thought of Cat out there, walking the streets in that ridiculously skimpy dress. With no panties, thanks to me. Christ, I didn’t want her out of my sight for even a minute. But I didn’t want her within a hundred feet of The Slaughterhouse either.
I didn’t want my darkness to touch her.
Rome yanked me around by the shoulder. To my surprise, he looked about as enraged as I felt. “We’ve been at this for weeks, and now you’re willing to blow our best lead for a quick fuck? What the hell is wrong with you?”
I slammed him up against the stone wall. We were practically nose-to-nose when I grated, “That wasn’t some quick fuck. That was Cat.”
His eyes widened. “Cat? What is she doing down here? How does she even know about this place?”
I pushed away from him, running my hands over my head. “I have no idea. But as soon as we’re done here, I’m going to go find the hell out. I knew she was hiding something.”
“I don’t like it. This doesn’t look good for her. She could be involved in some bad shit, Luka. Maybe you should cut her loose.”
A hard shake of my head made my position on that idea crystal clear. “Not happening. At least, not until I know everything.”
That was a lie.
If what just happened down here with Cat told me anything, it was that I was physically incapable of letting her go. I couldn’t cut her loose now any more than I could cut off my own arm. There were too many questions left unanswered. Although, I didn’t need all the answers to know one thing with disturbing clarity.
Cat was in trouble.
Her tendency to choose jobs where she could get paid in cash, the fact that she hadn’t opened a bank account, had still somehow avoided filling out her employee paperwork, and her general skittishness.
Was someone looking for her?
Please, dear God, don’t let it be the cops. Don’t let her be some fugitive on the run. But if it wasn’t the cops, then who? If she was simply hiding—trying to disappear—she could have gone anywhere in the world, some place far more remote and in the middle of nowhere. Something had driven her to Brooklyn specifically.
I wouldn’t know what for sure until Bryce got back to me with that information I’d requested.
“Why is this so important to you?” Rome asked, jarring me out of my rapid-fire thoughts. “What is it about this girl?”
I just looked at him, my hands fisting.
His face scrunched up right before he flung his arms in the air. “Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me. You don’t know anything about her! For Christ’s sake, look at the bigger picture here. The mafia and the cartel are stealing women from their families and selling them into human bondage in our city. And here you are, obsessing over one woman.”
I glared. He didn’t fucking get it. “Like Cris got obsessed over Jaz? Or Ace with Roxy? Or Nico over Lexi? We know what lengths they were all willing to go to when their women were in trouble.”
He shook his head, almost pityingly, which pissed me off even more. “The big difference is that Cat isn’t yours.”
Bullshit, she wasn’t.
If that wasn’t a stamp of ownership on those steps, with my fingers knuckle-deep inside her dripping pussy, I didn’t know what was. I just had to make sure she understood that the page had now been turned.
“You’re focusing on one woman when there are probably dozens, if not hundreds, in trouble on our turf!”
“That doesn’t mean that Cat doesn’t need help too. She’s a daughter to someone, Rome. She has siblings. What would you do if it was Gia out there?”
“Don’t fucking say that.” He sighed. “Tell me this isn’t just about sleeping with her.”
“It’s not. There’s more going on with her. You’ve never doubted my instincts before. Don’t doubt them now just because there’s a woman involved.”
He shrugged. “That’s the thing, though. There’s never been a woman involved before. This is a road neither of us have traveled.”
I waited in silence while he came to terms with my stance on the matter.
“Fine,” he finally agreed. “I’ve got your back on this. But I want every single detail. You might trust her, but I don’t. The cartel has been known to use women as spies against their enemies. Remember that when you go talk to her.”
His words burned like acid through my gut.
Cat, a spy? No way.
I wouldn’t let that idea ruminate, wouldn’t even go down that train of thought, unless all the evidence pointed to it without any room for doubt.
Rome nodded toward The Slaughterhouse. “Let’s go talk to this piece of shit and find out what he wants from the new champion.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Did Cat have to look like my most erotic fantasies come to life every time I saw her?
I was still livid as hell at her for daring to step foot inside a place she had no business even knowing about. But that didn’t detract from my extreme appreciation for the tight strapless black dress she still wore when she opened her apartment door
to me. The damn thing fit her spectacular curves like a glove. Her hair fell around her shoulders, straight and shiny. The large silver hoop earrings swinging from her ears made her look like an exotic gypsy. The only difference from earlier was the absence of those hot as fuck strappy heels she’d strutted around in down in that death trap.
