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Everything goes still.
“What.”
“How fast can you get to my place?”
“Office or apartment?”
“Apartment. And Hades? Watch your back. Someone’s trying to start a war.”
“On my way.”
* * *
Holy shit.
My jaw grinds as I lean on the kitchen counter in Ares and Neve’s all-glass penthouse overlooking the Hudson. But I’m not scoping the views right now. I’m scowling over at where Castle is patching up a gash across Mike Karagiannis’ forehead.
…A gash he received about an hour ago, when a crew smashed their way into a warehouse of ours that he was guarding, cracked a bat over his head, and made off with about two million dollars’ worth of black market high-end electronics.
They left theothertwo million dollars’ worth of gear that was being stored there smashed into smithereens.
This was someone sending a pretty clear message.
“Mr. Drakos,” Mike blurts, looking terrified as he stares wide-eyed at Ares. “I’m so sorry, sir—”
“It’s not your fault, Mike,” Ares growls quietly, walking over to put a comforting hand on the older man’s shaking shoulder.
That’s the difference between Ares and me, and it’s what makes him such a great leader. If it were me, well, I doubt I’d be this calm. As it is, I’m barely keeping it together, standing over here across the room.
One sixty-year-old man isn’t going to stop ten armed guys from doing shit. The concerning thing isn’t just the theft or the vandalism, though. It’s that someone even knew that the warehouse was worth hitting in the first place.
There are a couple of spots around this city where our family hides its more…undergroundactivities and products. Sometimes cash, too. And when I say they’re hidden, they’re fuckinghidden. That shit is locked down tight on a strictly need-to-know basis.
Except these assholes clearly knew.
“Tell us again what happened,” Ares mutters. “Try and focus on any small details too, if you can.”
Mike nods, wincing as Castle finishes stitching up the gash in his forehead.
“I’d just done a round of the perimeter and was headed back to the office. They came through the side door…used a plasma torch to cut the damn hinges right off and come storming through like a bunch of commandos.”
“How many of them were there, again?”
Mike looks down. “Ten of ’em. I pulled my gun, Mr. Drakos, I swear—”
“No one’s doubting that, Mike,” my brother grunts. “We just want the details.”
“They cracked me one good,” Mike sighs. “I winged one with my piece. But they got me hard on the noggin. Then another one tied my arm to the radiator. It was lucky I could use my foot to get the phone off the desk to call you later. They went through the whole place like they knew exactly where everything was. Grabbed probably half the merch and then went to town on the rest with bats and tire-irons.”
Ares glances at me, then Kratos, before his eyes slide back on Mike.
“Okay, I want you to try and remember this all on your own, without me prompting you. When you first called, you mentioned—”
“They were fuckin’ Russians, Mr. Drakos,” Mike growls. His eyes dart to Neve. “Begging your pardon for the language, ma’am.”
“Fuck that,” Neve mutters back. “You’resurethey were Russian? Could’ve been some other Balkan—”
“My ex-wife’s mother was Russian,” Mike grunts. “Trust me, I hear that shit in my nightmares.”
