It wasalmostfunny.
Through it all, I watched. That was my job today—sit, stare, and be forgettable.
Except Dvorak kept glancing at me.
Not often. Not obvious. Just enough for the back of my neck to prickle every time he did it.
“Let’s start again,” Bones drawled around hour eight, leaning his hip against the table. “You keep telling us you’re important, but so far all I’ve heard is hot air and a tragic understanding of modern deodorant.”
That earned a twitch. The vein in Dvorak’s forehead throbbed more frequently now. A traitor that confessed how on edge no matter how he tried to play it.
Voodoo grinned like he’d been waiting for it. “Don’t fade on us now,blbec. You insist that La Madrina’s been pulling everyone’s strings. Which strings, exactly?” He paused then, switching his attention to Bones, a faintly disgruntled look on his face. “But how much could an errand boy really know?”
Simple pleasure burned in me at Voodoo’s spot-on pronunciation. He’d asked me for a couple of words for dumbass or jackass, in Czech. Insulting a man in his own language was another way to knock his pride down. I’d boiled it down to one word, it was a rough translation and not as vulgar as some of the others, but Voodoonailedit.
Bones merely shrugged. “Depends on what errands they sent him out on, I suppose. But considering how easily we snared him and how lax his security…” He didn’t even bother to finish the comment, because his tone held nothing but contempt.
Dvorak puffed up, his arrogance blooming like mold. “You Americans think you understand anything,” he sneered. “LaMadrina’s network reaches farther than you can imagine. Korkov aligned with us because he saw power—real power. And the syndicates—“ He caught himself, too late.
Bones lifted his brows. “Syndicates plural. Good to know.”
“Huh,” Voodoo said, affecting real surprise. “Maybe we’re getting somewhere.”
Awareness of his slip hit Dvorak’s expression like cold water. He leaned back, chin high, masking it with derision. “It doesn’t matter. None of this concerns you.”
“No?” Bones jerked a thumb at me without looking. “What about her?”
I stayed slumped in the chair, arms folded, face neutral. My eyelids felt heavy from the act—boredom as a weapon.
Despite his attempt to ignore me, Dvorak failed—at least briefly—when his gaze flicked toward me once more. “Castillo business is irrelevant,” he said dismissively. “You are irrelevant. Whatever storm you people bring among yourselves, it has nothing to do with La Madrina.”
Nothing to do with La Madrina. Nothing to do with me.
That should’ve been reassuring.
It wasn’t.
Because when he looked at me—really looked—there was something sharp underneath. Not recognition, not exactly. More like he was trying to place a smell or a taste he almost knew. It was uncomfortable, being relegated to a thing instead of a person.
I tapped my fingers against my thigh to keep the unease contained. So, he indicated he didn’t know me and logically, fine, that made sense. His comments on the Castillos were vague, surface-level. Nothing personal. Nothing specific. Also, fine. Madrina and Castillo were named separately by Sinclair based on what the guys said.
Maybe they were all competitors and one really did not have anything to do with the other. The whole thing gave me a headache. I increased the pace of my tapping, trying to keep myself in check. Particularly because each time he glanced at me, it was like fingers brushing the back of my neck.
Voodoo must have noticed, because he tilted his head, flicking a glance at my hand as he shifted position and placed himself between me and Dvorak. It was so smooth, I almost missed it.
Relief spread through me at the interruption of Dvorak’s gaze. I blew out a breath and let my expression relax minutely. The contradicting sensation of pretending to be bored when I just wanted to scream at the man to get answers was stretching me taut.
“You’re doing great,” Voodoo said, cheerfulness bordering on suspicion. His emotional whiplash routine was getting absurd—skeptical, theatrical, grim, dismissive, repeat. “No, really. Keep monologuing. We’ll have a full organizational chart by dinner.”
Dvorak snarled.
“Clock’s ticking.” Bones deadpanned. “And we’ve got nowhere else to be.”
Nine hours. Nine grinding, strategized hours.
And finally—finally—after all of that, Dvorakbroke. It didn’t happen slowly, even if we’d been wearing him down. After those initial slips, he’d grown almost stone-faced, refusing to say a word
He talked about La Madrina’s expansion, about Korkov’s role, about the syndicates she was stitching together like a patchwork empire. It wasn’t a full picture—just enough to confirm they weren’t working alone, that the consortium was growing because they were taking over areas where other syndicates and cartels were waning.
