If Elias won’t tell me who killed him now, I’ll get my answer in other ways. “If I find out this is a scheme…” I signal to my men to inspect the warehouse. “I’ll fucking destroy your family.”
“You’re already working on it, no?” Elias says matter-of-fact. “This is a peace offering. Your uncle’s death was an accident.”
I scoff. “No it wasn’t.”
“Stop picking off our members. Take the body, and mourn your loss.”
I smile now as the devil that I am. “This does not make us even.”
“No,” Elias says deliberately. “But I’m working on making adjustments within the family where I can.” In the way that he’s looking at me, I think it also suggests that he’s aware of activities happening outside of Boston. We still haven’t seen any movement beyond what we were given.
“Trying to sound like a fucking saint or something?” Michalis pulls his brother back and steps into my face. “You should be grateful we’re doing this much. Our father agreed out of respect to your uncle and their friendship.”
“And where is he, your father? He seems to ignore my invitations as of late.”
“That’s none of your goddamn business,” he sneers, and in one swift movement my knuckles connect with his face, and I hear the sound of his nose breaking. He stumbles back, blood pissing out as he aims his gun at me once again, but I’m too fast; I disarm him within seconds and tower over him, and I see the fear in his gaze.
Elias doesn’t intervene, though he watches carefully, probably because he knows I can tolerate only so much disrespect.
“You broke my fucking nose,” he cusses.
“You should be more embarrassed for your pathetic, broken ego. Nero is fucked if you’re left in charge.”
“Sir!” One of my men appears in the doorway to the abandoned warehouse. “You need to see this.”
My gaze slides to Elias, who’s watching me expectantly. I look back at Michalis, whose mouth opens and shuts, and I spit at his feet.
As I walk past Elias, he quietly says, “Stop the daily killings.”
I come to a stop beside him. “Tell me who did it.”
His jaw hardens, and he looks ahead. “I can’t.”
“Even if you die for their crime?” I ask simply.
His jaw tics but he doesn’t reply.
I continue stepping forward, the crunch of the dirt path beneath my boots as I get closer to the warehouse. Valen is covering my back as he says over my shoulder, “Sure this isn’t a setup?”
“If it were, our men would’ve already seen something out of sorts.”
“Why do you think Elias organized this? Most would’ve thrown away the body and continued denying their involvement,” he says as we walk through the doors, a few lights swinging gently from the wind that passes through the door, spotlighting the large freezer. My jaw clenches.
“Elias has business sense. He’s protecting someone. But he’s offering this because he knows I won’t stop cutting down his crew. His father seemed to care less. However, he would’ve eventually retaliated. Elias is trying to stop a war.”
“But is this enough?” he asks as we walk to the freezer.
When I open the lid and look inside, my stomach sinks. “No, it’s not.”
My uncle’s body is frozen stiff inside, and my jaw clenches. Whoever was stupid enough to do this is even stupider for hiding. But like Valen said, they could’ve pretended this had nothing to do with them.
What I can’t figure out is how Leonore Graves fits into this—if at all. Maybe one of Nero’s crew was stupid enough to store the body and were told to rectify the situation. So why would Elias go out of his way to return it to me?
He might consider it respectful. But others would be far more ruthless and dispose of the body.
“Keep an eye on the Nero crew. We’ll stop the killings for now. First, we’ll mourn.”
“Will you tell the doc the body has been found?”
