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Chapter21
Last night was one of the best nights of my life. It was also when hell had broken lose.
While I had been finding heaven in Daisy's body, the Black Thorn unleashed an all-out assault on my operations.
Scrolling through my phone, I read through all the updates explaining the different ways they'd hit us. One of our gun warehouses had been raided by feds. A boat that was scheduled to dock today had officially been out of communications for eight hours, which meant it was probably already settled at the bottom of the ocean by now.
And now I had a voicemail from the DA informing me they had obtained a warrant to search my offices for some bullshit charge. There was nothing they'd be able to find, but it was about proving a point.
Black Thorn was trying to show that I might own this city, but I wasn't untouchable.
Normally a morning like this would have me screaming and throwing shit by now. But as Daisy turned and moaned, I just smiled. Actually fucking smiled.
Fuck, I was in trouble with this girl.
She turned over and reached out for me even in her sleep. Awake, she might still be unsure of where we stood, but unconscious, she knew that she craved me just as badly as I craved her.
Setting my phone down, I reached out to brush her dark hair away from her eyes. She nestled into my hand as though seeking all the contact she could get.
If there wasn't a crisis going on, I never would've left the bed today. Not after the breakthrough we seemed to have had last night.
I should find out if Sergei learned anything. Vasiliev wanted to set up another meeting. Probably to negotiate my surrender, but I wasn't anywhere close to that point.
If he wanted to fight dirty, I could fight dirty. Problem was, the Black Thorn was getting inside information. They knew exactly when to strike and where. Borya didn't have that kind of access any longer, but he still knew plenty of people.
Was he selling me out? His own brother? And what happened to have him turning on his own flesh and blood?
For so long, it had just been the two of us. Hearing Daisy defend Becks so fervently last night had struck a chord because that was Borya and me. When our mother, the Bratva princess, had finished providing heirs, she couldn’t have cared less about the family. And our father had assumed it was a woman's job to raise the children and his job to make them strong.
With no love and just his brutality, we had grown up strong, alright. Strong enough to take down the entire Bratva in Miami and take over for ourselves.
And now Borya was throwing all of that away. Out of desperation, and maybe some misplaced nostalgia, I sent a message to the burner phone I had provided Borya.
New day rising.
Obscure, but he'd know what it meant. It was the code I'd sent the day we'd started the hostile takeover of father's organization. Considering it was what Black Thorn was attempting today, it was apt.
There was no immediate response, and because I wasn't a fifteen-year-old girl waiting to find out if she had a date to prom, I wasn't going to stare at the screen waiting for a response.
There was too much shit to deal with and not enough time. Vasiliev wanted to play dirty, and I knew exactly where the best mud puddles were.
I wanted to wake Daisy up with a kiss. To tell her I loved her again. Did she believe me when I said it? She had a tendency to think I was exaggerating whenever I made declarations about our relationship.
But I knew how I felt. I'd known how I felt ever since I first saw her through that disgusting camera in her apartment. Now that I had her in my clutches and in my bed, nothing had changed.
But we'd have time for that later. I didn't need to wake her up only to scare her off.
Sergei was still dealing with our guest at the torture basement, so I took Carter with me as I left the house.
"Would you like to go to the office, sir?"
And hang out for hours while feds went through all my filing cabinets and hard drives? What a waste of a day."Mary is going to spend the day entertaining our boys in blue. I was craving Mexican for lunch."
Carter frowned but kept his thoughts to himself. It was Miami, so there was no shortage of amazing Mexican dishes. But one of our biggest competitors for space and control was the cartels.
Back when my father was in power, there was a tentative truce between the two factions, but I'd blown all that up with the bullet in my father's skull. The cartels needed to be put in their place and had never regained control of the territory I took over.
A few years ago, there had been a similar change in management. Apparently, the Columbian leaders had been upset that the locals had been unable to get control of me. They’d taken out Pedro for not doing his job right. His son, Rafael, was no longer officially a member of the cartel, but he still had a loyal following and had a decent chunk of the city that he ran under my nose.
I knew about it, obviously, and ignored it unless it interfered with my business directly.
He was like an ant to me, and I was his arch nemesis. But maybe it was time to put some of our past discrepancies under the bridge.
Black Thorn might know about my weaknesses and my strengths, but they operated on old rules.
I made my own. They wanted to play a game? Fine. I was going to burn the fucking board.
