Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NICO
I can feel Benny tonguing his way down my abdomen, and for a moment I’m lost to the sensation of his gloriously hot mouth against my skin. Then I remember we’re in Sinclair’s bed and I sit bolt upright and grasp him roughly by the unruly curls at the back of his head.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I practically bark at him. I’m confused for a moment when he smiles back at me.
“Calm down. He got up ages ago and went to work on the overnight intel from Gabriella,” he says with a massive smirk on his face.
“Fucking cheeky shit,” I mutter, releasing my grip and pushing him off me before getting out of bed. “I’m still not fucking you in Sinclair’s bed. You know better, and you also know I’m going to enjoy punishing you later.”
“Promises, promises,” he sighs, throwing himself across the mattress, bringing the back of his hand to his forehead, overacting how hard-done-by he is.
“Such a fucking brat. And I will not be baited into punishing you now, Bambi.”
He chuckles and hoists himself back up, bouncing off the bed to stand right in front of me. “Spoilsport. At least let me rim you a little in the shower before breakfast?” he says with a playful whine in his voice.
I roll my eyes and turn away from him, failing to hide my smile. As I reach the hallway, I shout out, “Fine, come on then. I want you naked in the shower in less than two minutes or I won’t let you come.”
He barrels past me, pushing me into the wall in his mad scramble to get to the bathroom.
I shout after him, “Oh, you’re gonna pay for that, Bambi.”
I break into a run and chase after him.
I’m rummaging around in the fridge, starting to rustle up breakfast when everyone seems to descend on the kitchen all at once. Sinclair has emerged from his cave with an empty coffee cup, Benny is bounding down the stairs, and Aurora and Enzo are coming out of his office.
I’m struck by how domesticated this feels. Before Aurora, we all shared a house, but we were more like roommates. Admittedly, our old place wasn’t like this one at all. It was in the centre of the city, had tiny rooms, and half the square footage, so we were constantly getting in each other's way in the communal areas.
This place was only ever intended to be used in emergencies, but it turns out it suits our needs far better. I set to whipping up some scrambled eggs. Aurora and Enzo take a seat at the counter while Sinclair heads to Rory’s office to make ‘the good coffee’, grumbling about how we need another coffee machine if she’s not going to let us keep it in the kitchen. He returns just as I’m plating up the food with a tray of full cups that he places down on the counter. Benny digs out a stack of bagels from the cupboard and we all sit down to dig into breakfast together.
“So, did we get anything usable from Gabi’s team overnight?” Aurora asks, teetering on the edge of her stool as she leans over to grab her cup.
“Nothing new, but Dom had trouble at one of the clubs. Some over-privileged fuckboys started a brawl. One of the customers called the cops before security got it under control which resulted in the club being shut down for the night when said fuckboys were found to have Rohypnol on them.”
“So a complete cluster fuck then?” Aurora responds.
“Pretty much, yeah,” Sin says.
“Wait a minute, you got their names?” I ask, my hackles rising.
Sin picks up his phone, unlocks the screen and hands it to me. “Yeah, I went through the arrest reports this morning.”
My face heats with rage when I see who it is. “Little fuckers are back to their old tricks.” I pass the phone over to Benny and it doesn’t take long for him to get to the last name on the list.
“Motherfucker,” Benny shouts.
“What the fuck am I missing here?” Enzo jumps in.
“Two months ago, we paid this little prick a visit. It seems he didn’t get the fucking message,” I bite out through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, I’m gonna need more than that,” Aurora demands between bites of bagel.
“Since the start of the year, all the local clubs started reporting a drop in customers. When they looked into it, they heard a rumour going round that the clubs weren’t safe. That women were being attacked, but they weren’t reporting it to the police. A few of The Syndicate clubs decided to list it as an internal job for the clean up crews since it was tanking profits.”
