Devoted to the dark, p.8
Devoted to the Dark, page 8
I couldn’t tell if she was saying she would continue to be that way or if perhaps she was considering a change in routine. “Hopefully, they won’t break the truce. Then, we won’t have to worry about it.”
She nodded. “Is there anything else going on that Ragno could be here to help my father out with? Any other threats?”
Shrugging, I said, “No, not that I’m aware of. I’ve had my head so far up the ass of the Latvian gang, I probably have blinders on to everything else, but I don’t know of any other threats.”
I’d said more than I intended to, but then, when I saw her reaction, I felt confident in confiding in her about the situation.
“What Latvian problem?” she asked.
I shook my head abruptly. “It’s nothing we can’t handle. Just some bastards who think they can come in and take what’s ours. We’ve already taught them a pretty big lesson in what happens when you fuck with the Petrovs, but we haven’t been able to track down their leader yet. We’re working on it.”
The look of understanding on her face would’ve alarmed me if it had come from anyone else. Most of the girls I dated shouldn’t have been able to understand a damn word of what I was discussing, not that I would’ve gone so far as to tell them everything I’d just told her. But with Elisa, it was different. For better or worse, she understood this lifestyle. She understood me.
“What happened with them?” she asked, finishing up her last bite of pasta.
“They took out one of my guys. I shut down their brothel. Now, I’ve got a bunch of girls running around my house.” She laughed at that, probably putting two and two together about all of the extra maids she saw. “I gotta get them sorted out. I may have a lead on where to find their boss, but I’m not sure.”
“Well, having them cook and clean seems like a good solution. There are a couple of halfway houses the law firm works with. I can look into those for you if you want.” She smiled and took a sip of her water.
Something about this conversation was making me slightly uncomfortable now. Or maybe it was the way she was looking at me. We were like two old married people discussing our work problems. But instead of Bill in accounting being a pain in the ass, we were talking about sex trafficking and murder. Just like the Brady Bunch.
Antonio came back to offer dessert, but we were both stuffed. When he tried to get out of bringing me the check, I insisted. I wanted to buy Elisa dinner and wouldn’t be deterred. He finally gave in and went off to get the slip of paper.
“I just wish I could follow him, like that was my only job for a while,” Elisa said, and I knew she was talking about Ragno again.
“Is he staying at your father’s house?” I asked, getting my wallet out of my pocket.
“I’m not sure. He’s there a lot, but I don’t know if he is officially staying somewhere else. Is there any way we could track him?”
Antonio came back, and I paid the bill, the wheels in my head spinning. “Maybe. I got a guy. I’ll look into it and let you know.” Standing, I offered her my hand. I could tell she was confused, but she took it. Was Elisa starting to trust me? If she was smart, she wouldn’t.
About an hour later, after I dropped Elisa off, I pulled up to a place on the outskirts of town, one I’d been told about but had never visited before. I’d spoken to this guy, Isaac Turner, on the phone a few times.
A knock on the residence ended with me being ushered inside by a guy in his mid-twenties who looked like an IT guy at any office in Chicago. Buzz haircut, khakis, polo shirt. He appeared to be a straitlaced guy on the outside, but if that were the case, we wouldn’t be there.
“So, Isaac,” I began once he escorted me into what looked like his office. “This isn’t exactly a GPS tracker, right?”
“Fuck no.” He sat down at his desk, gesturing for me to take a seat in a chair across from him. Pulling out a small piece of plastic that looked to be about the size of a quarter, he plopped it down in the center of his desk. “It emits a signal that we track via satellites the government doesn’t want anyone to know about. It’s an electromagnetic field that isn’t detectable by any other means. No one’s going to know this son of a bitch is on them, not by mechanical means, anyway.”
I listened to what he was saying and considered how we would make this work. “How do we adhere it?”
He showed me that the backing peeled off, and it stuck onto any surface, no problem. “Won’t come off easily, even in water.”
