Page 27 of Tainted Blood
But when…? How…?
Our eyes meet, and his smirk widens.
As I watch in muted shock, he turns to say something to Il Re Nero whose dark gaze seeks out my face as well. His chilly smile turns my insides to ice, before he nods at Spader. The exchange is a dirty agreement. It’s a reward for a job well done.
That’s when I know this “auction” is nothing more than a shitshow.
I’ve already been bought and sold by the ultimate deception.
Chapter Seven
Santi
The storm that blew in from the Northeast twelve hours ago is nothing compared to the one breezing in from the south, late morning, in two Black SUVs and an Aston Martin with a shattered windshield.
In the end, I made the call. Sanders had passed out shortly before, mumbling my sister’s name like it was a goddamn prayer, proving he still gives a fuck about her.
It pissed me off enough to demand that his painkillers be halved for the next few hours. This meeting may be a concession, but bad blood doesn’t dilute like oil. There’s never a clean separation, and he’d do well to remember that.
I kept the conversation with Grayson as brief as possible. We needed to talk, and we needed to do it before every McDonald’s up and down the East Coast started serving a new “lunchtime special.”
Thalia’s whereabouts wasn’t something to be casually dropped over a phone-line. The gravity of what we’d learned deserved a face-to-face delivery.
In turn, I decided the truth about Sanders would be held over their heads like an insurance policy. If Grayson and Santiago played nice for the next few hours and agreed to cooperate, Rick Sanders would get his stepson back in one piece, minus eight inches of damaged colon.
Edier Grayson was his usual monosyllabic self, but knowing what was at stake, he agreed right away. Sixty seconds later, a text message arrived containing one location and two assurances.
No bullets allowed, and The Devil himself would be in attendance.
It’s eleven a.m. by the time we arrive at an address in downtown Brooklyn. It’s a red brick building, with broken windows, located on a quiet street with a dozen other empty warehouses on either side. Four stories high of nothing-going-on-here-officer. The kind of place I’d choose myself.
As we pull up to the curb, I see a beast of a man lurking just inside the doorway. The minute I step out of the Aston Martin, he emerges from the building.
“Señor Carrera,” he says, directing his greeting at me, not my father, which amuses only one of us. “Our lookout notified us of your arrival. Santiago and Grayson have already been informed. Keep your guns out of sight and follow me.”
He leads us into a large open space with a network of rusted metal beams latticing the high ceiling, but I’m not here to admire the architecture. There’s a line of thirty-five armed sicarios blocking our access.
“Wait here.”
The beast moves toward a side door as I give the order for our men to fan out either side of us, their air of “no fucks given” turning their ten into the threat of twenty. It’s still not enough. I left Rocco in charge of Sanders, and I’m starting to miss the moody bastard already.
RJ scans a calculated eye down the line of heavily armed sicarios. “Have we been led to a meeting or a slaughter?”
I slide my hands into the pockets of my clean black slacks, grateful to be rid of Sanders’s blood. Now I can focus without smelling the stench of his and my sister’s lies.
Hypocrite, a voice in my head whispers.
That voice can fuck off.
“It’s a strategic move.” I meet his side-eye with a shrug. “Basic checks and balances. Numbers keep the odds in Grayson’s favor. It’s a truce, not a tea party.”
My father straightens his tie, his focus never straying from Santiago’s ninja army. “Remember to keep it in check, Santi.”
At first, I’m more intrigued by the fact that he’s finally speaking, rather than what he’s saying. The whole trip from Atlantic City to Brooklyn has been a lesson in silence. Not that RJ and I had a whole lot to say, but in growing up under my father’s command we learned a valuable truth early in life:
A man is most dangerous when he’s calm.
And Valentin Carrera has had two and a half hours of raw tranquility.