The Deadliest Sin Series Complete Collection, page 113
He tips his glass toward me. “It always comes down to a woman.”
Though not funny at all, I can’t fight the pull of the slight smile at my lips.
“Aleksander Gashi stepped in for his brother, and even then, things were okay for a while. Aleksander was harsh. They called him The Dragon, and you don’t even want to know what he did to some people, but he understood what a war would cost all of us, so he maintained the status quo amongst the families. Arturo Marconi, on the other hand, didn’t like living in his uncle’s shadow in the Italian organization and had Il Padrone killed. Then Valentina took him out and stepped up as head of the family since she was Il Padrone’s daughter. That would have been right around the time she met Cutter.”
I nod slowly, trying to take in all the names and history. “I wasn’t speaking with him then. It had been a while…”
All of this is news to me. I never really paid much attention to what was going on in Chicago unless I happened to catch some of it on the Milwaukee news. I had no reason to care. It never affected me…until it did.
Galen takes a drink and stares off toward the front window. “Shortly thereafter, Aleksander was also killed by Konstandin Morina, and a man named Erjon stepped in briefly as head of the Albanians, though that didn’t last long. He was trafficking women, and that didn’t sit well with your brother and his friends. One of Warwick’s crew killed him, and a man named Michael Syla took over.”
“I know that name…”
It’s familiar, something tickling at the back of my mind, but I can’t quite place how I know it.
“Probably because people thought he was responsible for the bombing of the meeting of the families. There was more tension after Valentina and Michael took over, people feeling out what the change would mean and mistrusting everyone else. There was also another new player. Someone who had been bringing in a hell of a lot of drugs. A lot more than we had previously seen in the city. Higher quality shit, too. We initially figured it was one of the Mexican cartels.”
“The ones who shot at us? Luna Cartel?”
“No.” He shakes his head and takes a sip, reminding me that I still have my drink clenched in my hand. I bring the glass to my lips and let the harsh liquid pour down my throat, coughing slightly.
Galen chuckles. “That’s the good shit.”
“Yeah.” I cough again. “Real good.”
A grin plays on his lips. “You get used to it.” He stares into his own drink. “Anyway, the crew your brother was on was working for Valentina's cousin and uncle at the time, and they intercepted a shipment that belonged to the Blood Rose Cartel out of Colombia.”
I narrow my eyes. “Felipe?”
He nods. “Felipe and his identical twin brother, who we all knew as just Rose. Turns out, they'd been running the business together the entire time as one person, with Felipe pretending to be a good Catholic priest in order to keep himself and what he was doing hidden.”
“Jesus…talk about going to fucking hell.”
Galen snorts and shakes his head. “I was raised in a very religious family. My uncle was a priest back in Ireland, and even though it was a long fucking time ago, I still remember what it felt like to sit in the church and listen to his sermons.” He tightens his hand on the glass again. “But that's a story for another day. Anyway, they hit the shipment, and it sent Rose and the cartel on a bit of a hunting expedition. They eventually came to an agreement with Valentina to sell in her territory, which didn't sit well with anyone. Any sort of concession to someone new moving in like that opens the door for them to take even more from other people. And then…Kat showed up.” He locks his gaze with mine, like he’s waiting to drop a bomb. “She’s Aleksander Gashi’s widow.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah. Though, no one knew that at the time. We all believed she was just opening brothels in the city. We thought she was teaming up with Rose and were skeptical of her because of that, but in the end, she partnered up with Michael. Got him to trust her and…”
“And what?”
Galen pauses for a moment, upping the tension in the room even more. “And then she shot him in the fucking head while he was going down on her.”
NICKI
“What?”
I must have misheard him.
These people are vicious, but that seems extreme, even for what I know about these people and this world.
Galen nods slowly, pushes off the bar, and makes his way over to me. “Yep.” He settles in the chair across from me, wincing slightly, likely hoping I won't notice. “It was a huge clusterfuck, and it only got worse from there. Not only were we dealing with Rose, but now, we had this new woman as the head of the Albanian family, a woman who felt her husband had been murdered and that it was her job to pick up the pieces and expand his empire.”
I can already see where this is going. “A woman scorned…”
Galen offers me a tight smile. “Exactly. She started with the brothels, but it was clear she wanted to branch out into other areas despite promising both me and Valerian that she wouldn't. She already had an agreement with Valentina to use her docks to bring in girls, but then she took it a step further and hit Valerian and me where it hurt, likely because she thought we were the two easiest to attack.”
“How?”
He shakes his head. “I can’t get into details of my business with you. It’s better if you don’t know the details, just the big picture.”
His rebuke shouldn’t hurt as much. Frankly, I don’t want to know all the bloody details, but at the same time, knowing he’s keeping things from me makes the whiskey in my stomach churn.
Valerian and Galen are two people I would not want to cross. Kat must have some serious balls to be going up against them.
