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It’s a very public place for such a private meeting, but the players up in the VIP section overlooking the people gyrating on the dance floor don’t seem at all concerned about their secrets being spilled. The people here know better than to listen, and the ones that don’t are educated very quickly.
I recognize the face tattoos of several of the guards scattered around the club. The Cortez Cartel isn’t a group many would fuck with. Not long ago, Cerberus, some motorcycle club out of New Mexico, took out two of the main men and a slew of their lackeys. But like roaches, it didn’t take long for them to pop up again. Rumor, according to the people dumb enough to repeat whispers, is that they’re involved in trafficking and drugs, but according to the email Angel sent, they aren’t my focus.
I pull up the email, knowing I look like any other asshole in here waiting for my international Tinder date to show up. I check the email again.
Apparently, I’m waiting for a group of douchebags to show up, Angel citing that I’ll know them when I see them. I should’ve called for clarification because our idea of a douchebag may be different. But then the atmosphere shifts.
I don’t immediately look toward the front door of the club, although I doubt my attention would be noticed, considering the way half the club looks in that direction. I wait for them to pass, taking note of the five men and one woman that walk toward the VIP area.
She’s got great legs, ones she no doubt spends a lot of time sticking in the air for the suited guy that has his hand low on her ass. I dismiss her immediately. Angel doesn’t exactly take jobs from people that are morally upstanding citizens. I’ve been sent here to observe and gather intel. She’s not meant to be rescued, and with the way she’s holding her chin in the air, she’s quite fucking content to be exactly where she is.
With his back to me, I log the leader, the one who greets the man acting as a representative of the Cortez Cartel. Three men split off, no doubt bodyguards, while another man moves the woman to a spot several feet away.
I can no better understand what they’re saying than someone in the parking lot, but Angel told me of this particular meeting because it’s the jumping off point. From here, I’ll need to establish where this new group is staying and follow them.
It seems easy enough, a job not exactly like many of the others because it doesn’t involve rescuing anyone. It certainly doesn’t feel dangerous, warranting the five times the fee.
I’m feeling a little letdown as I watch, lifting my too-strong drink to my lips once again as the man takes a seat beside the cartel rep.
My blood runs cold. I’d recognize that too-tan, smug face anywhere.
I consider my escape options, running my eyes all over the club. The front door would be the obvious choice, and probably the most dangerous. There has to be at least one exit from the kitchen, and possibly another inside the manager’s office, because the head of the house will need a quick escape if any regulatory agency comes to ask questions.
Maybe Angel knows more about me than he ever lets on. Maybe that’s why he wanted to hand this job over to anyone but me. Maybe it isn’t the job, but what the job means to me, that makes it so fucking dangerous.
Alessio fucking Severino smiles as he smacks a scantily clad waitress on the ass before she has a chance to walk away with his drink order. I’ve imagined peeling that man’s face from his skull as he begs for mercy more times than I’m comfortable admitting.
Alessio Severino, heir to the Severino Mafia, is the one that got away with Ellie’s murder.
He’s been an aggravation nearly my entire life.
I’ve considered ridding the world of the man more than once, but he’s also a living reminder of why I do what I do. My father never stepped up to take care of the problem, letting the justice system set him free when the evidence that he was guilty was left on her, in her.
Knowing he’s still alive has always motivated me to work harder, faster, to take out more and more evil. I’ve never come this close to him. I’ve avoided Chicago since my mother divorced my dad and moved us away when I was ten.
I dart my eyes to the other man sitting with the woman Alessio was touching as they entered the club. Family resemblance tells me that it’s the younger Severino, Marcello.
I’ve avoided all news of the family, knowing that diving in too deep would put me on their doorstep, seeking vengeance one minute and in a body bag the next. I know going after them would end with my death. It’s not the fear of dying that has kept me away, but knowing I can still do some good in this world so long as I’m alive.
