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“Gentlemen,” I say without a hint of a smile as I penetrate their circle. “Shall we?”
Nods all around. I lead the way into a back room, one I had Ricardo set up especially. “Very nice,” one of the men purrs in an Italian accent, taking in the floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelves and the Art Deco wall lamps casting their soft glow over the quilted wallpaper and gem-tone rugs. “Very Prohibition era.”
I won’t entertain small talk. Not until I know who I’m entertaining entirely. I gesture to the table set up in the middle of the room. “Please, sit.”
It’s circular, no bigger than a poker table. Exactly what I asked Ricardo for. The shape makes it seem like there’s no head of the table; the size is small enough for me to look into each one of these fuckers eyes as they talk and assess if they are telling the truth or not. And each deep-seated armchair around it will lure the men into a false sense of comfort.
A server waltzes through with a tray of drinks, then turns to me and asks what I’d like.
Antoin’s eyes challenge me.
“Water,” I say after a beat.
Once everyone has settled into their armchair, drink in hand, a silence falls over the table and all eyes settle on me.
But I don’t speak, not just yet. Instead, I take in each of the four men, one by one. To my immediate left is Alessandro Regazzi, the head of the Regazzi family and the one that asked me about Poppy. A plump man in an expensive suit with gold on every finger. To his left is his second-in-command, his son, Angelo. He has his father’s dark hair and gray eyes. They are punctuated with the cruelness that comes with being born into a violent world.
To my left sits Rodrigo Mondez. Tattoos crawl up from underneath his shirt collar, up his neck and onto his face. A network of symbols and artwork that makes as much sense to me as hieroglyphics. His face is weather worn and hardened with years of doing business in the harsh desert that stretches around El Paso, Texas. While Regazzi’s son shares similar traits as his father, there’s little that connects Miguel Mondez to his. Sharp cheekbones, hazel eyes, and the only visible marking is the single tear that sits below his left eye. There’s a stillness about him that piques my interest. Out of all the men in the room, he’s the one I’d keep an eye on the most.
Antoin is sitting next to him, directly opposite me, making it easier to signal to each other.
Suddenly, Alessandro cuts through the silence by clearing his throat. His voice is tinged with a thick Italian accent. “Mr. Quinn,” he says, twisting his large body to give me all of his attention. “I’d like to clear the air before we start.” When I don’t reply, he takes this as his cue to continue. “The Regazzi’s cut all ties with the Delfino’s over thirty years ago.” He pins me with his dark eyes; they will me to believe him. “We were in no way involved with their attack on your family. After your grandfather loaned my father over a million dollars to settle a debt that we had with the Turkish, we have always respected the Quinns. In no way do we condone the actions of the Delfinos nor do we support them in any way.”
Without saying a word, I look at Antoin. His head moves a fraction.Believe him.
The server arrives with my water, and I’m slow to take a sip. When I place it back on the table, I say. “And what would you gain from forming an alliance against the Bratnovs?”
Alessandro’s eyebrows twitch at my directness. But I see no point in beating around the bush here. He glances at his son, before turning back to me. “The Vargas cartel supplied our cocaine for decades. One night, the shipments stopped.” His beefy fist curls around his scotch on the rocks and his Panerai watch glistens as he brings it to his lips. “I contacted Santiago Vargas directly. Radio silence. Eventually, I sent Angelo to Medellin to get to the root of the issue.” He lowers his glass to reveal the snarl on his lips. When he doesn’t continue, my eyes flick to his son. He’s staring me dead in the face, his jaw ticking.
In a low voice, Angelo says, “The meeting didn’t go so well.” He twists to the left, revealing the ugly scar running from his forehead down to his chin. I never noticed it in the main dining hall.
Alessandro seems to have got his voice back. “They’d made a deal with Bratnov in exchange for one of his daughters. The monopoly on their supply, across the whole United States and Mexico.”
I lean back and drag my knuckle over my jaw. So, that’s why Antoin couldn’t strike a deal. Fuck. For a brief moment, I think it might not have been such a bad treaty between us and the Bratnov’s after all. Seems like we was the only other family that were allowed to run Vargas’s coke on our turf.
I flick the thought out of my brain like a buzzing gnat and turn my attention to Rodrigo Mondez. “And you?” I ask coldly. “What interest does a Mexican cartel have in taking down the Bratnovs from over two thousand miles away?”
Rodrigo’s fist slams against the table, punctuating the end of my sentence. It’s instinctive to reach for my gun, but a quick flick of the head from Antoin grounds me. Miguel puts a hand on his father’s shoulder and squeezes, then mutters something in Spanish in his ear. Rodrigo nods. “Excuse me,” he mutters, but leaps from the table before I excuse him.
Miguel turns to me. His tone is emotionless and his face is hard.
“His son, Maxim Bratnov, raped my sister.”
His words settle like dust on the table between us. To my right, the Italians shuffle uncomfortably. Opposite me, Antoin doesn’t move a muscle.
I pin Miguel with a long stare.
“Then we’ll take down the Bratnovs together.”
Poppy
“Who does your hair?”
I look up from my Gin Fizz and lock eyes with the blonde woman who’s given me nothing but daggers for the last hour and a half. And when she hasn’t been giving me daggers, she’s been interrupting all the other women’s conversations and whispering in the ear of the brunette next to her, before they both burst into sniggers. It doesn’t take a degree to realize who’s Queen Bitch in this group here.
“Huh?”
She sips on her Chardonnay, then, as if she’s realized I’m stupid, raises her tone and slows her words. “Who. Does. Your. Hair?”
