22. Chapter 22

Chapter 22

ORION

I reach up and tug at the stiff collar of the dress shirt that’s feeling more and more like a noose around my neck with every passing second. Even that simple motion makes me more aware of how restricted my mobility feels, with the cuff links around my wrists holding the shirt in place no matter how I squirm or tug.

“My suit looks good on you,” Elio says, glancing at me for just a second with a flirtatious grin on his lips before he returns his attention to the road ahead.

“I feel like I’m being strangled,” I grumble, shifting in my seat and fiddling with the tie around my neck. It’s the same tie I’ve wrapped my fist around more than once to call my bratty mobster to heel.

He chuckles. “I guess I’m too fucked in the head to see the problem. But I’m glad you prefer to be on the other end of that equation.”

I rumble a laugh and force myself to stop fidgeting. “I still think I could have gotten away with dressing normal .” We spent half an hour arguing about it before we left the apartment, and for once, Elio refused to back down. I guess that should tell me how important it is that I get this right tonight, but I’m too uncomfortable to admit that. The nerves dancing in my gut aren’t helping things either.

“You know why we have to do it this way, Boss,” he says patiently, switching his headlights off as we turn down the road that leads to the docks. “You need to look the part so they’ll let you on the boat. You get on, assess the situation, and get us the information so we know what we’re up against.”

“I know.” I jerk my head up and down, bouncing my knee.

Elio slows to a stop in an out-of-the-way area, hidden by a row of warehouses. Lorenzo is already here, standing stoically with his hands in his pockets next to his car. It’s a relief to get out of the car, even if it does mean the doomsday clock ticking in my head is inching closer to midnight with every breath. He goes around to pop open the trunk, and I join him because no matter how many times we’ve gone over this plan, I still have no fucking clue what I’m supposed to be doing. All the information is there in my head, I’m just hoping that when the bell rings, my instincts will take over like they always do.

Except this isn’t just two guys stepping into a ring to wail on each other for money. This is life or death for every single one of us. One slipup and it’s over. I let out a shaky breath as Elio snatches a pistol out of his trunk and then turns to me. He steals my usual move, wrapping his hand around my tie and closing the space between us until our noses are touching and we’re sharing the same air with every breath.

“It’s going to be fine,” he says, like he can read my mind. Except it’s a hell of a lot more likely that he’s just picking up on my jittery body language. “You know how to use this?” He presses the handle of the gun into my palm, and I wrap my fingers around it with a nod.

“I know how to use it.” Mostly, anyway. Enough that I’m sure I can figure it out in a pinch.

“I’m hoping you won’t need to, but I’m not sending you in there unarmed.” We’ve gone over this a hundred times too, but there’s something soothing about hearing it again. “Your focus is on getting the information we need and keeping the kids safe once shit starts to go down.”

“Got it.” I sound a hell of a lot more confident than I feel.

While I tuck the gun into the hidden holster, Elio pulls a heavy tie clip out of his pocket and attaches it to my tie. He takes a second to adjust it, then pulls out his phone and taps the screen until his own shadowy face fills the screen from an odd perspective. He grins.

“It’s working.” His voice echoes quietly through the speaker on his phone too, confirming that the audio is working as well.

“Bit ironic, isn’t it? Wearing a wire for the mob.” I chuckle.

He snorts in agreement before he catches my mouth in a kiss. Even though he’s the one to initiate it, he melts into the submissive role immediately, softening to my greedy, demanding rhythm. A frantic feeling rises inside my chest, clawing its way up my throat until I’m surprised it doesn’t burst out of me, shredding me like bloodied confetti. This could be the last time I kiss him.

“It’s going to be fine,” he murmurs again, and I cling to that hope. I have to believe him, or I’ll never pull this off.

The sound of more engines rumbles through the night. I reluctantly let Elio go and look over his shoulder to see two more expensive cars coming down the road with their headlights off. They pull up next to us, Sparrow and Xaviaro getting out of one while Alessio and Salvatore get out of the other.

Alessio bounces on his toes, grinning ear to ear as he approaches us.

