I return from the walk-in closet with one of my freshly pressed shirts.
She reaches her hand out to take it. “Thanks,” she says, buttoning the shirt over her captivating body. The hem of it hits her mid-thigh and, fuck, she looks good. “I’ll wash this and bring it back to the casino.”
“No need, keep it.” I like the idea of her having my shirt, maybe wearing it around the house. I try to imagine what her house looks like but come up short. “That means you’ll be back at the casino?”
She slips her heels on and starts for the door. I rush to pull my boxers on. “I’m a poker player, aren’t I?” She glances back at me, shooting me a smirk.
“Right.” My stomach clenches, seeing her walk away once again.
“I guess I’ll see you around.” She takes a step toward the elevator, but I wrap my hand around her forearm, turning her back to me.
“Wh…” she attempts to say, but I shut her up with a kiss.
She hums into my mouth, and I slip my hands behind her ears, my thumbs brushing over her cheeks. She returns the kiss tenfold. Our lips separate eventually, leaving us both panting. Her blue eyes are wide and vulnerable for a moment before she slips her confident mask back on.
Without another word, she walks away, my eyes stuck to her retreating form. Persephone takes up half of the sectional, so I make myself comfortable on the other side. I sip my drink, my other hand petting her absentmindedly.
This girl, Alex, is a mystery. She’s so fucking responsive, but apprehensive. Her body opens so completely, but I have a feeling the rest of her is safely hidden. Her answers are vague at best, dishonest at worst.
Persephone places her head on my thigh, which is her favorite place, and my lips turn up. She’s not a cuddly dog. She’s cold and distrustful of everyone who isn’t me, including my brother. This was something she started doing when my father died, giving me some much-needed comfort.
Fuck, maybe I should have taken Hades, Luka’s dog and Persephone’s brother, once Luka went missing. But I couldn’t bear having the reminder that I lost everyone right here in front of me. My mom died while birthing Luka, my dad died just a few months ago, and now my only remaining family member is missing. I place the empty glass on the table, running a hand through my hair. Hades is definitely happier with Danica, Luka’s housekeeper, who acted like his second owner, than he would be here. He and Persephone can barely stand each other.
My phone pings with a text somewhere inside the apartment, so I get up to search for it. I find it in the discarded jacket on the floor of my hallway.
Andre
Different address this time.
“Fuck,” I mutter out to no one but myself. I already had my suspicions about Alex giving a false address, but this just about confirmed it. Instead of just driving her home, maybe next time I’ll have him follow her. Which reminds me.
I find Dom’s contact on my phone and click on the green headset. It’s after one am, but he’s surely still at the casino.
“Da?” he asks in Croatian.
“I need you to look into someone. A woman named Alex Young. I need everything you can get on her.”
“Sure thing. I’ll get right on that.”
Whatever she’s hiding, I’ll find out.
After spending half of the day dealing with miscellaneous shit while the security feed plays on my computer, I’m currently in my upstairs office. My desk is a mess of crime scene photos from the night when Luka went missing. Typically, we handle this shit ourselves, but I needed the forensic research only the police have, so we called them in. Not like they’re not in our pockets, anyway.
“As you can see,” Officer Williams clears his throat. “There were two bodies in t-the dungeon.”
I’m well aware of it, considering I was there, but I let him say his piece. Officer Williams is in his fifties, and he’s been working with us ever since his wife got cancer and his paycheck couldn’t cover a tenth of the medical costs for her therapy. His mustache is gray and thick, unlike his hair, which is holding on by a thread.
“The bodies were identified as Toma Petrovic and Goran Lukicic,” he butchers the Croatian names, making me wince, but once again, he shares nothing new.
Toma was my uncle, and Goran was his bodyguard. After our father’s death, Uncle tried to push Luka and me out of the family business and take over. He was a whining man-child who thought we owed him things just because we were related by blood. He also caused a rift between our men, forcing us to play nice and give in to his silly demands. I can hardly say I’m sorry he’s dead. But I am sorry for sticking to what I thought was best, while Luka was adamant that we stick to our own.
“Blood samples from the crime scene found one more match,” Williams continues, “Marko Antunovic, whose body was found in a car outside of the club.”
Marko was an enforcer who worked with me for years. The sight of his dead body crammed into the trunk of a car is a little harder to stomach.
“But that’s not all. We also found other traces of blood; these ones older.”
I already know who that belongs to. An enforcer of my uncle’s, who my brother killed in a fit of passionate rage. Becausehe went and fell in love with a girl we kidnapped. A girl whose father was to blame for our father’s death. I rub a hand over my face. “Did you figure out anything else?”
