Page 61 of Satin Empire

“Thank you for your time,” I say, slipping past him and heading down the steps. “I’ll be in touch soon.”

“Nice visiting with you,” Alana says and gives him a wave.

Becker grunts in reply, and I practically run to the truck. Alana climbs in beside me, and I’m driving a second later, swerving a little as my tires kick up steam. I need to calm down, but this is enormous, and the implications spiral out all around me.

“That was Jasha Aslanov,” I say quietly, staring out the windshield straight ahead.

“You can’t know that for sure.” But she knows as well as I do, the normal idiots that sneak into the warehouse are probably a mix of homeless people looking for a roof over their head, drug addicts, and bored teens. None of them would be dressed in good clothes and carrying electronics.

“They spoke Russian,” I say, and I’m surer than I’ve ever been that years of struggle and bloodshed are spiraling toward a conclusion. “They were camping in his warehouse. It had to be them.”

“What was that part about the river?”

I laugh. I can’t help myself. If I hadn’t pursued this sale, I never would have found any of this out, and it’s the biggest break we’ve gotten in a long time.

“We found references to safe houses in Camden, which is right across the Delaware on the Jersey side.” I look over at her, nervous energy swirling through my body. “We weren’t going to focus there, but now?—”

She doesn’t respond and I lay my foot down on the accelerator, going straight to the Rossi mansion and my brothers.

Chapter 30

Alana

I park my SUV on the gravel and squint through the windshield. The sun’s high over the warehouse and Noah’s leaning forward, looking like he’s about to turn around and run away.

“That’s the place?” He looks like he’d rather walk barefoot across a pit filled with rusty nails, which isn’t all that far off from what we’re about to do.

“Come on, it’s not that bad.” I hop out and start crunching my way over to a blue door set under a crumbling awning and surrounded by graffiti. Noah hurries to catch up.

“Are you sure we’re allowed to be here? This place feels like we’re not supposed to be here.”

“Carlo signed the closing papers yesterday, so this is technically our property.” The door is locked, but I was given a big, silver key which slides in easy and cracks open the bolt. “Since when did you turn into a big chicken, huh?”

Noah groans as I head inside. “You’re peer pressuring me. You realize that, right? I thought you were the good cousin and Bianca was the bad one, but now I have to totally rethink the whole hierarchy of the family.”

I laugh as I lead him into the main warehouse space. It looks gorgeous with the light slanting in through the high windows, and even though it smells like rotting trash, I can still see the image of the club Carlo planted in my head.

“There’s absolutely no way this is going to work,” Noah declares as he steps gingerly over cast-off cardboard boxes and a pile of random bricks. “I mean, clean-up alone is going to cost a fortune.”

“You’re forgetting how rich my husband is.”

He groans and rolls his eyes. “The dear hubby is loaded, dahling. Don’t worry about me, dahling, the hubster shall provide.”

“Is that how I sound now?”

“You might as well be strutting around in heels and minks.”

I wrap my arm around his shoulder and yank him against me. “Wouldn’t you be jealous if I did? Come on, try to picture it.” I give him the vision, just like Carlo did with me: the DJ booth, the dance floor, the bars and the tables.

He grudgingly admits that it might look pretty cool. “But you’ll need someone with a real sense of style to pull it off.” The look he gives suggests that person is most definitely not me.

And I couldn’t agree more, which is why I brought him here. “Are you offering your services?”

“I’m saying you need help, girlfriend, that’s what I’m saying.” He pushes me away and stomps further into the middle of the cavernous space, his voice echoing off the metal walls. “Since when did you even like this stuff anyway?”

“I don’t,” I admit and avoid the look he gives me. Instead, I lead him down a short back hallway, up a set of stairs, and onto the second-floor balcony. The railing’s rusty and marked by sharpie, but we get a really good view of the warehouse from way up high. Behind us, the offices are a dump, filled with decaying particle board and more refuse, but from up here all the accumulated garbage looks almost poetic.

“I get why the hubster’s into this idea,” Noah says, leaning on his elbows and staring down below. “He wants his own place. Whatever, that’s cool. But I don’t know why you’re involved at all. You don’t even like dancing.”

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