“It’s been a while since we got to whip our guns out like this.” He rubs his hands together like he’s about to dig into a plate of ribs rather than murder a dozen Russians.

“Speak for yourself,” Xaviaro says, sounding bored.

“I trust Dante is somewhere secure?” Lorenzo asks, joining us.

Salvatore nods and opens his mouth, presumably to give details about where he left his charge to ensure he couldn’t tip off the Russians or anyone else for a quick payday. But before he can say anything, his trunk pops open unexpectedly.

“What the fuck?” Alessio mutters.

“Christine?” Sparrow says with a laugh. I frown and cock my head. “It’s a Stephen King book about a haunted car.”

There’s the sound of crunching gravel and all five mobsters pull their guns.

“Jesus, that was a tighter fit than it looked.” Dante’s voice echoes through the quiet night as loudly as the car engines did a few minutes ago. “Can I get a ‘that’s what he said?’”

“Excellent work securing him,” Lorenzo mutters, tucking his gun away.

“I tied him up and told him to stay put,” Salvatore says defensively.

Dante snorts, coming around the car into full view. He’s fully dressed for a change, in jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. It’s almost jarring to see him in something other than booty shorts, without a hint of makeup or glitter in sight.

“Remind me to teach you how to tie a proper knot sometime,” Dante offers with a smirk.

Alessio cackles.

“You used a hitch knot, didn’t you? Rookie move, Sal.” Sparrow tuts.

“This isn’t a plus one kind of situation,” Lorenzo says coolly, directing his attention to Dante. “Why don’t you climb back into the trunk until we’re finished here.”

“No.” It’s one simple word on his lips, but a couple of the guys audibly gasp, then try to cover the sound with fake coughing.

“No?” Lorenzo repeats, his voice low and dangerous.

Dante’s face hardens and he pulls himself up to his full height, which admittedly is not all that impressive without the platform boots he often wears at Wild.

“Look, I’ll stay out of the way, I won’t fuck anything up for you, I just…” He crosses his arms and glances in the direction of the docks, even though the view is blocked by the warehouses. “This is personal, and I need to know that those kids get out safely. If you want me back in that trunk, you’re going to have to put a bullet in my head first.”

Lorenzo’s nostrils flare, but his face otherwise remains neutral. “Stay the fuck out of the way, or I won’t hesitate to shoot you.”

Dante nods. “Deal.”

Over the next few minutes, another dozen men whose names I don’t know show up in small groups. Soldiers . I remember Elio using the word at least once before. This is the Moretti army—at least, part of it. How many men work for Lorenzo? Doing his bidding, keeping the dregs of this city in line, and collecting money to pad his pockets.

It’s easier to spend a few minutes musing about that rather than dwelling on what’s to come. Lorenzo looks at his watch, and that seems to be the signal that it’s time to move.

“You ready for this?” Elio asks, but the question feels rhetorical. It’s zero hour, I can’t back out now.

“I’m ready.”

I manage to get my feet moving on muscle memory alone, the entirety of my body in a numb state as I make my way around the warehouse. There’s a medium sized cargo ship pulling into the dock right on schedule.

“ Just walk right up and act like you belong there. Remember, you’re a rich pedo, which means you’ve convinced yourself that you’re entitled to any damn thing you want. ”

Elio’s advice last night while we lay in bed plays on a loop in my mind, so that’s exactly what I do. I walk right up to the ship, not stopping until the dude guarding the ramp pulls a gun on me. I hold my hands up and put on my best relaxed smile.

“Hi, I’m hoping I have the right boat. Casimir sent me. He told me to ask for Nikandr.”

The man eyes me suspiciously, keeping his pistol pointed at me.

“Where is Casimir?” he asks in a thick Russian accent. Yup, we’ve got the right boat. Not that there are a whole hell of a lot of them pulling into dock in the middle of the night like this to begin with.

“He had personal business to take care of, so he delegated to me. I’ve got the money right here.” I nod towards my pocket, and he lowers his gun a fraction of an inch and grunts.

