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ChapterFive
Angel and Dom sat on the sofa closest to the fireplace. Both swung their heads around to face me as I moved into the room. Their eyes moved over me, checking for any outward sign of the situation they’d found me in. I wasn’t happy about them seeing me the way they’d found me in that warehouse. Looking weak in front of anyone didn’t sit right with me. Especially if the people I was looking weak in front of were owned by someone who thought they could use me the way Santiago did.
“Tora,” my uncle whispered as he turned to face me. He didn’t move across the room to me. He didn’t try to pull me into his arms and embrace me. There wasn’t a sign on his face or in his mannerisms that would make a person believe he’d been worried about my wellbeing. All he said was my name.
“Uncle Tony.” I could do that too. I could pretend as if everything was perfectly fine. I hadn’t been shot and almost bled out. I hadn’t been stitched up by some back-alley doctor while I’d been unconscious. The Valentino boys hadn’t strapped me nearly naked to a chair and started to torture me. I also planned to share as little information with my uncle and Santiago as I could get away with.
“You okay?” There was a hint of concern in his voice. If I wasn’t all fucked up by the past twenty-four hours, it might’ve caused my heart to squeeze a little. Instead, all I felt was suspicion. It was a feeling I would be dealing with for a little while.
“Right as rain.” Moving further into the room I sat down on the couch across from Dom and Angel. Jasper was quick to take up the space next to me. I didn’t know how he always knew what I needed, but I wouldn’t be able to handle anyone else sitting close to me.
“It’s good to have you with us again, Tora,” Santiago said from his spot in a plush leather chair across from me.
I took my time responding to him and watched him swirl burnt golden liquor around his crystal lowball glass. He didn’t look at me as he spoke. Did he have anything to do with my failure and subsequent capture by the Valentino boys?
I doubted it, but I couldn’t help it as my mind ran through all the possible scenarios of him plotting against me. It didn’t make sense. He was using me to do his dirty work, and me being caught wasn’t in his best interest. I couldn’t finish helping him with his territory domination plans if I was dead.
The boys didn’t do too much damage to me, but failing at getting those girls to safety, being shot, and waking up surrounded by a group of vicious boys welding knives has fucked with me head. That meant anything was possible. Nothing was off the table.
“It was touch and go there for a minute, but I made it out in one piece.” For the most part anyway. Angel and Dom knew what happened to me, but I couldn’t tell if they’d told Santiago and my uncle about it.
“Now that you’re here, we need to discuss how we’re going to handle things going forward. Nico and his boys know who you are and what you’ve been doing over the past few months you’ve been in town. We’ll need to change up our plans to fit the situation.” I guess that answered the question on whether they told their boss.
“It would be best if you pulled yourself out of school. I don’t think it would do well for you to be so close to them on a daily basis.” Uncle Tony’s suggestion had no merit, and I wouldn’t do anything as stupid as running away.
“Who gave you the information about the kidnapped girls?” I wasn’t going to take the time to acknowledge his ridiculous suggestion. Finding out what caused me to tear through Chicago leaving blood and bodies in my wake was my first priority. I needed to know everything about this tip he'd gotten. It was possible that it had all been a lie. One I’d swallowed as if I was a starving dog in a dirty alley. One I hadn’t even thought to question, because it had come from him and I was so focused, obsessed with getting what I wanted, that it never crossed my mind that it could’ve all been for nothing.
“What are you talking about?”
“I want to know where you got the information on the kidnapped girls. Someone’s been fucking with me, and I’ve wasted months of my time chasing after something that doesn’t exist.” I hid my grimace of pain as I crossed one leg of the other and sunk deeper into the back of the couch. I wasn’t in the mood to play games tonight. I was in pain, needed coffee, and wanted to crash for two days. Dead to the world crash.
Instead, I was in Santiago’s condo having a coming to Jesus meeting with my uncle about the months of wasted time I’d spent chasing down leads he was giving me that were nothing but lies. I know I’ve mentioned this all already, but I’m not sure if you understand how pissed I am. It might also have something to do with how much fucking pain I was in that was making me a tab bit more irritable than usual.
“What are you talking about? My information is good information. I wouldn’t lead you on a wild goose chase. I know what is at stake here.” My uncle’s voice strains with his irritation. He didn’t appreciate me calling him out. He certainly didn’t like me calling him out in front of someone he thought highly of.
I didn’t give a fuck.
“Nico had no clue what I was talking about when I confronted him about it tonight.”
“Do you honestly think the heir to the Valentino crime family is going to tell the person going around killing his men the truth?” The sound of Santiago’s voice was grating on my already frayed nerves. I wasn’t in the mood to be polite. If he wasn’t careful, I was going to meet his snarky sarcasm with violence.
“I do believe that a bunch of cocky boys who had me strapped naked to a chair slicing my skin with a knife would feel confident enough to tell me the truth.” I let my irritation get the better of me and give up more information that I’d planned.
“What the fuck happened?” All pretenses had left my uncle, and now he was just a concerned parent. I could see the anger, fear, and plain out worry in his eyes as he looked at me. He was trying to see every bit of evidence on my body of what happened to me since I’d left him in our apartment the night before.
It had been less than twenty-four hours, and I haven’t had a chance to let my mind catch up with everything that happened. I didn’t have a true handle on what I was feeling about everything that went down from the moment I stepped onto the Chicago docks and then woke up surrounded by Nico and his boys. I still hadn’t even found out where Enzo was when I woke up. I knew he wasn’t with the rest of the Valentino boys in that room with me, and he hadn’t come out to help his friends when Jasper, Dom, and Angel came to my rescue.
It still pissed me off that I needed rescuing to begin with.
I knew I wasn’t undefeatable or indestructible. Everyone needed help occasionally, but it had been a long time since I needed someone to step in and save me.
“I just told you what happened. I’d even had time to question the heir apparent about the human trafficking you’d been led to believe was Gio’s new bread and butter. Which he’d been quick to inform was wrong information. Given the situation I was in, yes, I believe he was telling me the truth. I think he was cocky enough to think there was no danger in telling me what I wanted to know.” I wasn’t sure if he thought there was no danger because they’d planned to kill me or if there was something else there.
I’d like to think it was because there was something else between us, but I was killing his men. To think there was something between us that would stop him from putting me down might be too much to hope for. At the very least, he would turn me into his father for what I’d done.
Now that I’d escaped whatever plans Nico had for me, I needed to keep an eye on them. I wouldn’t put it past him and his boys to ambush me. If he did tell Gio about everything, he would put out the word to take me out. Nico wouldn’t be able to do anything but follow that order.
Things were certainly going to become interesting from here on out.
