“Good. Walk with me.”
Luca put his snake into an open tank on the floor beside him, and I remembered what Kane had said about him being eccentric. That was an understatement. He stood, and two of his men came forward, stopping just behind him as we walked together out of the warehouse. The street was dark, with cars parked in the unused lots of the warehouses around us to avoid drawing attention to our location. It seemed like a wasted effort when I realized that I could hear the crowd yelling at the fighters out here.
I followed his lead as we made our way west, moving closer to the docks, which were abandoned at this time of night.
“Have you ever hurt a woman?” Luca asked, not looking directly at me. His eyes roamed over our surroundings, always alert.
My stomach somersaulted.What the fuck?
The answer was no, but I was sure that wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear. Whatever he wanted me to do had to be tied to this question.
“I believe in discipline,” I replied. The words disgusted me, but I had a part to play here.
Luca laughed as if what I said was hilarious. He clapped me on the back like we were old pals.
“Me too,” he said. “But some people don’t think like you and me, which is how we end up with a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“A mouthy little bitch by the name of Cecilia Groves.”
Shit.That was Raymond Groves’s wife, the woman that Outlaw Souls was supposed to protect.
“Tell me about her,” I said, glad that my voice didn’t betray anything going on in my whirring mind.
“She has something that I want, andsomeonehas to persuade her to give it up.”
“What is it?”
He smiled. “A primo piece of land just five miles north of La Playa.”
My excitement nearly gave me away, making me keen to push for more information, but I forced myself to pause and take a deep breath. If I appeared too interested, he’d likely suspect something, and I’d end up with a bullet in my back before I even knew what happened. Luca’s bodyguards were still tight on us.
“Why not just look into something else? If it’s land you want, there’s plenty in La Playa that could be obtained more easily.”
Luca slowed to a stop, and I was sure that he was on to me. My pulse raced, and I tried to figure out how to get away from these three men in one piece, but Luca surprised me.
“You know what? I like you, Blade. You’re bold, an innovator. So, I’m going to let you in on a secret. It’s all about location, location, location.”
That wasn’t exactly a secret when talking about real estate, but I wasn’t going to correct him. Luca started walking again, quicker this time, but I kept pace with him.
“You see, there’s something special about this location. Something that Cecilia doesn’t know about. Her late husband was good at keeping secrets.”
“Secrets?”
Luca leaned closer so that only I could hear. “Raymond Groves used that land to store weapons.”
“What?” I couldn’t have heard him right.
“Yep. Military-grade weapons, supposed to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
“How do you know this?”
“I’ll get to that. He got the stuff from a big-time arms dealer based in El Paso. The dealer smuggled the shit in from Mexico but needed a place to hide it while it was too hot to move. So he contacts a friend of a friend…”
“You mean Raymond Groves?”
Luca nodded, his eyes lit up with excitement. “So, Raymond takes it and tells the guy that he can hide on this unused piece of land he has.”