“I think I remember listing it on the server but didn’t realise you’d picked that one up. We didn’t have much to go on, but there were some decent eye witnesses that pointed toward some local college guys,” Sinclair says, looking like he’s trying to dig out the details from his memory.
“Yeah, it didn’t take much to track them down. Given the state we left the ring leader in, they should have got the message.” I push my plate away, no longer hungry and struggling to swallow down my rage. “The job listing included some rough security footage from Inferno, but I didn’t want to send it to the police so we could keep them out of our business.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like we have much of a choice now. They got busted on our turf and the police will subpoena our footage of last night anyway. How old is the footage from Inferno now? Can we hand it over with whatever they request? Can the police still use it?” Aurora asks.
“Depends what’s on it,” Enzo says.
“There’s a few clips of them spiking drinks, but it wouldn’t stand up in court. They’re clever enough to mask what they’re doing. When I reviewed the listing, it included a video from one of the alley cams at Inferno where one of them bundles a woman into a car. But again, on its own, there’s nothing to say they weren’t just helping a girl in trouble to get home. There’s no evidence that they touch the girls on the premises.”
“Even with finding them in possession of Rohypnol, that’s still only intent. They have no proof that they’ve assaulted anyone. You reckon I could identify any of the girls from the footage?” Sin replies.
“I couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t,” I say .
“Okay, I’ll dig through the old footage and get Dom to give a copy to the police if I can get anything off it.” Sin pauses for a moment.
“Judging by their frat house, I’m sure someone’s daddy already has them out on bail by now,” Benny adds.
Aurora finishes off her last bite and pushes the plate away before wrapping her hands around her coffee cup. “See what you can do to help the police. Unfortunately, if they’re currently investigating them in connection with the club, we can’t deal with them ourselves till that dies down.”
“The police would never find the body,” I say, failing to hide my petulant tone.
“But they would notice he was missing, Nico. Not exactly helpful having the cops sniffing around right now when I’m about to slaughter my husband,” she says dryly. Folding her arms across her chest, she raises one eyebrow, half mocking, half admonishing me. She’s not wrong.
“She’s right,” Benny pipes up. “As much as I want to beat him to death with a baseball bat full of rusty nails, we can’t right now.”
“I know, but it just doesn’t make any sense why they started up again. We sent a clear fucking message, so why are they back?” I reply.
Sinclair pops his head up from his screen. “Nico’s right. Why the fuck are they back and why, when they know there are people like Nico and Benny keeping tabs on them, would they get into such a public display?”
“Do a deep dive on them. See if maybe they’re part of something bigger or whether they really are this fucking stupid,” Aurora adds.
Sinclair nods and we fall into a comfortable silence as they finish eating. When they’re done, I collect the plates to load the dishwasher .
“Did Gabi’s team identify Manny’s location?” I ask Sin.
“Not yet, but we’ll be able to narrow it down when his security switches shifts. See where any supplies are being taken. Just a matter of time,” he replies.
Aurora shuffles in her seat before hopping down. “Stefano will be here soon with Etta and Leandro. I’m going to need you all to sit in on the meeting. Once we have a location from Gabi, we won’t waste any time extracting that fucking traitor. I want him in our custody, and at Nico’s mercy, in forty-eight hours or less.”
The way she talks has my blood pumping. I can’t wait to get my hands on Manny. And knowing my phoenix, she’s looking forward to it as well.
As the meeting wraps up, Benny heads to the front room with his sister in tow. He and Etta have been spending more and more time together recently. Now his cunt of a father is dead she’s truly come into her own.
Aurora was right to appoint her capo. Not only is she a natural leader, but folding all the clean up crews under her was a stroke of genius. She has a talent for the job, and instead of having a plethora of teams working on the fringes of the organisation, we now have a highly adaptable network that can be coordinated quickly.
Teams like us that were treated as second-class citizens are now a central part of the organisation and given the respect they deserve.
It’s a wise decision. You should never alienate the people who know all your dirty secrets.
