Page 44 of Cardinal House

“That girl has some serious issues,” he grunts. “Also, we’re dumb motherfuckers,” he spits, like the statement is both an insult he accepts and one he equally loathes. “We need to go to the security room.” That’s all he says as he stalks ahead of us, as though he already knows where he’s going.

We follow at his back, slinking through the busy hallways like ghosts, everyone too preoccupied with their own shit to pay us any attention. After a flight of stairs up, Hunter finds the door he’s looking for, and without preamble, he cracks the round knob counter-clockwise at the same time he shoves his shoulder into it, busting it open with a lot less effort than it should take for a secure room.

Screens are set up and it’s obvious this system is old, but Hunter drops into the seat like he thinks he’s Raine and starts clicking through menus and tapping in dates.

Then he brings up multiple feeds of the day I was discharged. Inside of the elevator, the hallways, my room, the front entrance, reception desk, all angles of the car park.

“That girl, who is disgusting by the way,” he snarls, curling his upper lip as he tosses me a glare over his shoulder, “said Luna has a guardian but no one’s ever seen them. Doesn’t know if they’re man or woman. Doesn’t know if there’s more than one. Can’t tell me if they’re family or whatever. All she knows for certain is Luna walks to and from work every shift, of which she only works nights. Which makes me think the address can’t be that far away if she’s walking it. She also said that Luna never takes time off, never calls in sick, is always clean and tidy and put together like an ‘ugly doll’, her words, not mine, man.”

A literal growl rumbles in my chest, and it’s like a baser instinct to protect my mate by ripping out the bitch’s throat for daring to insult her.

“Anyway, says that the only time she’s ever been off is when you were in here. And that she’s never seen her be picked up in a car before, that no one had ever spoken to her guardian’s people before either. She insinuated that Luna’s family, or whatever they are, have money, and that that’s why she didn’t bother to work her four weeks notice when her guardian’s assistant called in last week to say she’s quit and won’t be returning.”

Hunter says all this as he clicks through monitors, playing and pausing images across the vast array of screens. He leans forward, snatching a pen from a red wire pen pot and scribbles down the make, model and number plate of a car on a stack of pink post it notes.

The car, I realise as I watch a slow motion picture of Luna ease herself into the back seat of a blacked-out Mercedes.

“All we had to do was trace this,” Hunter says, deleting the footage of all cameras from tonight, before tossing the pen haphazardly onto the desk, following it up by peeling the sticky note off the top of the pad and flinging those carelessly back onto the desk too. “We’re dumb fucks,” he shakes his head, straight, black hair dripping into his eyes. “I didn’t need to waste time talking to that bitch. Which, by the way, I think she really dislikes your girl, man, probably means Luna’s a keeper.” He grins at that, this slow stretch of a sardonic smile slithering across his mouth. “The unusual ones are where it’s at.” He throws out, shoving himself like a brute out of the squeaky, leather, roller chair. “So, shall we go?”

And just like that, we’re back in the car and tracking the Mercedes that drove my girl to her death.

“This is Italian run,” Thorne says sharply, a moue on the unimpressed slash of his mouth. “Luckily for us, Vito owns this place,” he says simply, and then he’s getting out of the car, shutting the door behind him and walking towards the entrance.

Hunter and I rush to follow, the car beeping once as both of our doors close simultaneously and Thorne clicks the lock button on the key fob without turning back.

Thorne steps up to the door of what looks to be a gentleman’s club. The outer walls are red brick, the small windows are tinted with that reflective stuff, so everyone inside can see out, but nobody outside can see in. And the door is a bright, glaring, red steel that quite obviously is intended to intimidate.

To warn off.

We don’t feel intimidation.

Not Blackwell men. And, clearly, not their women either. We’re gathering quite a collection of strong women it seems.

Thorne knocks once, waits, knocks three times more in quick succession and then takes a good solid step back, and kicks the base of the door with his foot. He doesn’t look particularly happy about that part, staring down at the toe of his shoe as if he can feel a scuff mark appearing before he can see it, but Thorne is a perfectionist in all ways, especially when it comes to his appearance.

The slider in the top portion of the door opens in a rush, dark eyes appear in the gap, followed by the slamming of the slider once more, before the door is opening outwards with a groan.

“Thorne,” the bald headed man greets as he allows the three of us entrance, his large body packed with muscle ushering us down a short hall. “No trouble,” he calls out behind us, his Italian accent thick.

My older brother clicks his tongue, leading the way deeper inside the building, “Non c'è problema, Matteo,” he calls back without looking.

Smoke is a dense wall that we have to walk through as Thorne pushes inside what appears to be the main room of the establishment. There’s a long bar along the far wall, stretching from one corner to the other. There are a couple of pool tables off to one side surrounded by men. Bets in the form of money and expensive pieces of jewellery and watches perched amongst it line the wide wooden edges of the tables as men jostle each other and yell.

Our eldest brother takes us right up to the bar, weaving us between rowdy men and a collection of topless women serving drinks and holding trays of drugs. Thorne takes a seat on one of the many vacant bar stools, Hunter and I doing the same on either side of him. It only takes a moment for a guy to come over, and without taking his order, plants a short tumbler of bourbon on the wooden top in front of Thorne.

“Thorne,” the man greets, not pleasantly, but not entirely impolitely either. “What do you need?” he asks immediately, ignoring both Hunter and I, his dark eyes don’t even quiver in their sockets to glance at us, it’s as though we’re not here at all.

Thorne reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small roll of notes and pushes them across the bar, the man takes them without looking, slipping the wad of cash straight into his trouser pocket.

“I would very much like to know who this vehicle belongs to.” He slides the pink post it note across the bar next, and the man glances down briefly before flicking his eyes back up and over my shoulder.

“Carlo Costa,” he says, flicking his chin whilst screwing up the pink slip of paper and tucking that too into his pocket. “He’s a driver.”

“For?”

“Vito,” he says thickly, like that’s a stupid arse question, but my brother is undeterred.

“Obviously,” Thorne drawls.

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