“Rafe, good night?” he says.
“You said you had word on Nico.”
Tony looks at the motel, wincing, then turns back to me. “Fucking Hungarians.”
“Hungarians?”
Dante flicks his cigarette to the ground and joins us. “Tony got a call from Nico saying he needed backup.”
“He called you?” I say, looking at my cousin.
Tony shrugs. “Maybe he couldn’t reach you.”
“I don’t have any missed calls.”
“I don’t know what was going through his head, Rafe. Maybe he didn’t want to call you for some reason.”
I look at my cousin, wondering if there’s more to his shifty eyes and his inability to stand still. If a man wanted to evade suspicion, it might be in his interests toalwaysseem anxious, like it was just a natural part of his personality…
I need to slow down. The last thing I need is to start a war I can’t escape.
“So, where is he?” I snap.
Tony swallows, face going pale, and gestures to the motel room. “He’s in there. But Rafe, it’s not good. He’s not…”
“He’s dead,” Dante growls, looking at Tony in disgust, as if wondering how a man is supposed to function in this life if he can’t say something as basic as this. “Mangled like some sick serial-killer fuck did it too. Whoever did it must’ve got to him between him calling and us getting here.”
“Let’s take a look,” I say, a pit in my gut.
I’ve gone from the most magical, hell…beautifulnight of my life, to this. Back to bloody business as usual.
The three of us approach the motel room. The door is slightly ajar. The stench hits me before I see anything, coppery blood and the reek of death.
Nico lies on the bed, a picture of brutality, torn apart as if wild animals had set upon him. I grind my teeth, staring at one of my most trusted men. Then my gaze moves to the picture above the bed.
“What the fuck?” I murmur.
“Something wrong?” Dante says.
Tony scoffs. “Wrong, Dante? Why don’t you think before you speak? The Hungarians killed Nico. Of course something iswrong.”
Dante tilts his head at me, as if silently telling me to calm my cousin down. He’s right. Tony is acting like some flighty kid who’s never seen a dead body before.
“That picture,” I say, gesturing. “It belongs to Athena Gravestone, the artist Adrian Kovacs outbid me for at the auction.”
Well, it was Ava, who outbid me, but that’s not the point…
Tony claps his hands together. “See! What more proof do we need, then? This bastard istauntingus. First, he sent those men after you last year. Then he somehow gets to Nico. And now this. They’re laughing at us.”
“It’s a good way to send a message,” Dante mutters.
“But what’s the message?” I growl. “This is a declaration of war. The Hungarians know we’ll have to come back at them with everything we have after this.”
“We need to see Kovacs,” Dante mutters.
Tony reaches into his jacket, takes out his gun, and waves it around like an idiot. Irritation creeps up my spine at the useless show of bluster. “Send me there, cousin. Send me there alone, and I’ll handle this. I’ll have him singing a tune with every single thing we need to know. Please, do it. Just give me the go-ahead. I’ll have him trussed up like a goddamn pig for daring to act on our men!”
Suspicion pricks me. I’ve always seen Tony as an enthusiastic, but misguided and basically inefficient operator. But now, I don’t know… something tightens in my gut.