Stefano and Leandro make a beeline for the door, but I raise my hand to get my consigliere’s attention. He pats Leo on the shoulder and sends him on his way.
I pull him into the hallway and lower my voice. “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that nurse Doc Em was having issues with?”
His entire demeanour shifts. For a second I think he’s facing off with me, but then I recognise it’s because he can’t contain how fucking angry he is.
“That little prick is pushing the limits of my patience. Katerina won’t let me deal with him how I’d like to,” he forces out through gritted teeth.
“Katerina… Katerina won’t let you deal with him?” I ask incredulously.
“Don’t say a fucking word, Nico. That woman will be the death of me.”
I can’t help but laugh because I can well believe it. I wouldn’t want to piss her off. “So what’s the latest?”
“That little prick has escalated. She wouldn’t go to HR, so I made her swap shifts. Now she's getting creepy calls from burners. He never speaks, but you can hear him breathing. Flowers and gifts showing up at work and home.”
“Daniel Costello is a fucking problem. One she shouldn’t be having to worry about. Why is he still breathing?” I question, beginning to lose my patience with the idea that Doc Em is having to put up with a minute more of this shit than she has to.
“Because that creepy little fuck is well connected. His daddy’s one of the hospital’s major donors. She’s worried about her career and I can’t make her understand how fucking dangerous he is.”
“I’ll have a word with her,” I reassure him.
He nods and pulls me into him, gripping my forearm. “ Anything you can do to help me realise how serious this is would help.”
He releases his hold on my arm and heads to the front door.
“What was that about?” says Aurora, appearing next to me as Stefano walks away. I turn, pull out her hair tie, and run my fingers through her long locks. She moans, nearly making me forget her question. “Well?”
“Doc Em has a co-worker who’s not taking no for an answer. She isn’t taking it seriously, so I asked Stefano to deal with it,” I clarify.
Her eyes are closed but they snap open and all of a sudden she’s glaring at me.
“Does her father know about this?”
“No one knows about it. She won’t have it. Hell, she still hasn’t forgiven me for setting Stefano on it.”
She’s stalking out the front door in an instant, shouting Stefano’s name. I jog after her and stop in the doorway as she opens the passenger side of his dark sedan, gets in, and slams the door. I watch in fascination as they talk. All I can make out are vague hand gestures and the occasional nodding head through the darkened glass.
A few minutes later, she steps out again, only to turn back and lean one hand on the roof of the car. “Talk to Dante. Or I will,” she orders. It doesn’t sound like a threat, but it’s also not a suggestion. She shuts the car door and walks back to the house. As she gets to the top step of the porch, a slender finger is jabbed repeatedly into my chest.
“I know a lot of shit has been going on lately, but I need to know everything that’s happening. Especially when it relates to the daughter of one of my capo’s. She’s our responsibility and Dante has a right to know if we’re investigating someone that poses a threat to her. I won’t keep secrets from one of my capos.”
I can’t deny, ‘Don Aurora’ is sexy as fuck. That woman can control a room like no other. “Yes, boss,” I say, dropping the pitch of my voice into a low bass.
“Don’t try and flirt your way out of this.”
“No, boss.”
“You’re fucking infuriating,” she huffs.
“I am, boss.”
“Oh fuck off, Nico,” she says as she shoves my shoulder playfully.
“Never, boss,” I reply, unable to hide my smile. I swoop down, picking her up and forcing her to wrap her legs around my waist. She squeals for me to put her down, but I swat her ass and ignore her. I leave one hand palming her asscheek, dragging the other along her spine until I fist the hair at the base of her scalp and tilt her head back so I can expose her throat. I bite the nape of her neck before sucking just below her pulse point and drawing a long lustful moan out of her.
My dick stands to attention, savouring every noise she makes and I whisper into her ear, “I would do nearly anything you ask of me, but leaving your side isn’t one of them, phoenix.”