Her small stature was made even more obvious without those heels. She walked around in the stilt-like things as if they were tennis shoes, with such command and confidence that it made her appear much taller and more imposing.
In reality, Cat was a tiny little thing. Busty, sure, but short and petite everywhere else.
Delicate. Breakable.
And anything could have happened to her in The Slaughterhouse tonight. Would something have happened if I hadn’t been there to run her ass out?
I had to bulldoze over those kinds of thoughts or I would never get through this conversation. A conversation that needed to happen. My temper was a caged animal on the brink of snapping all of its chains, and I had to fortify my self-control.
But even with that control, my words still came out clipped. “I think it’s about time you told me who the hell you are, Cat.”
She flinched but reluctantly nodded. Wordlessly, she waved me through the door.
I held my breath as I walked past her so I wouldn’t inhale that passionfruit scent. Every encounter I had with Cat couldn’t end with me getting a massive boner. Nothing would ever get accomplished if I couldn’t contain my dick’s reaction to this woman. I needed to know everything. Otherwise, I couldn’t protect her. And protecting her had, inexplicably, recently become my sole purpose in life. Nothing else mattered if Cat wasn’t safe. I couldn’t explain that thought process. Didn’t totally know where it was coming from because this was all brand new to me.
“How about a drink?” she blurted out, radiating nervousness. “Yeah, I think I could go for a drink.” Without waiting for a response, she walked briskly into the kitchen. “Tequila good with you? It’s all I have.”
“That’s fine.”
I cleared my throat when those words came out as more of a growl. She’d clam up if I started barking at her, demanding answers without easing her into giving them willingly. I had to keep my fucking cool. But as I watched her search the cabinets for glasses, conflict warred within me. I was vacillating between wanting to wring the truth out of her like a wet rag, and wanting to comfort her obvious anxiety. Whatever was hanging over her head and upsetting her, I wanted to take care of it. I wanted to make it all go away so she could be free to smile at me again.
She eventually found a glass tumbler and a blue plastic cup and poured tequila into both, splashing a little on the countertop when her hand trembled. She tried giving me the glass tumbler, but I ignored her and took the blue plastic cup.
We stared at each other as we drank.
One sip.
Two sips.
We watched. We waited. We prepared.
“What the hell were you doing down there tonight, Cat? Do you have any idea the kind of things that go on in a place like that?”
She huffed mirthlessly. Walking past me into the living room, she said almost absently, “You’d be surprised what I’ve seen, Luka. There isn’t much that can shock me anymore.”
Whatever the fuck that meant.
And oh, I’d be finding out. Secrets were getting thrown out the goddamn window tonight.
“That doesn’t mean you belonged down there. Those people don’t abide by any laws. It’s dangerous.”
She glanced at my torn-up knuckles, courtesy of Kamikaze’s face. At least I’d managed to wipe the blood off before I came here. “You would know better than anyone, wouldn’t you? You should know that I’m no stranger to violence.”
Her nonplussed tone when talking about such things infuriated me. “Why were you there? No more riddles. I want the truth.”
On a withering sigh, she fell onto the couch. “For the same reason you were. I need information, and I was told I might find it down there.”
What the hell?
“Information about what?”
Her eyebrows went skyward as she took another drink. “Considering who I saw you talking to down there, I’m not sure I should tell you. How do I know what side you’re really on in all of this? I think you owe me some answers too.”
I stiffened.
After what happened on that stairwell, she seriously had to question my loyalty?
“You don’t trust me?”
Her expression remained blank. “Seeing what I saw down there would make anyone in my position cautious.”
Begrudgingly, I had to admit she might have a point. Didn’t mean I had to like it. But what I realized in that moment was that I needed her trust more than I needed to pound on a bag, pump some iron, or even eat my next meal. I needed her to know with one hundred percent certainty that I would never hurt her, that I only wanted to help her, and that I would do absolutely everything within my power to keep her safe. For the first time in my life, I wanted a woman badly enough that I was willing to open myself up completely to her, damn the consequences.
So, I told her everything.
Told her who I was, who the Rossettis were.