My pulse is a frantic drumbeat in my ears, every inch of my body hyperaware of exactly how fast I’m moving as I reach for the cash, and the bullet that’s bound to tear through me if he gets the slightest idea that I’m lying. I pull out the rolls of bills and hold them up so he can see. He grunts again and extends his open palm.

“Cas told me not to hand over the money until I see that the merchandise is all present and accounted for.”

He huffs, and finally tucks his gun away. “Come.” He jerks his head for me to follow him.

I scurry the rest of the way up the ramp. The nerves that had me twitching anxiously during the ride over have succumbed to the numbness. Following a Russian trafficker onto his ship feels like nothing more than a vivid dream. It’s easy to convince myself that the breeze blowing in off the water is just my bedside fan cooling my face while I sleep.

I only manage to take a few steps before he stops in his tracks and spins to face me again.

“Give me your weapons,” he barks, and my heart rate spikes again.

“I don’t—”

Before I can finish lying, he closes the space between us with two quick steps and gropes me roughly. It takes all of two seconds for him to find the pistol and pull it out. He scowls at me as he ejects the clip, tucking it into his pocket.

“More lies and I’ll shoot you,” he says, so casually that I almost laugh. I swallow down the manic feeling rising in my throat and give a jerky nod.

He tosses my unloaded pistol over the railing, into the water below, then pivots on his heel and keeps walking. Is there enough light for Elio and the others to get the lay of the land through the pinhole camera in my tie clip? I can’t do much other than hope at this point.

We pass two more men with guns patrolling the deck of the ship. They nod at the man I’m following and eye me suspiciously, but that’s the extent of it. And then I notice that the armed men aren’t the only ones here. A young-looking man who can’t be much older than twenty is mopping the deck. He looks up at me as we pass, and there’s unmistakable fear in his eyes before he hurries to focus on the task at hand. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me sooner that there might be crew who run this ship who have nothing to do with trafficking kids. They might be prisoners of the Russian mob just as much as the kids we’re trying to rescue are.

My jaw ticks with the urge to pull my tie up near my mouth and whisper to Elio not to kill anyone innocent onboard, but obviously I can’t do that. Besides, even if I could, I know enough to realize that once shit goes down, there won’t be much time to stop and ask each and every person they run across whether they’re here willingly or not. I swallow hard and focus on what I’m here to do.

“Pretty tight operation you’re running here. Does it take a lot of men to move these shipments?” I ask casually, and the man looks over his shoulder at me.

“Why? Are you writing a book?”

“Uh… no,” I mutter, rubbing my hand along the back of my neck.

“Good. Then stop asking stupid questions.”

He stops at a door and raps quickly three times before turning the handle. He holds the door open and gestures for me to go inside. It’s a dimly lit storage room with no windows and just one door in and out. There are two dozen girls, just like Casimir promised, none over the age of thirteen if I had to guess, huddled together, filling the space. He nods to the single armed man inside, and they exchange quiet words in Russian for a moment before the other man cuts a sharp gaze in my direction.

“Here they are.” He tilts his head towards the kids. “Just like we agreed. Give me the money and take them.”

“Sure.” Bile rises in my throat as I look over the kids, dirty and dressed in tattered clothes, some of them with tear stains on their cheeks, all of them with haunted gazes. Not a single one of them utters a word, which is eerie all on its own. “Let me just give Casimir a call real quick first.”

Russian number two narrows his eyes, but grunts in acknowledgment. My hands don’t tremble as I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone. Just like the moments before a fight, and the other night at Casimir’s place, a sense of focused calm washes over me. I changed Elio’s name in my phone to say Casimir , in case they look at my screen, which they both do. I hit the call button and bring it to my ear, not paying any attention to the sound of the ring in my ear, too focused on the body language of both Russians in the room with me, running through mental calculations so ingrained that they happen without much conscious thought at all.

Elio picks up after the fourth ring, just like we agreed. He answers in a deeper voice, closer to Casimir’s timbre. “You got the kids?”

