Page 12

12

RYUJI

Y es, we could hear them.

And yes, it was torture.

Hearing her cries echo down the hallway made me want to fuck my fist and punch my hand through the wall at the same time.

Fucking FOMO.

Obi, the bodyguard, and I did not last long sitting awkwardly in the living room. We jumped to our feet, eager for some sort of escape. If it weren’t for them, I might have whipped out my dick and played along to the rising crescendo of her moans, but I figured Caspian might slide that knife he kept hidden in his boot through my ribs if that happened.

Within a few moments, Obi disappeared to wherever it was he usually went. Annoying him was no longer an option.

The bodyguard headed straight to the gym, so I couldn’t go there.

Sitting in my room and stewing sounded horrible.

But I had to get out of this apartment. If I stayed here any longer, I would burst into that library and slide my cock into her tight ass while the other two had their fun. She wasn’t ready for that. They needed their space. I needed to burn off some of this energy.

But when she was ready… damn .

So instead, after splashing ice-cold water on my face and neck, I strapped on a few more knives than usual (eight), and then texted Alec to meet me at the club.

“You look like shit,” he said as I stepped into my office at Club Dragon. My general manager must sleep here as much as he works, but I paid him more than enough to account for his trouble. He kept my properties running smoothly, and that was worth his weight in gold.

I glanced at the couch where I’d spread Leona wide the last time I was here, and I smirked. “I assure you, I feel even worse.”

He dropped a big file of papers on my desk. “You need to read this. More suppliers with the tainted drugs.”

“Goddamnit. I thought we were done with that.” I grabbed the file. We knew that Leona’s father had been stealing from the Russians and cutting the drugs, but now that he’d been cut off, I figured the supply would run out. “Fucking Italians.”

Then I thought of fucking Leona, and I choked back a laugh. Yes , fucking Italians.

“Actually, it’s the South Americans,” Alec said with a huff. “Got a report of a patron overdosing on product purchased from one of the cartels, but thankfully they survived. We’re still trying to determine which cartel was responsible.”

The smile slipped from my face as I flipped through the file, glancing through the profiles on each approved supplier as well as photos of security footage. Fuck. My eyebrows furrowed. If a patron got seriously hurt, I could have the feds attention back on me again . Pair that with the eyes we have on us because of the Club Thunder explosion and things were going to go south really fucking fast.

I had to deal with this.

“And it’s the same drugs?” I asked, still reading through the file. “You had them tested?”

He nodded, crossing his arms over his chest. “Same additives, in the same percentages. It would be fair to assume they came from the same supply.”

What were the South Americans doing with tainted Italian drugs?

Drugs that were stolen from the Russians.

Luciano Vero was running this drug operation on the side, but how were the South Americans connected now? Had he sold product to them?

My brain turning, I pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed Konstantin. He picked up on the second ring.

“Ryu.” His gruff voice sounded strained. “How are you? How is dear Leona?”

My mood soured even further. She was mine . Ours. He needed to back off.

God, since when was I so possessive?

“Fine. Dealing with a problem.” I rubbed my eyes between my thumb and forefinger. “Thinking you might be dealing with the same.”

“Oh, yeah?” he scoffed. Shouts echoed in the background of his call. “You’d be right, my friend.”

Fuck . There were too many connection points here to ignore. “What’s wrong?”

“South Americans hit my biggest warehouse.” Kostya cursed in Russian before yelling commands at his men. “Stole more product and burned the rest. First, the Italians, and now the fucking South Americans. Fuck! This just keeps getting worse.”

Goddamnit. These problems were connected. Just like I thought.

“I have information you might like to see.” I handed the file back to Alec. “Here, send this to the Russians,” I murmured to him before turning back to my conversation with Kostya. “You want my bad news?”

A thunk echoed in the back of the call, like he kicked or threw something. “If you must.”

“I must. We found South Americans selling the tainted drugs on my properties.”

He went quiet for a moment. “The drugs the Italians stole from me, and then cut with so many additives they’re literally deadly.”

“The very same.”

“And how, do we think, the South Americans got their hands on those drugs?” he hissed. I could picture him running a hand through that head of curly blond hair like he’d done since we were kids. “It cannot be the same supply just stolen from me now.”

Alec dropped another stack of papers on my desk. I glared at the mound. “My guess is the Italians have been sharing some of the old product.”

“Meanwhile, we’re both at war with the Italians.”

“Yep,” I said.

“And now my warehouse has been hit by the South Americans.”

I leaned against the desk. “So, I’m just wondering, but could this be any clearer to you?”

“Fuck,” Kostya groaned. “The Italians allied with the South Americans.”

