Page 53 of Drowning in the Deep
“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised me, sitting down beside me as Janis finished up.
“I suppose that’s probably true. Going home isn’t an option right now,” Janis continued. “I’m afraid your mother woke to bad news this Saturday morning. Apparently, her new husband’s house burned to the ground overnight.”
My breath caught in my throat, and I waited to see what Daemon would say.
“That’s a shame.”
Janis chuckled and shook his head. “Yes, I’m sure you wouldn’t know a thing about that, sir.”
CHAPTER36
DAEMON
I’d lost a lot of time hanging out with Elisa, but deep down, I knew I didn’t really want to let her go either. While it would start to grind on my last nerve if she didn’t stop this clinging business in a day or two, for now, I was glad to have her safe with me, and if she needed to freak out a little bit, I supposed I’d let her. After all, the only reason she was in such a fucked-up position was because she hadn’t been willing to tell her dad any of my secrets. I had to appreciate that.
Once she was all fixed up, Tilda offered to help her go take a shower. I didn’t have that kind of time on my hands, not since my brothers had recently arrived at the warehouse and were ready to fill me in on everything that had gone down while I was out of commission with Elisa. No, if I went into the shower with her, I’d want to fuck her, and that probably wasn’t a good idea anyway since she was in so much pain. It was best to leave this to Tilda. Thankfully, my new girl had thought to bring some clothes with her when she came to the warehouse from the mansion we were no longer welcome in, so Elisa would have something clean to put on when she got out of the shower.
For now, I settled into an uncomfortable chair in our makeshift war room, all three of my brothers gathered around. It was still early in the morning, and it was obvious Vin hadn’t stopped off to sleep anywhere, having spent most of the evening at the wedding. Mikel and Dezzy were in better shape, clean, and in different clothes than they had been the night before. Vin still had a sprinkle of blood on his collar from the waiter he’d been carrying around. Sometimes things got messy even when you snapped someone’s neck.
“Well, what’s the story?” I asked before taking a sip of the cup of coffee I’d just poured. “You stick around until the bitter end, Vin?”
“Fuck yeah, I did,” Vin said with a proud smile. “How often do you get to watch an entire wedding party vomit up blood and die right next to one another? It was a pretty amazing sight to see, like something out of a fucking Edgar Allan Poe movie.”
I raised an eyebrow, not sure if it was worth the time to correct him on any of the counts of slightly incorrect information he’d just spewed out, but I just shrugged and asked him to continue. “How did it go down? As expected?”
“Pretty much,” he said with a nod. “Viktor did the toast to his ‘lovely’ daughter, a description no one else could really agree with, and everyone drank up. A few of those bastards asked for second helpings.” He snickered, shaking his head. “It didn’t take long for the vomiting to begin. It was an older, fat woman sitting near the bride that got it first. She blew chunks, spraying them all over that giant schnoz of hers. She looked down at her dress and shouted, ‘Oh, my god! My dress! It’s ruined,’ right before the groom puked all over her, too. Then, it was her turn, and she threw up bloody vomit all down her front. They all looked around at one another, and I swear, that was the best part, knowing they were done for but not being able to do a damn thing about it.” He chuckled wildly, that crazed look back in his eyes.
I felt a little bad about some of those people who died the night before. It was Elisa’s fault that I was starting to get soft, but it was what it was. Thinking about some of the innocent people who’d been invited to the wedding, people who had nothing to do with Viktor’s choices or the syndicate, made a pang of guilt stab me in the side. I brushed it off quickly enough, though. I did what I had to do, and if I was given the choice, I’d do it all again.
“Did everybody drink the shit?” Mikel asked him. “Weren’t there some kids there?”
“Not many, not at the reception,” Vin said, shaking his head. “I saw a couple screaming in horror and running away. I left the fucking waitstaff alone because they had nothing to do with any of it. But there were a couple of guys who’d been out on patrol when Viktor was making the toast. I took care of their asses.” A devilish grin contorted his face, making me wonder if that was where the bloodstain on his collar had come from. Knowing Vin, he’d used a knife and not a gun.
“Wow.” Dezzy slowly shook his head. “I can’t believe we killed all of those people so quickly.”
“And efficiently,” Vin noted, not quite getting what Dezzy was saying.
“Yeah. That’s a lot of fucking people showing up at the devil’s doorstep all at the same time.” Dezzy looked like he felt a bit guilty about the situation as well.
Mikel didn’t look radiantly proud, but he shrugged. “One less jackass to have to worry about.”
That much was true. Now that Viktor and his members of the syndicate were out of the picture, we only had one major obstacle stopping us from claiming the family business once and for all. “Did you see La Rosa?” Even speaking the bastard’s name made my blood boil, especially since I’d seen what he did to his daughter.
Vin caught my eye and slowly nodded. “I saw him and Ma arriving from a distance. I don’t think either one of them saw me, though.”
It was too bad Alexander La Rosa hadn’t gotten there early enough for the toast. But then, I wasn’t surprised. Guys like him always seemed to have luck on their side, and I’d known all along it would be difficult to take him out.
“Do you think he knows we did it?” Mikel asked, messing with his shoelace as he readjusted in his seat, one leg crossed over the other knee.
“I’m sure he suspects.” Vin’s tone was nonchalant, like it didn’t fucking matter. Maybe it didn’t. “He’s probably more worried about his house being gone.”
“No shit,” Dezzy blurted, turning to look at me. “Damn, man. You took it to a whole new fucking level, didn’t you?”
I arched my eyebrows before giving them a small shrug. “I did what needed to be done. That bastard deserved to lose his entire house and everything in it. Again, it’s too bad he wasn’t home, asleep, or fucking tied up in the basement.” What I wouldn’t give to get that old fat bastard in a similar situation to the one he had Elisa in for so many days. I’d love to shove some fucking boiling hot seltzer water up his nose and see how he dealt with it.
“Well, he’s moving in with Ma now, so maybe that makes things more difficult,” Mikel noted. “It gives him the opportunity to move further into our world.”
“It gives us the opportunity to infiltrate his lair,” I protested. “Ma doesn’t have a whole lot of guys left on her side, so we can operate on a whole different level with La Rosa on our territory.” I got what my brother was saying, but I refused to accept that what I’d done the night before had been an impulsive move that made things worse. “We are at war now, gentlemen. So it’s time to move forward with our battle plan.”