“And how long can I count on it to work?” I asked him, looking into his eyes.
I saw a bit of an unbalance there. This definitely wasn’t your run-of-the-mill office technology guy. “A week. Then, you’ll have to replace it. Once the backing is taken off, it automatically starts to track.”
“Makes sense.” I thought this would work. I just didn’t know how I’d get it on Ragno. Without Elisa’s help, it wasn’t going to happen. Could I trust her?
“Listen, this is some serious shit right here, man. You understand? Someone finds this shit, comes looking for you, you don’t know me. The last thing I need is the motherfucking CIA knocking down my door.”
“I’m not worried about cops,” I assured him. I knew the cops in Chicago and could get them to look the other way for most things.
Isaac leaned into the desk. “I’m not talking about cops, man. I’m talking about serious trouble. You don’t have enough money in the bank to bribe these guys, and forget about intimidating them. I guarantee you, anyone finds out I sold you this motherfucker, you’ll never get a piece of tech from me again. Because I’ll be dead.”
“I got it.” He didn’t need to talk to me like I was a dumbass. “I’ll take two of the trackers.”
He nodded. “I’ll throw in a phone with the software to track these things.”
When I pulled out cash to pay the price he quoted me, he lit up like a fucking Christmas tree.
A few minutes later, I walked out of his suburban home with the trackers and phone in my pocket, a plan formulating in my head.
But Elisa wasn’t going to like it. I guessed it was time to figure out whether or not she was going to stay loyal to her family or if I really did mean something to her. As much as I wanted her help, I didn’t know whether I wanted her to choose them or me. Choosing me seemed like the clear answer, but that caused a whole set of other problems, problems I didn’t want to face.
Like what the fuck was that pain I kept feeling in my chest? How could a rock ache? If she was actually starting to make me feel something for her, well, fuck, I may as well call it a day now.
Visions of Yuri’s widow flashed before my eyes. Nope, I wasn’t going down that road. Not for Elisa. Not for anyone.
CHAPTER 13
ELISA
“I hate it.” Unblinking, I folded my arms and stared into Daemon’s cold eyes. “This is a terrible idea.”
Sitting on the sofa in my apartment with him a good three feet away from me, I mulled over his plan for tracking Ragno in my mind again and gave another dismissive shake of my head. This was never going to work. The fact that he’d sought me out this early on a Saturday morning to tell me he had it all figured out made it even worse.
When I’d opened the door to see him standing there, my first thought had been thank God Sara wasn’t home, having spent the night at a friend’s house. My second thought had been how the hell did he know where I lived, but then, he was fucking Daemon Petrov, so of course he knew. Then, I’d wanted to drag him into my bedroom, but he hadn’t given me a chance. Now, I just wanted to kick him out.
“What do you mean it’s a terrible idea? Elisa, this is our solution,” he told me, leaning in like a salesperson with an old clunker of a used car behind him he didn’t quite want me to be paying attention to.
Shaking my head, I began to ask the questions that stuck out to me as problematic. “You want me to figure out a way to stick that little tracker on him in a manner that’s going to be undetectable for a week? What am I going to do? Shove it up his asshole?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “Sure, if that’s what it takes.”
I ran both hands through my hair and let out an irritated growl. “Daemon, there’s no fucking way I can stick that to him and have him not find it. I can put it on his car—”
“No, that’s not good enough, Elisa. It has to be on him. I have to know where he is all the time.” He shook his head dismissively at me without even letting me finish my statement.
“What about his phone? Chances are he’ll have that with him all the time. I could stick it on there.” I could hear the fault in my reasoning before he even pointed it out.
“The tracker is small, but it’s not that small. He’d see it if it was on his phone. Besides, for all we know he has multiple phones.”
“Like you have multiple phones?” He shrugged again. Frustrated, I wanted to scream at him that he needed to think this through better. “I don’t know, Daemon.”