“My thoughts exactly. Which cartel is yet to be determined.”

The real question was when that alliance happened. Was it an alliance Luciano formed, or was Volpe making more moves?

Either way, our list of enemies just grew even longer. I had to call Obi.

This was war now. Cut and dry. War with Italians. War with South Americans.

But the Shadows didn’t fuck around. And we were not going to roll over and let anybody walk over us.

My fingers ran down the edge of the knife strapped to my thigh.

“Well, there is good news, brother,” Kostya said. “We captured one of the South Americans during the attack. Want a little taste? Get some answers?”

I grinned, and it was all teeth. “Absolutely.”

Two hours later, I wiped the blood from my hands, feeling much better about all the pent-up energy I’d been stuffing down all day.

Whew.

Kostya handed me a bottle of water. All I could think about was how, as soon as I got home, I was going to drink two full glasses of my best scotch.

We both stared at the man hanging from a meat hook in the basement of Kostya’s estate. This place was a fucking fortress, and nobody was even close to hearing that man scream from down here.

“I know that look,” Kostya said, face split in a grin. Blood splattered the Russian’s hair, and he looked utterly feral. “He’s about to break.”

The man whimpered, arms so dislocated they looked like they might tear off his body at any moment. They wouldn’t, though. We were more experienced than that.

Blood dripped from multiple holes across his body. The tattoo across his chest was mangled and deformed, no longer legible. He had maybe ten minutes before he passed out, if that. And when that happened, he was too far gone to wake up again. We had to make this quick.

At least my knives were getting some great use today. How nice.

“Your turn.” I nodded toward the prisoner. I’d done my job, bringing him to the brink. Now Kostya could come in and finish the information extraction.

Kostya cracked his knuckles before picking up the hedge cutters. “Snip, snip, motherfucker.”

“Wait—” the man wheezed, a wet and sticky sound. “Wait.”

“Oh?” I pressed. He was about to break, but he also wasn’t going to last much longer. We needed to get confirmation out of him before we finished him. “You were saying?”

“Yes,” he spluttered. “Yes, we’re allies with the Italians. The bosses signed a deal this morning. Orders went out to target the Russians.” His chest heaved, while blood dripping from his mouth. “Please. Just kill me, please .”

This fucking morning. Guess that answered our earlier question.

“Which cartel?” Kostya asked. The man moaned, eyes rolling back in his head. Kostya snapped the hedge cutters, the sound waking the man up.

“The Alacrán,” he whispered. “We’re the Alacrán.”

I exchanged a glance with Kostya. The Alacrán were the biggest cocaine suppliers out of Colombia right now. They’d been competitors against the Russians for years, slowly yet surely infiltrating the city and growing their foothold.

After our encounter at Club Thunder, Volpe knew the Russians were on our side. War between him and Kostya was already in question because of how the Italians had stolen his drugs, and now that Kostya had displayed preference to us, Volpe needed a defense.

So, after the death of Vincenzo Tommaso, Volpe had made a deal with the Alacrán Cartel, the only drug importers that could rival the size of the Russians.

He had to be worried the Shadows and the Russians were a threat to his enterprise.

He was trying to take out two birds with one stone.

“Why?” I asked. “Why does the Alacrán want in on this?”

“We want the territory,” he groaned. “The bosses promised the Eastern Seaboard if we could get rid of the Russians. It’ll more than triple our business. Please. Kill me .”

I shared a glance with Kostya, both our faces marred by a frown. This wasn’t just testing the waters or setting up defense against us. The Italians and the cartel were making power plays. Once they eliminated us, they’d own the coastline.

“Anything else we should know?”

The man didn’t reply. His eyes rolled back into his head again.

“Hey!” I shouted. He jerked awake. “I can either make this quick, or I can leave you hanging here. I have shots of adrenaline waiting. It would be hours more.”

His body wobbled on the hook, like he was trying to shake his head, but all he did was look like a bloodied worm. “Nothing. That’s all I know. Please .”

I flicked a knife from my wrist and watched it bury into the man’s neck. He slumped forward, finally hanging from the meat hook, completely limp.

“Well,” Kostya said, tossing the hedge cutters. “That’s disappointing.”

“No shit.”

Turf wars got bloody and quick, especially with personal vendettas. I’d been part of my fair share in the Yakuza when I was young. We had to get control of this, fast. If we didn’t, we could lose our footing in New York faster than a bat out of hell.

I slipped my phone from my pocket to dial Obi.

“Ryu,” his smooth voice answered from the other side.

“Volpe has allied with the South Americans. The Alacrán Cartel. They’ve turned their sights on Konstantin and the Russians. Hit a warehouse today, targeting men and product.”

