When Dimitri dips his chin, the scent I’ve been struggling to ignore the past hour doubles. I think the full beard he doesn’t usually wear is responsible for the increase of his scent. It seems capable of soaking in everything around him, and considering that everything seems to only be him, it’s as intoxicating as the fact he didn’t replace me with the first blonde to cross his path.
“Do you have anything on him we could use to have Claudia’s conviction overturned?” There I go again, using the infamous ‘we’ on him. “I’mwilling to getmyhands dirty.”
“AlthoughIappreciate the offeryou’remaking…” I poke my tongue out at him, stuffing his exaggerated words down his throat with a bucket load of attitude. “It’s not as simple as getting dirt on someone. His rulings are out of my jurisdiction.” When confusion crosses my features, he smirks, making a mess of my panties. “Marco is Ravenshoe’s DA. I don’t have jurisdiction there.”
“How? Why?” I shouldn’t sound as appalled as I do. I’m just stunned. Ravenshoe skirts Hopeton, and from the information Estelle and I have gathered the past six weeks, they’ve had a stronghold on that town for decades.
Dimitri appreciates my disgust. “Don’t worry, I was as shocked as you.” He indicates to take a left before shifting his focus back to me. “I’ve considered a takeover a couple of times, but I can’t bring myself to do it.” The reasoning behind his decision makes sense when he adds, “Isaac threw himself into that town when Ophelia died. It’s his way of coping.” This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of his sister, but it’s the first time it came directly from the source.
“Would he help?”
“Isaac?” Dimitri asks through crimped lips.
“Uh-huh.”
His hair that’s a little overdue for a trim falls into his eyes when he shakes his head. “That bridge was burned a long time ago. Besides, we’re set to become enemies even more than we already are.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. “Why?”
I wish he didn’t need to pause to consider if he can trust me, but I understand why he does. Trust doesn’t come easy for most people, much less the son of a Cartel hierarchy. “The man I was just visiting—”
“Maddox.”
Dimitri’s tightened jaw reveals he’s going to have a talk with Rocco about his waggling tongue the instant he returns to the compound. “Yes, Maddox advised a Russian sanction is endeavoring to set up shop in Ravenshoe.”
“Shouldn’t that be Isaac’s problem?” I’m not being bitchy. I am genuinely curious.
“If it were anyone but this man, I wouldn’t have an issue with it. Since that isn’t the case, I’ll be keeping a close eye on the proceedings.”
Dimitri wets his lips when I ask, “Bad blood?”
“It’s been stale for years but turned potent a couple of years back.” He doesn’t need to spell out the details for me. I know what happens when you steal from the Cartel. I saw it firsthand only a couple of months ago. “Have you ever heard of Katie Bryne?”
The name freezes me for a couple of seconds. It’s a common name, but I swear I’ve heard it before.
When the truth smacks into me, my jaw drops. “She was abducted a few years back, right?” I give myself a mental pat on the back when Dimitri lifts his chin, then almost vomit when past conversations smack into me. “She wasn’t abducted for the baby-farming trade, was she?”
I gulp down a breath like I haven’t breathed the past three minutes when Dimitri shakes his head. “She was taken by Russians.” I nod, suddenly recalling that. The gossip spread through the local schools like wildfire, making it mighty uncomfortable for any foreign students with a Russian accent. “However, she was sold by my father years later to a Russian.”
Oh. That can’t be good. Even a mafia novice could understand that this isn’t kosher.
“Do you think Fien’s abduction has anything to do with Katie?”
Dimitri’s pause this time around isn’t to contemplate what he’s going to tell me. He’s deliberating as to why he has never considered this angle before.
My palms flatten on the roof of Dimitri’s recently-purchased ride when he yanks it off the road. Since his phone isn’t linked to the state-of-the-art Bluetooth system, he has to yank his cell phone out of his pocket to make a call. Usually, he conducts his calls in private, so you can imagine my pleasure when he hits the speaker button on his phone a mere second after dialing a frequently-called number.
Smith answers a few seconds later. “What’s up?”
“Did we ever find out what caused the delay between Katie’s abduction and her sale?” Dimitri’s question divulges he’s been looking into Katie’s case a little more than a standard case. Nowhere near as much effort as I’ve put into his family history, but still noticeable.
Smith grunts before the whoosh of a headshake sounds out of Dimitri’s phone. “We figured it was training.”
“What if it wasn’t? What if it was something more than that?” When Smith takes a moment to deliberate, Dimitri fills in the silence. “She was taken when she was fourteen. Underage or not, her training shouldn’t have taken as long as it did.”
I don’t want to know what training he’s referencing, nor am I going to ask him about it. Sometimes it’s better to have your head stuck in the sand—kind of like mine was when news of my aunt’s death reached my ears.
I thought Dimitri’s reluctance to let me attend the search of my family ranch was because he was being an ass. I had no clue it was because my mother told her drug counselor there was at least one corpse buried near the home where she grew up.
