Page 18 of Wicked Mafia Sinner

The scent of home welcomes me. Leather from the chairs, whiskey from the bar cart in the corner, and the heavy warmth of a space that's been sealed tight with five men inside for the better part of the evening.

Luca's voice rises above the rest. It always does. I swear I don’t know how that man has made it this long in a world where stealth keeps you alive.

“Good to see you’re alive, brother.” He shoots me a two-finger salute as a smirk holds the corner of his lip up.

I step through the doors and close them behind me. “Good to be seen, moy brat.”

He turns his attention back to the wishes in his hand. I catch something about one involving a new yacht and the theatrical disgust in his voice tells me the wish he’s reading is about to land in the black pile which will end up in the trash by the end of the night.

Drake is at the large conference table with Kon beside him. Both of them have a serious look about them, but whatever Drake says makes Kon bark out a laugh that bounces off the glass walls.

Luca flips through several more envelopes while he spins a pen between his fingers. Red envelopes fan across the table in front of him like he's dealing a hand of poker. They’ve been here a while since the coffee mugs littering the table are all empty and the whiskey is out.

“Brothers,” I announce to the rest of the room. “Drinking without me, I see.”

Kon has his chair tilted back on two legs with his arms crossed over a chest that strains the stitching of his shirt. He didn’t bother with a tie. But then again, he rarely does. He wears a ghost of a smile from the joke Drake just cracked.

Massimo is on his phone, cigar clenched between his teeth, lips moving around numbers that sound like they involve a lot of fucking zeros.

And then there's Rafael. The head of the Red Letter Syndicate sits at the head of the table with a drink in hand and his ankle propped up on his knee. He tracks my entrance before the door finishes snicking closed behind me, absorbing everything.

He slides a crystal glass down the length of the table. I grab it before it slides off the table and reach for the decanter Kon edges closer to me.

“Good to see you, brother. I thought there for a while you might need help burying a body.”

The tilt to the corner of Rafael’s mouth tells me he’s only half joking.

No shit. Right now, I wish that was still my go to method when I didn’t get the information I was after. Sometimes growing as an individual and leaving behind bad habits takes all the fun out of this gig. I rub my eyes to dislodge the pain buried behind my lids after a week of no sleep. Keeping my dark thoughts buttoned up I opt for half truth when I offer, “Some days would be easier if that was the only way to solve problems.”

“Touché.” He lifts his glass in my direction and tilts it. I do the same and down a healthy swallow of whiskey. The amber poison burns all the way down just like the gut feeling the proverbial shit is about to hit the fan.

I scrape a hand down my face, feeling every last one of my forty-five years, swearing I was seventy some days. At least that is what the screaming pain in my knees wants me to believe.

I grimace as I lower my weight into a chair at the edge of the group where I can see every face and both exits. Some habits from my past stuck.

Rafael's gaze finds mine and I get the feeling he worried about me. “Your knees acting up again?”

“You're getting old, man. Pretty soon you’ll need a walking cane.” Luca’s smirk is layered with sarcasm.

“Fuck you, Luca,” I grunt knowing he’s only teasing. I don’t feel like killing family today, so I play nice and turn back to Rafael.

“Da, moy brat. You know, the wounds never really healed.” Back when I left Russia and the old family ways behind, I received two bullets to the knees as a parting gift. Recovery was a bitch that hasn’t stopped giving. Lucky for me the fucker who shot me was a really bad aim and I kept my kneecaps. But that shitty story isn’t something I want to revisit right now.

I take a healthy swallow before I continue. “I didn’t mean to keep you all waiting. Enzo wasn’t feeling chatty this evening so I had to stay a while longer.”

“That means you didn’t find out who is behind the attacks on the docks?”

That’s Drake.

"Nyet, moy brat. I didn’t. But Enzo did confirm what we suspected. Someone is rerouting our cargo, flipping operatives who've been reliable for years, and leaking shipment details to authorities. The raids on our clean operations aren't random. They're targeted.” I pause long enough to let that settle across the table. “Enzo knows who is behind it but he shut down before giving me a name. He wants to play games. He thinks he won. I left him alive so Harlon can work on loosening his tongue for us."

A collective hiss works its way around the room. Luca stops spinning his pen. Drake sets his glass on the table. Kon's chair comes down on all four legs. Massimo pulls the cigar from his teeth and the phone disappears into his jacket.

The room goes from five separate conversations to one shared silence in under three seconds. That's how fast my brothers shift when they hear one of us is having a problem.

Being born into our lifestyles taught us violence from an early age. It’s nothing new. Same goes for Harlon Constantine. He understands what it takes to protect the ones keeping the city safe from those who would poison it from the inside out. “I’m counting on him getting a name for us. I don’t want to consider other routes of getting that information when it would leave more blood on my hands. So I’m content with letting Harlon help.”

Rafael slowly nods his head in agreement. “No bodies. Not yet. The interference in the shipments isn’t anything we can’t handle. So far. Let’s leave Harlon to his job. You pay him.”