“This is confirmed?” His voice was calm. Measured. Much more controlled than I felt in that moment.

“Yes,” I said as I stared at the body. “The deal was made this morning.”

Kostya’s brother and second-in-command, Kolya, cut down the man. His body flopped to the ground with a crunch. I held up a hand to pause him from dragging the corpse out of the room.

“That is not ideal,” Obi said carefully.

“Um, no, it is fucking not.” It was another thing we had to deal with. Another complication. Another enemy. Another hit on business. How long until this shit blew back on my businesses even more than they already had? How would we ever be able to leave the penthouse with every fucking organization in the city turning against us? “It can’t be six of us versus three fucking armies, Obi.”

I was confident in my skills. Some might even say arrogant. But even I knew the numbers game was so far from our fucking favor that we were walking into a death trap.

“We need allies,” he said confidently, as if he’d already been planning how to get them. “It is apparent. Talk to Makarov.”

“An alliance with the Russians?”

We were good friends, but friendship was one thing and alliances were another. An alliance meant the Russians were in on this with us. Our successes were tied to theirs, and so were our failures. We’d be responsible to one another.

My friendship with Kostya had been the only real friendship I’d ever known, outside of my brothers, and even still, it was easy. We never asked for things without repaying them. We never helped without the assumption it would be returned. He knew what he got from me, and I knew what I got from him.

If things went wrong, it would be my fault for dragging him in. It could impact the future of the Bratva for generations to come.

“I’m not sure,” I murmured.

“You must make a commitment sometime, Ryuji.” Obi sighed through the phone. That muscle in his jaw had to be flaring like it always did when he was annoyed. I rolled my eyes. “This is strategy. We need help, so do they.”

Kostya listened beside me. Did he want to get into this with us? The Bratva was well-established, and our syndicate was a baby in comparison. We were fighting an uphill battle against one of the most powerful Italian families in this hemisphere. If we lost, I could disappear, and get out of here easily, but he couldn’t. He had an entire organization to report to.

“An alliance,” Kostya said as he rubbed his chin. Like Obi said, he was at a disadvantage, and so were we. We’d already come to one another’s aid with the stunt we pulled at Club Thunder. If we allied, we could put up a true fight against the Italians. “It’s not a bad idea.”

Volpe might want to take out two birds with one stone, but for us and for Kostya, we could do the exact same thing.

“It is mutually beneficial,” Obi said. I could hear him typing on his computer in the background. “If I had known you were going to meet with Makarov, I would have proposed this earlier.”

“Well, we were a little distracted at the penthouse earlier, weren’t we?” He’d been the first to hightail it out of the living room and disappear, followed shortly by the bodyguard. “By the way, are they done yet?”

It had been hours, but if it were me, I’d take my time. I’d draw as many orgasms out of her as I possibly could.

He hesitated before responding, voice corded with tension. “I believe they are asleep.”

I released a sigh of relief. At least it was safe to go home now.

“Focus on the matters at hand, Ryu,” Obi added. “Business is pressing.”

“Fine.” I glanced in the direction of my childhood friend, who raised an eyebrow. “Alliance?”

“Duh,” was all he said.

I huffed a laugh. “Great. We’ll talk terms after things settle. Territory, revenue, collaboration, et cetera. That good with you, Kostya?”

He nodded before directing his brother, Kolya, to put out the word. War with the South Americans. War with the Italians, both the Vero/Volpe Family and the Tommaso Family. Alliance with the Shadows.

“Good,” Obi replied. “We’ll talk about it tonight and include this development as we form our next plan of attack. Hopefully Leona will be feeling better.”

“All right,” I said with another sigh. “I’ll clean up here at Kostya’s and then be back to the penthouse.”

“Make good choices,” Obi deadpanned.

“Never,” I said sweetly before hanging up.

I slipped my phone in my pocket before walking over to the South American’s body. I pulled my knife free from his neck.

My businesses were at stake. My future. Everything I’d worked so hard for was now suddenly in the crosshairs of two very large, very powerful criminal organizations in what was shaping up to be a long, drawn-out fight.

But I wasn’t about to sit quietly and let them take us out.

“Let’s send a message, Kostya,” I said, an idea taking shape in my mind. We needed to show that the Shadows and the Russians were official partners. And that we were not going to let them fuck with us.

It was our turn to go on the offensive.

“A message?” Kostya asked, a wicked gleam in his eye.

“The Alacrán Cartel might have allied with the Italians. But the Shadows have allied with the Russians. And only one side of this is coming out of this war alive.”

We dropped the man’s body on the edge of Tommaso territory—the warning carved in his stomach. The South Americans were going to learn that allying with that fucker was the worst thing they could have done.