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Ignoring my advice, he said, “I’ll give you some time to think about it.”
“There’s nothing to think about,” I replied as I stood up, finished with him.
Franz stood up as well, thatgrin still on his face. He was looking at me like he had me bent over a barrel, and maybe he did. Even though the Italians were a bigger syndicate, the rest of the city’s players weren’t stupid. If Fia reached out to the Germans to cut a deal, I had no doubt that they were smart enough to ensure a victory for themselves. I could totally see them making me choose between my husband and my sister, another lose/lose situation that Fia didn’t seem to mind putting me in.
“I’ll bein touch,” Franz said cordially, but I said nothing as I watched him walk out of the conference room.
As soon as I was gone, my first instinct was to call Nero, but I quickly decided against it. He was going to ask questions that I didn’t have the answersto, and this really wasn’t a conversation that I wanted to have over the phone anyway. I also needed to talk to my sister about what she was doing. If she thought that the Germans were the type to play fair, then she was sorely mistaken. None of the families played fair, if they did, then they wouldn’t be in power the way that they were now.
What the fuck, Fia?
Chapter 23
Nero~
“I’m…I…I’m…so…sorry…” he wheezed, oxygen evading him.
“Yes, you keep saying that,” I replied evenly.“However, I just don’t believe that you mean it.”
While we had other things happening in Alaska, that wasn’t the only warehouse that we used for situations like this one. All beautifully camouflaged, we had about six scattered throughout our territory, and all equipped with whatever we needed to make our point known.
“I am,” Carl Dollar sobbed.
Carl Dollar had been the reason behind what happened in Kasen’s office on Monday. A month ago, Carl had approached Elio, asking my brother if he could use our port for an overseas shipment of cocaine. For a reasonable percentage, Elio had agreed, another few dollars in our pockets.
However, I’d gotten a call on Monday that Carl’s shipment hadnotbeen cocaine as he’d claimed. One of our guys at the dock had seem him escorting children into three black vans, and that was one thing that the Sartoris didn’t deal in; we did not do human trafficking. Sure, we dealt in prostitution, but every girl that worked for us had to be at least twenty-one. People could say what they wanted about eighteen being legal, but not in this fucking business. At eighteen, there was still hope for something better, so all our girls were grown.
So, after escorting my wifefrom her office after what she let me do to her, I had taken her home, had run her a bath, then had left to take care of Carl Dollar and his band of fucking idiots. Currently, there were five of them strung up in the warehouse because the other two had been stupid enough to fight back after we’d found them.
Luckily-though there wasn’t enough luck in the world to save these pieces of shit-all the children had been found and accounted for, and I had found someone to help get them back home or situated here if they couldn’t be sent back. My distaste for human trafficking was well-known, so I hadn’t been too worried about my orders being carried out. Death was easy to dish out whenever it came to someone harming a child.
I looked over at my brother. “We’ll start with that one over there.”
“Good choice,” Elio smirked, and one of Carl’s drivers started thrashing around, doing his best to try to free himself from the chains.
Looking back at Carl, I said, “See, I’d start with you, but what fun would that be?” Carl started sobbing again. “I want you to see what we have in store for you, Carl. I want you to see what’s coming, and I’m going to make sure you knowexactlywhat those children might have had to endure because of you.” His sobbing got louder. “By the time that I send you to the bowels of hell, you’re going to be convinced that the devil actually lives in Port Townsend.”
Four hours later, all five men were dead, the pieces of their mutilated bodies decorating the warehouse floor.Since Elio knew how to clean up the mess, I had decided to leave him to it, so that I could go home to my wife. As troublesome as it sounded, I wanted nothing more than to bury myself inside of her, using her body to get rid of my bloodlust.
Walking into my office, Aurelio was right behind me, not ready to leave until he knew that we were done for the night. If Aurelio slept, I’d never seen him do it. The man was like a machine, and it didn’t matter that it was already past two in the morning. If anyone could go for seventy-two hours without sleep or rest, it was Aurelio Provenza.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he chuckled. “She has to work in the morning.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time this week that she’s gone to work with little to no sleep,” I huffed before pulling out my cigarettes. Kasen knew that I smoked, but if it bothered her, she was keeping it to herself. So, until she said otherwise, I was going to keep up the habit, though I made the effort to smoke near a window or outside if I wasn’t in my office.
“Well, there’s also the fact that you’ll have to shower before joining her in bed,” he pointed out. “Most women think the worst when their husband’s shower constantly.”
“No matter what Kasen chose for her life, she grew up in this lifestyle,” I reminded him. “Kasen will understand that there are hundreds ofreasons that I might need to take a shower, the very last one being another goddamn woman.” I took a drag of my cigarette. “There’s no way in hell that I’d ever touch another female when my wife is all that I could ever want.”
“Have you thought about telling her the truth, Nero?” he asked, and that surprised me a bit.
“What?”
“Nero, I’ve never seen you so…grounded before,” he said. “Since the day that I met you, you’ve always been doing ten different things at once. You’ve always been capable and in control, but this is something different.”
I scowled at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Ever since you and Kasen came to that agreement, you seem…let’s just say that I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone stopped listening to your father and started following you blindly.”
