AllFreeNovel
Share Us
It ended up being a convenient choice, actually.
During the working hours, it created a lot of income that the family could use to wash their illegal money with.
After hours, there was a room in the back with a drain in the floor and decades of blood that had been spilled. So if we ever needed to spill some of our own, we had a nice, easy way of getting rid of the evidence.
Rico had set up an office toward the back where a lot of us went to have meetings with the boss or each other instead of relying on taking walks down the street like we used to.
Whether anyone would admit it or not, we were all getting really fucking paranoid about our safety. Because of the moves the Bratva was making, because we didn’t know just how far they were going to take this.
I mean, they’d tried to kill an innocent woman whose only crime had been being inside a building while a phone call had been made.
They didn’t even have any proof that she’d actually overheard it.
That was how paranoid and ruthless these bastards were.
“I don’t like it either,” I agreed. “But what other choice is there? It’s not like I could force her to stop going to her job, stop living her life.”
“From the sounds of things, she’s not going to have a life to live soon. They won’t miss a second time.”
“I know,” I agreed. They’d barely missed the first time. Hell, if my car hadn’t pulled into their path, I was sure pretty Elizabeth Riley would be dead right now.
“I get why she feels like she needs to go back and get dirt on her boss,” Renzo added, shrugging. “But the chances of him going down for this are slim. And the chances are even lower that any of the other Bratva members will ever get convicted. They caught that one fuck because of a random search.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
“What are the chances that the senator can get the district attorney to drop charges?” he asked.
“I honestly don’t know. I don’t know enough about our DA to know if she is corruptible or not.”
“I think we know from experience that they almost all are, if the motivation is strong enough. If it’s not money for her, it will be the threats that the Bratva can use against her. She’s got a family. Two kids in college. Big risk right there. No way for her to protect them.”
“True,” I agreed.
“And the chances of this girl—“
“Elizabeth,” I interjected.
“Elizabeth,” Renzo said, brows pinching a bit, but he pressed on, “will be able to get enough proof to go to the police, have them build a case, and get anyone arrested before the Bratva finds those weaknesses and uses them against the DA, are almost nonexistent.”
“So what do you want to do?” I asked, finding myself thankful to have him make the decision, since I felt like all I was doing was floundering, following people who never did anything publicly that could get them arrested, who were never alone, so I couldn’t even start picking them off, chopping away at their numbers.
“Fuck if I know,” Renzo admitted, letting out a deep breath, looking as lost as I’d been feeling for months. “All I do know is these fucks took control of two of the street gangs that used to kick up to us. It won’t be long before it’s three, five, ten, until we are fucking outnumbered by them.”
“We could take out the street gangs,” I suggested. Ugly business, killing that many people, but there was nothing pretty when it came to a turf war. And they’d chosen sides against us.
“I got Rico looking into that,” he admitted, nodding his chin toward the man himself who was walking toward the back, bringing a tray of coffees with him.
“The gangs?” Rico asked, passing out the drinks.
I took a sip of the coffee, feeling an immediate and irrational disappointment that it didn’t taste like fucking cookies.
“Yeah.”
“My guys have been reporting back to me. Looks like we could easily take out the Lincolns. They haven’t been strong ever since someone clipped their leader.”
“Someone,” Renzo scoffed.
“Yeah, well, they’re too fucking stupid to realize it’s the goddamn Russians who did it. And now they’re kissing their boots.”