“I’ve got them,” I answer, taking a subtle step to put myself between Russian number one and the exit.

“Good.” He’s silent for several seconds, but I can hear the sound of his breathing through the phone, and I swear I can hear all the shit he wishes he could say right now. You’ve got this, Boss. I love you. Take those fuckers out, then sit tight like we talked about, so I can wrap this up and you can take me home and fuck me stupid . A-fucking-men. I’ve got this. We’ve got this.

I end the call, and then in a lightning-fast move, before either of them realizes I’m finished talking, I cock my arm back and swing on Russian number one. It’s a gamble that’s just as likely to end with my lifeless body riddled with bullet holes as anything else, but it’s all I’ve got.

My fist connects hard with the side of his head. He stumbles sideways and goes down like a sack of potatoes before Russian number two even catches up with what’s happening. He raises his gun, but I’m faster by about half a second, spinning and throwing a fist in his direction too. A loud pop echoes through the air, but it’s not enough to stop my momentum. The second one goes down just as hard as the first did, dropping to his knees, then flopping forward, unconscious.

The kids press themselves into a tighter mass, cowering as close to the wall as possible.

“It’s okay, I’m not here to hurt you.” I hold my hands up to prove it, but that only makes a few of the younger ones start to cry. Shit, I’m not even sure if any of them speak English, and I don’t have a hell of a lot of time to babysit. Keeping them safe in here is probably the best I can do.

There’s a hot feeling in the side of my stomach as I bend over to take the guns out of the unconscious men’s hands, tucking each one into my waistband. I dart my eyes between the two of them, then around the sparse room. There’s nothing to restrain them with in here, and fuck knows how long it will be before they come to.

The pop, pop, pop of gunshots resounding outside of the door is either promising or concerning, and I’m not in any position to guess which. If I were Elio, I would just shoot these men before they wake up. They’re going to die tonight one way or the other, so does it really matter if I’m the one to pull the trigger or if someone else does it?

Can I pull the trigger? In front of a bunch of kids, no less. It feels… unlikely. I chew on the inside of my cheek, frustration at myself rising. I’m here to protect them, and if I can’t do what needs to be done, we could all end up fucked. I look at the kids again—skinny, dirty, terrified. These men did that to them, and fuck knows how many other kids just like them. Fine, the Morettis are criminals in their own right, but they aren’t… this .

I reach back for one of the guns I just tucked away.

“Close your eyes.” I mime the action for the kids, and they seem to understand instantly, ducking their heads or putting their hands over their eyes.

Putting the barrel of the pistol to the back of each of the Russian’s heads and squeezing the trigger is surprisingly easy. Easier than I expected it would be. Easier than it probably should be. I don’t think I’ll lose a wink of sleep tonight over the world being short a few child traffickers.

The door flies open, and I raise the gun and step in front of the kids with the same quick reflexes that let me knock those fuckers out before they had a chance to blink. It takes me a few heart pounding seconds to realize that Elio’s smiling back at me from the open doorway. He looks down at the dead men and then back at me without missing a beat.

“Good work, Boss,” he says, then he frowns. “Holy shit, were you shot?”

ELIO

Orion looks a little dazed. He unbuttons the suit jacket and pulls it aside, and I gasp loudly at the crimson blood staining the shirt underneath.

“Fuck,” I mutter, taking a step closer and tearing his shirt open without pause so I can get a better look.

“I didn’t even feel it,” he grunts, looking down with his head cocked curiously.

I drop to my knees to get a better look, and his fingers slide instinctively through my hair. There are a dozen traumatized kids two feet away and my boyfriend is possibly bleeding out, but that move gets my dick hard anyway. And mine isn’t the only one. There’s a noticeable bulge in the silky slacks Orion is wearing. Adrenaline is a hell of a thing.

“You might want to save that blood flow for your more vital organs,” I murmur.

“That one feels pretty vital.” He chuckles.

I dab the blood away with his soaked shirt and breathe a sigh of relief. “It looks like it just grazed you.” I scramble back to my feet and push the unbuttoned shirt off of his shoulders, taking the jacket with it. He doesn’t fight me, just takes the wadded-up material when I hand it to him. “Keep pressure on it until we can get you stitches.”

