Page 16 of Kiss of Death
Ivy came out from the locker rooms just then wearing incredibly short shorts and a skin tight T-shirt. Otto’s body hardened in an instant, and he took his time drinking her in. It was going to be difficult getting any work done tonight and keeping focus on anything that didn’t involve watching her take the stage.
“Be careful with that one.”The words were a whisper and he looked at Smoke, wondering if they had come from him, but Smoke was engrossed in a conversation with Gia.
He heard the words again, this time he was sure it was only in his mind, as she looked up at him with a tentative smile on her lips.
Her poison is slow-working but just as effective.
By the time you realize what’s happening, it’ll be too late.
The taunt came out of nowhere, but it left a sour taste in his mouth as dread filled the pit of his stomach.
“My poison Ivy,”he whispered to himself, wondering if he was about to find out how accurate that name really was for her.
Sofia paced the confines of her father’s office—her office now. She hadn’t spent too much time here aside from inducting the Council. The memories of the life before she had to flee to Columbia seemed ever-present in this space, and every so often she’d get hit with the faint smell of her father lingering in the air. It was enough to bring tears to her eyes. It was why she stayed out of this office space. She couldn’t be worried about past emotions being dredged up when she needed to focus on the war she was diving head first into.
She stopped her pacing and leaned her hands on the oak desk. It seemed like she had been fighting since her mom took her out of the comfort of her home here and brought her to Columbia. She was exhausted, and with the Council, her hope had been to bring peace to the boroughs so she could rest. She knew it wasn’t going to happen overnight, but she foolishly hadn’t anticipated the size of the war that was coming.
There was a knock on the door, and she didn’t have to turn around to see who it was. As soon as he stepped into the room, her body went lax, recognizing the peace Dom seemed to bring her. She heard his light footsteps against her hardwood floor before she felt the gentle touch of his fingertips on her bare arms. His lips pressed against her shoulder and then her neck, “My sweet Saffi,” he murmured in between kisses.
Sofia turned around. She wrapped her hands around Dom’s waist and buried her face in his chest. She took the comfort he offered her, letting it wash off some of the grimness she felt was trapped on her skin. Dom was both her saving grace and her Achille’s heel. He thawed out the parts of her living this life had frozen but being with him again also made her susceptible to her emotions.
It was hard to go to war with a conscience, but if anything were to happen to the man she was holding on to, she’d burn the city down and everyone in it without remorse.
“Wolf and Nico called. They got rid of the bodies already. We don’t think anyone saw them, so we’re good on the cop end.” Dom’s deep voice rumbled throughout the room, and she felt the vibration against her cheek.
She leaned her head back. “What about over at Tres?” She pulled out of his hold, but he grabbed her hand and interlaced their fingers together.
“Smoke’s taking care of the body. Nico says he’s ready to move in on Boris’s territory with his crew. You just gotta say when.”
Sofia pressed her lips together. She initially wanted them in Boris’s territory last night, knowing he was going to hit her hard. She hadn’t realized how hard he’d hit first though, and she had to be strategic on how she handled the next phases of this. “The Unhinged Brothers are leaving soon, right?” Dom nodded. That left her numbers for extra bodies lower than she would have liked. She wanted to keep as many people as she could as protected as possible.
“All right, tell Nico and his team to head into Brooklyn but to keep their eyes open. Assess the situation, and when the Unhinged Brothers come back, we’ll make a move. Also make sure Nico and Bebo know to keep Natalya as safe as possible. With all this shit, Otto is going to want to ship her and Gia off the planet.”
Dom nodded. “I’ll let them know. Um, two more things. Ethan wants a meeting with you, and that body at Tres was found inside the club.”
Sofia dropped her hand, pulling herself out of Dom’s hold. Ethan wanting a meeting didn’t surprise her. Either he was going to tell her to fuck off and stay out of the Bronx or he was going to want to lend a helping hand for a high price.
It was Dom’s admission about the body in Tres that had her mind spinning. After forcing Bruno to sell it to her, she had the Unhinged Brother’s tech guy come in and swap out all the security codes and change the camera angles and the locks. She purposely put things in place to make sure Bruno didn’t try to come in one night and burn the building to the ground out of spite.
“Otto check the security footage, yet?” Not like it mattered. If this was in fact Bruno and Boris—not that she had much doubt—there were only two ways they could have gotten into Tres: a little breaking and entering, but the alarms would have gone off and they hadn’t, or someone in Tres had access to codes and keys they weren’t supposed to and were handing them out.
Even after she cleaned house, someone still got in who worked for either Bruno or Boris, and that pissed her off. “We need to head to Tres.” She looked at her watch, knowing that by the time they got to Tres, the doors to the club would be open and customers would be trickling in. She’d have to wait till they closed to have Otto and Gia call a meeting, but it would give people who weren’t scheduled to work tonight enough time to make whatever arrangements they needed to make sure they were in attendance.
Sofia was going to make sure the snake they had inside Tres understood exactly what it meant to go against her, and when she found out exactly who it was, they were going to wish for death.
OTTO WAS IN HIS OFFICE, looking down at the packed club. One couldn’t tell they’d just disposed of a body mere hours ago the way the bass of the music vibrated around them. Smoke had left just before the club opened, and Sofia was well on her way with Dom to have a meeting with the employees of Tres.
They had all sat around his and Gia’s desk and watched the security footage. As Otto originally thought, they couldn’t actually see the two people who had brought in an already dead Desiree. They used the one blind spot they had in one of the cameras, which no one outside of the Council should have been aware of, to gain entrance into Tres, and once they were in, neither he nor Gia could make out who was behind the black ski masks.
They made sure to keep their faces turned away from any of the cameras in the club. They wore black gloves and long black shirts to cover up any markings they might have had on their skin that would identify them. It wasn’t so much that they needed proof of the attacks, the message was clear enough, but Otto liked having concrete evidence. That way, when they connected the dots to there would be no mistakes.
Gia’s voice filtered in the air around him, pulling his attention away from the stage for a minute. She was on the phone with their younger sister, Natalya. After the body was found at Smoke and Mirrors and with Nico and Bebo getting ready to move their product into Brooklyn, she had to be moved yet again. She was staying at some family’s house in the Bronx, and going by Gia’s laughter, it didn’t seem like Natalya minded the interruption too much.
His younger sister was still young enough to think this life was cool, even though he was constantly putting her in danger. In her defense, this was all she knew. Otto hoped with her going away for college she’d see there was better out there and maybe even hate him and Gia enough to get as far away from them as possible. But the further Otto pushed, the more Natalya seemed to hang on. He hoped once things settled down she’d be eager to go back to college and finish her degree. She was too smart to stay in his world and he didn’t want her getting strapped to it the same way he and Gia had.
The lights in the club dimmed, signaling the rotation of the girls hitting the stage. Otto quickly pulled his gaze back to the crowd below him. The first strings of the “Drunk in Love” remix started to filter through the air. He held his breath, waiting for Ivy to take the stage like he knew she would. She was going on with two other girls, but they didn’t matter to Otto. As soon as she entered a room, she was all he could see.
He saw her take the center pole, and everything else seemed to disappear from his mind. The upcoming war, the dead bodies, and the fact that Ivy might be his demise quickly evaporated into thin air. His vision tunneled—only seeing and feeling the woman who was buried so deep underneath his skin she left little bite marks across his flesh, making sure when she left she didn’t leave him unscathed.
