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Pushing open the door, Aurora retches at the state of the room. I doubt anyone has ever cleaned anything in this room except the bed sheets—and they look dubious.
She looks around, peering suspiciously and refusing to touch a thing.
“Something’s not right about this.”
“You’re not wrong.”
“No, I mean it, Nico. This doesn’t feel right. Why would Marco, a man of significant influence, be caught dead anywhere near this place?”
“According to our intel, Marco’s been seeing Cherry here every week for two years.”
“But why? Why not set her up somewhere after all that time? Why come here, of all places?”
I think about it and come up short. Pulling out my phone, I see that we still have ten minutes, so I open the group chat again.
You sure we can trust our source on this, Zo?
Boss-Man:
Why?
Phoenix:
Because the likelihood of a man like Marco patronising this establishment voluntarily is slim to none. It’s a fucking dive.
What she said.
No one replies, no three dots. My unease builds until at last Zo responds.
Boss-Man:
Looks like the intel’s good. Marco just arrived with two men. Benny and Sin are tailing them. They’re off comms.
You’re a go.
Aurora nods but still looks unconvinced. We wait. We wait longer than I expect, considering he only has to cross one room, the bar, and a corridor to get here.
My foot taps on the floor and Aurora glares at me, and crooks her head, reminding me I’m supposed to be hiding behind the door. As I move to position, I can hear the sharp clack of pretentious shoes on the creaky floorboards in the hallway. They pause outside the door for a moment, and then I watch as the handle slowly turns. The door creaks painfully, imitating the sound of nails down a chalkboard, sending a shiver down my spine.
As the door opens, an overly cocky Marco saunters through, adjusting his tie in a brash fashion and then reaching into his suit jacket, he arrogantly proclaims, “Which of Enzo’s lackeys am I going to have the pleasure of killing tonight?”
My pulse quickens and I feel my stomach drop—he knew we’d be here, and everything is about to take a turn for the worse.
When his eyes land Aurora, he hesitates and I take that as my opportunity to slam the door shut and barrel into him, disarming him of the gun he was reaching for when he entered.
From under my firm grip, Marco stares at Aurora. Eyebrows raised, incredulous tone revealing his shock at seeing her. “You’re supposed to be dead. He said you were dead.”
“Well now,” interjects Aurora, “one would have thought, if you had any knowledge of your don’s daughter being murdered you would have, I don’t know, told someone maybe?”
“This is going to be another easy interrogation, isn’t it?” I say as I grip Marco’s throat. He’s choking, but only slightly. I squeeze his rolls of neck fat just hard enough to restrict his windpipe and compress his carotid artery at the same time. I need him lightheaded and pliable, as opposed to agitated or unconscious.
I could carry him out the fire escape, but I don’t want to.
His garbled rants fade to an incoherent mumble, so I release him and steer him back towards the door. We need to get him out, but only once Benny and Sinclair take care of his guards. That’s when we hear a fire alarm—and that’s our cue.
Aurora opens the door, and we can see flames consuming the curtain that leads to the bar, and beyond that is a raging inferno spewing out acrid black smoke into the hallway. While I manhandle Marco, Aurora forces the fire door open, and we burst out into the back alley. The van isn’t here. Enzo was supposed to leave the town car for Benny and bring the van to us.
“Shit.” I’m searching the street for any sign of the van, but there’s nothing. Looking back into the club, there’s no one else exiting through the fire escape. That means there was no one else in the five other rooms off that corridor.