The history we had with the New York mafia and our current situation with Raphael Esposito and the Garcia cartel.
I gave it all to her. Freely. Willingly.
And prayed to Christ she would return the favor.
Because I really didn’t want to have to force it out of her.
I sat there, wide-mouthed and motionless, hanging onto every word Luka uttered until he went silent.
“Um,” I murmured once he was finished. “‘Kay. Wasn’t expecting that.”
Thanks to Deja’s grapevine gossip, I’d already known the bare bones of what he’d just laid out for me. But the details he provided were…eye opening. From what I gathered, he had risked his life many times. He could have died in many of those situations. But to hear that he was actually looking into the very situation I was…that he was involving himself in illegal underground fights in search of the same information I sought…
Was it all just a giant coincidence? I mean, what were the odds that of all the men in New York I could have come across that night in Rumors over two months ago, the one that catches my attention just happened to be knee-deep in the very business that had brought me to this city?
He started pacing across the room as he waited for my response.
“So…” I swallowed. “You and your family are trying to bring down whoever’s running this human trafficking operation. And you think some of the people involved in the fighting ring can lead you to the auctions where these women are being sold?”
“More or less,” he answered gruffly. “We’re pretty sure that Raphael Esposito is the one facilitating the auctions and taking a cut of all the sales, like a commission. We didn’t know where the women were coming from at first, but we just received intel that implicates the Garcia cartel in bringing shipments of them up here from Mexico. We just have to find out where all this shit is going down.”
My heart raced at the mention of the cartel. The Rossettis were clearly well connected, considering how accurate their information was.
“And that’s why you started fighting in The Slaughterhouse,” I reasoned. “As a cover to get information?”
Luka nodded. “With men like this, the more money I make them by winning my fights, the more likely they are to run their mouths. As long as I’m lining their pockets, they won’t be as suspicious about me asking questions.”
Don’t be so sure.
These people should never be underestimated.
“Have you heard anything about the auctions yet? Where the women are being sold?”
He shook his head. “Not yet. The man I beat tonight was their champion, which essentially put me on the throne. Hopefully, the position will give me more access to these men that are so willing to throw their money around. Our theory is that at least o
ne of them knows something about the women.”
Did he realize what he was getting into? How deep he was digging here?
“And what if these guys don’t appreciate their new champion being so nosy?” I challenged. He needed to fully understand how grave the situation was.
He shrugged. “Then I back off and pursue a different angle.”
“It’s never that clear cut with these people.”
His expression hardened. “And how would you know, Cat?”
My lips pursed. He just spilled his guts about things I knew only a handful of people knew. It was only fair that I extended him the same courtesy. But the idea of confessing everything out loud was terrifying.
“That’s not an option anymore. Not after tonight.” His voice cracked like a whip. “All cards are on the table now. I’ve flipped my hand.” He nodded down at the coffee table in front of me. “Time to show me yours.”
When he put it like that…it was even scarier.
Because I had nothing. My hand sucked. A smart person would have folded a long time ago.
Still, I owed him a lot. I took a steadying breath and slowly released it. “About six months ago, my younger sister Luciana disappeared.”
His eyes slid shut. “Jesus Christ.”
I powered on. The dam was opening—I couldn’t stop now. Best to release all the pain in one giant purge, rather than in a slow bloodletting process. “I have every reason to believe that she was taken by the Garcia cartel and trafficked into the United States.”
A fire had been ignited in his eyes when they shot back open, though his voice was tempered with sympathy. “What makes you think that? Do you have proof?”
I gave him a look that said really? “You know the cartel would never leave loose ends.” Even though that’s exactly what I was. “Let’s just say I have sources back in Mexico that confirmed it. Several witnesses saw a girl fitting Luciana’s description being kidnapped by Garcia’s men.”
“How do you know she was taken to New York?”
When my shaking hand caused the ice in my glass to clink around, I immediately dropped it onto the coffee table. But the look on Luka’s face said I wasn’t fast enough. He’d seen that. “Where I come from, everyone knows that women tend to…disappear sometimes. Without any trace or explanation. You grow up hearing the tales. Girls are warned away from certain areas or being out at certain times of night. Almost every week you hear of someone’s sister going missing, or someone’s daughter has disappeared.”
Glitter and Greed (Brooklyn Brothers #4) Page 16