Galen relaxes back in the chair slightly. “Kat’s been at the top of our hit list for a while because of that.”
“I can understand why. But if there's all this tension, everybody's trying to kill each other and expand their territories, then why would you all get together for a meeting?”
He sighs and scrubs his hand over his cheek. “It wasn't like we had much of a choice. Felipe went all over town and killed one man from each of us—tortured them actually and then left them as a very bloody invitation to the meeting. We knew what he wanted. He wanted us to fear him and know that if we didn't show up, something even worse would happen. So, we met at the church, somewhere we all thought would be neutral ground.”
Images of his bloody wounds and pale face when he had me brought into his office flash before my eyes. “But it wasn't.”
He snorts and shakes his head. “No, it wasn't, not even fucking close. We discovered the Rose twins were fighting over their territory and business and wanted us to pick sides, but Rowan somehow managed to convince them to work out their differences. The rest of us were trying to figure out what the fuck that meant for us…when someone came in shooting.”
“Why would one of the other families do that? If the head of their family was there, wouldn't they be putting themselves at risk?”
Galen points a finger at me. “That's exactly the problem. It doesn’t make any sense. None of them would be that stupid.”
“Do you think it was the Luna Cartel that Detective Lopez said came after us?”
“No.” He shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink. “That night Felipe came for Rowan…”
My stomach churns, the drink I just took souring. “Yeah…”
The night that started all of this.
If I hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be here now. I wouldn’t be entangled with a man who is willing to do anything to get what he wants and has his sights set on me.
“A lot of my most experienced men weren't there.”
“Why not?”
His eyes harden, flashes of the man I should probably fear coming through now. “Because I had them taking care of another problem.”
He pauses for a moment, almost as if he's considering whether or not to reveal more. It might be dangerous to know everything, but at this point, I have to know. I have to know what I’m getting into.
“Look at what you've already told me, Galen. What can you possibly say now that's going to shock me or put me in any more danger than I already am?” I raise an eyebrow at him. “Really.”
“Mmm.” He considers my words for a moment, swirling his drink. “Good point.” He takes another pull from it. “The Luna Cartel from Mexico. You’ve been intimately introduced to them already. They’ve been bringing in drugs for a while, but we left that issue to the other groups handling the majority of the drug trade. I didn’t give a fuck if Rose’s business was affected by them. The problem is, they’ve since expanded to guns and other weapons. The Irish have controlled the gun trade in the Midwest for a long time. I let the other families move a little bit here and there for their own needs, but this is our primary business. So, when we got word that the cartel was bringing in shit, we had to make a move.”
I swirl my drink in the glass and then down the rest of it. Something tells me I may need the liquid support for what he’s about to tell me.
“I made a decisive blow against them, took out an entire warehouse where they had been housing their guns and drugs…after we took out all the men there first.”
“Shit. So…why can’t it be them who came for you at the church? It seems like retaliation for something.”
“It can’t be them because we wiped out almost the entire crew in town. They would have had to bring people in from Mexico, and that would take time. Whoever hit us at the church was thorough. Experienced. Coordinated. The Luna Cartel seems to act rather than plan.”
“That's who came into the bar?”
“Yes, we were able to confirm it from their tattoos.”
“And they were who came after us in the car?”
“That’s what Detective Lopez confirmed.”
I glance around the “safehouse” as a shiver rolls through me. “How did they find us, find the car?”
“I don't know. May have been luck. They may have someone giving them information.”
“Luke?”
His jaw hardens. “Fuck no. The only person I trusted more in this world than Luke was my cousin Padraig, but Michael Syla killed him.”
“Jesus, I'm sorry.”
His hand flies up to silence me. “I don't want your sympathy. I need you to understand how volatile the situation is. We don't know who shot up the church, but I do know the Luna Cartel wants me dead. That alone should be bad enough, but when you don't know who your enemy is, it makes it a hundred times worse. Getting involved with me is probably the most dangerous fucking thing you could ever do…”
No shit.
He takes a deep breath, watching me and waiting for me to say or do something, to somehow react. But honestly, I have no idea what to do or say.
“And now that you know that, mo chuisle, I need to know if you're in this or not.” He swallows thickly, holding my gaze with an intensity that heats my skin and brings a flood of memories of what we just did in that bedroom. “Because even if you aren't, even if I never see you again, you're still in danger. I’ve put you there, and for that, I’m sorry. But I'll protect you. I'll send you wherever you want to go. Help you start a new life. Buy you a house and give you money to live on…whatever the fuck you want. Whatever you could possibly ever need, as long as you're safe. I just need to know—”
The front door flies open, and Luke rushes in, cutting off Galen. “Sorry, sir.”
He glances at me and shifts uneasily.
Galen glares at him. “WHAT?”
Luke flinches slightly but takes another step forward. “The warehouse in Morgan Park was just hit.”
“Fuck!”