“Listen, Elisa. It’s easy. Either you can do it, or I find someone else who can do it. Someone who is loyal to me and wants to prove their value.” Again, his tone was meant to convey a calmness that clearly wasn’t there if I looked into his eyes. He was on the edge of losing it. I recognized that look. I’d seen it a million times right before my father let his hands fly.
That was my biggest concern, of course. He wasn’t just asking me to attach a sticker to a vicious killer. He was asking me to go against my family. Of course, I wanted to prove my loyalty to Daemon. I had very little reason to stay faithful to the La Rosas when all my father had ever done was torment me. But at the same time, there were penalties that had to be paid when one failed the La Rosas.
“Daemon,” I began, my tone quiet as I reasoned through my response. “You have to consider what this would mean if my father found out. All of the work I’ve done to graduate with my bachelor’s early, to get through law school so quickly so I could get away from them, so I could get on with my life—all of that would be washed down the drain in an instant if I get caught helping you with this.”
He only started at me, unblinking, watching me squirm in my seat. God, I hated the weight of his dark eyes on my face.
Was it even worth it for me to go into detail? Surely, he had to know what I was saying. If my father found out I was helping anyone else, be it his new wife’s family or any other syndicate, he would kill me.
Actually, that probably wasn’t true. There was a fate worse than death, and Alexander La Rosa was pretty goddamn good at finding it. He wouldn’t show me any mercy just because I was his daughter, that was for sure. If I thought my life was miserable before, back when I was under his roof and living by his rules, or even when I was living in a cage in Daemon’s bedroom, I hadn’t experienced anything like the living hell my father would be sure to provide me with once he saw that I wasn’t loyal to him like he’d always assumed I’d have to be.
“He’d turn me into some sort of a slave,” I told Daemon, watching him stare at me. “I’d never be able to escape the misery. And it won’t just be my father either.” My brothers, other than Drake, had never been kind to me. They would be ferocious in a situation like this. I remembered how they’d reacted when they thought I’d fucked Mikel. No, they would come unhinged.
“Is that what’s most important to you?” Daemon’s tone was condescending, as if he thought I shouldn’t even consider my own safety and happiness and just do his bidding like some sort of a fucking robot. “If so, I guess I’ll just have to find someone more capable. Someone who puts the lives of the people she cares about above protecting her own ass.”
I knew what he was doing, trying to guilt me into saying I’d do it. But if I said I would and failed, wouldn’t that be worse than not trying at all?
Thinking of my father, a lightning bolt of fear shot straight through me. I felt like a little girl again, sitting on my bed with my knees pulled up to my chest, trembling as I waited to hear the creak of my bedroom door and knew my psychotic father was there to pay me a visit. My voice was hoarse and quivering as I said, “I can’t.”
“Fine.” Daemon stood and took a few steps toward the door. For a moment, I began to believe that this would actually be the end of it, that he was going to walk out the door and let it go. Sure, he’d be angry at me. But it wasn’t anything a night of rough sex wouldn’t cure. But then, he spun around on his heel, pointing an accusing finger in my face. “You’re nothing but a disloyal snitch, Elisa La Rosa. A fucking cunt who can’t do anything right for anyone. You’re a piece of shit, you know that?”
My eyes widened at his words. Never had I heard him have such an angry outburst, not at me, anyway, not even on the night when he’d shoved my head into the wall where the contents from my dinner plate continued to drip down the wallpaper.
I wanted to argue with him, to tell him he didn’t understand, that I had strong feelings for him, but nothing would come out of my mouth except a weak sob. He was asking me to stand on the ledge of the Golden Gate Bridge and leap off—without a tether. With nothing to keep me from crashing into the waves. It wasn’t fair, but at the same time, I was used to being called such horrible names. Hearing Daemon say those things hurt worse than having my father or anyone else say them, but it wasn’t an unusual sting to me. It was everyday life. Elisa La Rosa is a fuck-up. That is all.
