Rafael nods. "The same."
"Well." Luca leans back, a wolf's smile spreading across his face. "This just got interesting. I was hoping we would get a little break from assholes trying to slide into our territory. But no dice, huh? With Enzo Marchetti out of the way there’s a bit of a vacuum to fill."
Drake sets his coffee down on the table and plants his elbows on either side of the mug. “And there’s a never ending supply of snakes to fill it.”
“Da, moy brat,” I add. Yes, my brother. I turn to Rafael. “Did we get anything on the security feed?”
"Rowan." Rafael turns to the silent man at the end of the table. "Pull up the security footage. Let's see what we're dealing with."
Rowan doesn't respond with words. He never does when action is faster. His fingers move across the tablet in front of him, and a moment later the wall screen flickers to life. He shoots the video to the large screen sitting on the back wall and we all turn our attention that way.
The room goes still as we all watch black and white footage play out on screen. The hum of the air conditioning fades. The coffee grows cold in forgotten cups. Even Luca's pen has stopped its eternal spinning.
Two women stumble out of the back exit of our building. One in a dress, barefoot, carrying her heels. The other in pants and boots, clutching a laptop bag against her chest like a shield.
Both of them look scared shitless.
They make it maybe fifteen feet before the shadows come alive.
Five men. Coordinated. Professional. They emerge from both ends of the alley, moving with the kind of synchronization that only comes from training and practice. My jaw tightens as I watch, cataloging their movements, their positions, already calculating how I would have taken them apart if I'd been there.
The woman in boots sees them first. She puts herself in front of the smaller woman, which is either brave or stupid or both.
The fight is brutal and short.
I watch the protective woman swing her laptop bag like a weapon, watch it connect with a man's skull with a satisfying crack I can almost hear through the silent footage. The strap snaps and the bag goes flying into the shadows near the smaller woman. Her efforts earn her a backhand that sends her to the concrete, her body crumpling to the pavement.
Beside me, Cristian exhales through his nose, a look of disgust on his face that mirrors the acid bubbling in my gut. Men beating women is the fastest way to fill one of our waiting graves.
I exchange a look with my cousin and we both silently agree these men will pay for their sins.
I watch the petite lady launch herself at the attacker and get thrown into a wall, her arm bending wrong on impact in a way that makes my own bones ache in sympathy. I watch them drag her friend away, limp and unresisting, while the smaller one lies broken against the brick.
Then the footage ends, and the room is silent except for the soft whir of the ventilation system and the thunder of my own pulse in my ears.
“Son of a fucking bitch. He threw her against the wall.”
That’s Luca, horror written all over the assassin’s face. Luca has done dark things in the name of the Syndicate, but the murder on his face right now is for the innocent woman on that screen. That tells you everything about who he really is.
“Broke her arm,” Rafael confirms what we all just witnessed.
"The woman with the broken arm is Sloane Whitmore." Rowan's voice cuts through the quiet with facts. "Regular at Scarlet Thorn. Old money, no criminal ties. She's at Northwestern Memorial now. Concussion, broken arm, and some badly bruised ribs, but she'll live. She's been talking to our people. So far we've kept the badges out of it, but the police captain is telling us she can't hold back her men for long."
"And the other one?" I ask, even though something in my gut already knows the answer isn't going to be simple.
"That's where it gets complicated." Luca's fingers scroll through his phone, pulling data from whatever dark corners of the internet he calls home. "Give me a second. I'm running her face through our systems."
The police have theirs and then we have ours. It took nearly eight years to get the system in place, but it's been worth every late night Luca and Rowan have spent building the extensive database.
"Got a hit." Luca looks up from his phone. "Onyx Malone. Seamus's niece." His fingers keep moving. "Running the men from the footage now. Three of them are flagged in our system. All confirmed Malone muscle."
I sit forward. “The van they stuffed the Malone woman in, can you run those tags?”
Luca nods, his fingers flying over his keyboard.
Thirty-five seconds and he’s giving more details.
"Plates trace back to a shell company we've already linked to Malone operations."