“I’ll be fine.”

A crooked smile tugs at one side of my lips. “I know you will.”

“There you are.” Alessio appears in the doorway behind me. “Looks like we got them all.”

“The crew?” Orion croaks.

“They’re fine. A little shaken, but they were smart enough to duck and cover to avoid the crossfire,” he answers. “Our guys are piling up the rest of the bodies now, so they can sail this bitch right back to Nikandr with a message from the Morettis.”

“Try to run any more ‘ merchandise ’ through Wildcliff and he’ll lose a lot more than a single shipment and a dozen soldiers,” I say darkly, and Alessio nods.

“What happens to the kids?” Orion asks.

“We’ve got it covered,” I assure him.

Alessio turns to the kids and hunches down a little with his hands on his knees, doing his best impression of a kids’ show host. He says something to them in stilted Russian. I’m guessing it’s along the lines of “ We’re here to help. Come with us. ” Because they all start filing away from the wall.

“Come on.” I lead Orion out of the room with the kids behind us and Les bringing up the rear. We pass Mauro, one of my soldiers, dragging a body down the deck on our way off the ship. “There are two more in the storage room just down there.” I let him know.

Lorenzo is waiting on the dock with a couple of large men, both sporting buzz cuts, standing stiffly. Even in jeans and t-shirts, I’d pick them out as cops from a mile off. Of course, I already knew these two were cops anyway.

“Grif.” I nod in greeting. “Vander.”

“Moretti,” Vander greets me for the both of them, eyeing the kids trailing behind me. “I was just telling your brother that he’d better have a damn good reason for dragging us out here at this time of night.”

“It wasn’t for your company,” Lorenzo says dryly, and Vander laughs.

“I see that.”

“I trust you can take it from here?” I ask.

“Yeah, we’ve got it,” Grif says.

“Good. I’ve gotta get Orion to the hospital.” I nudge him to get him moving again.

“Are you okay?” Enzo seems to notice Orion’s state of undress for the first time.

“I’m fine,” he says, more firmly this time. It sounds like the shock has worn off, his voice deep and clear again like I’m used to. “I don’t need the hospital.”

“What do you have against getting stitches?” I arch an eyebrow at him. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of needles.” His scowl deepens and he huffs through his nose. My eyes widen and I bark out a laugh. “Oh my god, you’re afraid of needles?”

“I’m not afraid ,” he grumbles.

I wrap an arm around him and take over holding pressure on his wound while we walk, making our way back to the car, leaving everyone else to wrap up this bullshit.

“Sure, Boss,” I tease lightly. “What if I promise to hold your hand the whole time?”

He growls in response, and I laugh again.

When we reach the car, I help him inside, guiding him into his seat. He grabs for my tie before I can lean out, yanking me in roughly and claiming my lips in a hard, biting kiss that steals my breath and makes my pulse race more than anything else tonight has.

“I love you, Elio,” he says gruffly when he lets me go.

“I love you too, Orion,” I murmur, dragging my tongue along his bottom lip. “That’s why I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“Dammit,” he rumbles, letting go of my tie.

It only takes me a few seconds to get in on the other side and get us the hell out of here. He reclines his seat a few inches and closes his eyes.

“How are you feeling?” I ask, glancing over at him every few seconds. He hasn’t lost much blood, but that doesn’t stop me from worrying.

“Like a Moretti,” he answers wryly.

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, and I hate that I hold my breath while I wait for his answer. After everything, I feel like I’m still waiting for his verdict. Waiting to know whether he can see himself in this with me long term. Can he handle the life I’m stuck in?

“It’s… a necessary evil,” he finally says, reaching over to put a hand on my thigh. “And it’s worth it.”

“For me?” The surprise in my voice is borderline embarrassing, but I can’t call it back once it’s out there.

Orion’s laughter is deep and rumbling, filling the car and vibrating right through me. “Yeah, Brat. For you.”