Galen jerks up from the chair and chucks his tumbler against the wall. Glass shatters across the room, and a darkness settles over him that obliterates all the things I thought I saw in him and confirms all the things he’s warning me about.
This is the Galen I’ve been waiting for.
The one I should fear.
GALEN
I stare at the shards of glass strewn across the wood floors and waver on my feet slightly. Maybe my activities with Nicki were a little beyond what I should be doing right now given my physical condition, but now, I apparently have bigger things to worry about than whether I’m fit enough to fuck.
Luke’s focus darts over to her again, reluctant to say anything more with her present, not wanting to enrage me any further.
“Don't worry about her.” I motion toward Nicki dismissively. “Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
“I'm not totally sure. I just got a call from Killian over at the warehouse, and he said the whole place is basically gone.”
“What do you mean gone?”
Luke holds out his hands, empty palms up. “Fucking gone. We lost three men who were inside when the whole place exploded. Killian is the only one who survived and only because he had been patrolling the perimeter and was far enough away that they didn’t see him.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fucking HELL!
“What the hell is going on?” I pay my men to protect our product and ensure these kinds of things can’t happen to us. “Did Killian see anything that could help us figure out who the fuck it was?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Get him on the fucking phone and find out. Was the place left unattended at any time?”
He shakes his head. “No, we have people there twenty-four-seven.”
“Then how the fuck did explosives get in?”
“I don't know.”
FUCK!
I shove my hand through my still damp hair and rub at the back of my neck where the tension is starting to knot. “Increase security at every location and pull any camera footage from any businesses around to see what the fuck we might be able to make out. Go make the fucking calls now. I'm going to make some calls myself to see if anyone else was hit or if it was just us.”
Luke rushes out the door, casting another furtive glance at Nicki on his way out, and I grab my phone out of my pocket and dial Valerian first. If someone is coming after all of us, then he needs a warning if he hasn’t been hit yet.
He answers on the third ring, likely busy getting his dick sucked by one of the whores who hangs out at his underground clubs. “Comrade—”
“One of my warehouses was just hit.”
“What?” The phone jostles loudly.
“Explosives of some sort.”
“Shit.”
“What about you?
“As far as I know, everything's fine here.”
Fucking brilliant.
That means it’s possible I am the only target.
“Double your security, just in case. I don't know if this is related to what happened at the church or something else.”
“Of course.”
I end the call and dial Felipe next. With Rowan’s life in his bloody hands, I don’t trust that she’ll remain unscathed. Especially when I still don’t know what she needed to tell me that was so important.
It was something she didn’t want to say over the phone, likely because she didn’t want Felipe to overhear it.
Shit. Could she have been trying to warn me about this?
The phone rings again, and I almost hang up before Felipe can answer, but his smooth, accented voice floats through the line.
“Galen, why are you—”
“Someone just hit one of our warehouses.”
“Hell…and before you ask, I had nothing to do with it.” He mumbles something to someone else, then the phone jostles. “Rowan's here. She wants to talk to you.”
Hell.
The last thing I want is to scare her even more by telling her what’s going on. She seemed off before. Clearly upset about something urgent enough to need to see me in person when we were all hiding out after the church.
Her breathy voice floats through the line. “Galen? What happened?”
“Somebody hit one of our warehouses, but I'm fine.”
“Oh, my God…”
“Are you okay? Were you trying to—”
“I’m fine.”
She cut me off.
Rowan doesn’t want Felipe to know she spoke with me earlier. Maybe he had no idea I was going to meet with her at all. I’m not going to say or do anything that could put her in danger with that man. All I can do is play along and try to protect her even from here.
“Don’t worry, Nessa. Put Felipe back on the line.”
Something rustles through the phone, and Felipe clears his throat. “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
I won’t hold my breath.
He isn’t a man I can trust, especially not with all this weirdness with Rowan. None of the relationships between the families are the same anymore. Everything changed in that church. But there are two people who always seem to be at the center of the problems arising here in Chicago recently.
“What about your brother and Kat?”
Felipe releases a heavy sigh. “I spoke with them after they got out of church. They went right to get Kat’s son and lie low. It wasn’t them. I can guarantee you that.”
“Can you?” I tighten my hand around the phone and glance at Nicki, who sits stock still, watching and listening intently. “You really know what the hell your brother and that bitch are up to?”
“You're upset, Galen, but I'm telling you, this wasn't them. From what I understand, you pissed off the Luna Cartel, and they've already come after you more than once. Perhaps it's them again.”
“It's possible, but these attacks are too coordinated.”
“All you can do right now is keep yourself alive.”
“That's my plan.”
Nicki shifts in her chair under my assessment, and I end the call, my frustration starting to boil over. My hand tightens even more around the phone, images of the last few weeks flooding my head.
Felipe tearing apart the bar and decimating my men.
Taking Rowan after I had just gotten my sister back.
Being shot at the church.
The cartel coming into the bar and taking out even more of my guys.