“We are done, Elisa. Don’t even think about trying to come crawling back to me, back to my life, back to my bed. Fuck you and everyone in your goddamn family. I never want to see your face again.” His dark eyes seemed to have iced over, their surface glinting with a frostiness I’d never seen there before. The tears splashing down my cheeks did nothing to convince him to take a word of what he’d said back.
Like a cyclone, Daemon blew out of my apartment door, slamming it behind him hard enough to knock a picture off a wall. Exactly why he’d lashed out that way at me, I couldn’t say for sure. In his line of work, he probably wasn’t used to hearing the word no, but at the same time, wasn’t he supposed to remain professional? Clearly not.
With my head in my hands, I sat there on the couch, tears continuing to stream down my face. What was I supposed to do? I wanted to help Daemon. For all I knew, Ragno was there to kill him, and the last thing I wanted was to stand idly by while Daemon Petrov was assassinated at the hands of my own cousin.
At the same time, what he was asking me to do was impossible. How could I stick a tracker to a person and think they wouldn’t know? Ragno wasn’t an idiot. He would know it was me the moment he found the damn thing. Then, one word to my father, and my life would be over in every way imaginable. He would rip me to shreds but leave me alive so I could feel the pain of every cut.
After several minutes of bawling my eyes out, trembling like the frightened little girl I still was deep down inside my soul, I got up and wiped my eyes with a tissue. There had to be something I could do. Maybe the plan that Daemon had outlined wouldn’t exactly work for me, but that didn’t make me completely helpless.
“Think, Elisa. How do I prove my loyalty to Daemon, help keep him alive, but not get caught by my father?” Thinking the situation over, I headed to the kitchen for some water, hoping to clear my mind a bit. I couldn’t give up so easily. Just because Daemon had cursed me and said he never wanted to see me again, that didn’t mean he couldn’t be persuaded to give me another chance if I were able to prove my loyalty to him.
My phone vibrated in the pocket of my pajama pants. With my breath in my throat, I pulled it out, hoping it was Daemon, but it wasn’t. Sara just wanted to let me know she was on her way home and was stopping for bagels. Did I want one?
“Sure,” I texted back. Cramming an entire bagel in my mouth wasn’t going to fix anything, but it might make me feel temporarily better.
I decided to go into the bathroom and clean myself up a little bit before Sara got home. As much as I wanted to confide in my best friend everything that was going on, it wasn’t an option. My father wouldn’t allow me to share the family business with anyone, and Daemon wouldn’t appreciate it either. For that matter, telling Sara the truth, that I was caught between two of the country’s oldest crime families, that my life and my sanity were in jeopardy, would only put her in danger, too. No, it was best if I kept this to myself.
Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I saw exactly the woman Daemon had described. Ugly, weak, pathetic. I really was a piece of work. It was no wonder he didn’t want to be with me. Who would want to?
With a sigh, I dunked my face under the cold water and willed myself to think of a solution. There had to be something I could do to fix this. But my mind was blank at the moment.
How did I prove I was loyal to my father’s enemy without giving my father a reason to kill me? I had no idea, but I had to figure it out quickly or else I was already dead.
CHAPTER 14
DAEMON
The sounds of bullets flying always got my engine revving, even if I was just standing in the shooting range underneath our family home and not actually in the middle of a battle to defend my family’s honor. Still, my pulse intensified with every pull of the trigger. The target on the other side of the room already looked like a piece of Swiss cheese. I had a feeling this guy wasn’t going to make it.
With ear protection on, I didn’t realize I wasn’t alone until I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. Best practice dictated I not swing the gun in that direction, so I lowered it, turning my head instead, but always at the ready.
Shocked to see Tilda there, I followed her every movement as she went about loading a gun, slipped some earplugs in, and then joined me at the target I’d been shooting at, rather than selecting another. Without flinching, she extended her weapon and fired until the magazine was empty.
Every single bullet went right into the center of the target—bullseye.
“Holy shit,” I murmured as she smiled up at me, reloading her weapon. “Where the fuck did you learn to shoot like that?”
