Page 77 of Blood in the Water
Konstantin: Fucking Italians
I flipped through my phone some more, reading over the last few messages I’d had from Obi. It had been a few days since we’d talked, and we were focused on our travel. The Shadows’ international position didn’t manage itself. His constant meetings with organizations worldwide made him even busier than I was. Was he in New York? Back in Africa? Visitinga cartel in South America? Out of all of us, he spent the least time in New York, but he was a master at multitasking and organization. What new contracts had he secured since we last spoke? What would he have for me when I returned?
Another hit? Maybe this time I’d get to go to Europe. Hadn’t been to Amsterdam in a while.
Or maybe information extraction on a traitor?
Wasn’t my favorite thing to do, but it wasn’t usually that hard. Easy jobs, paid a lot.
With a sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to relax.
He expected me to take another contract as soon as possible, but maybe I’d take a few days off. I hadn’t told the rest of my brothers I was on the way home. I preferred to be unattached as much as possible.
Sure, they were the three people I trusted most in the world. We’d been through hell and back. Obi and I had spent ten years together. But I couldn’t help this feeling of restlessness that had recently taken over my mind. A yearning for more. I wasn’t even surewhat; it was just that I’d felt a little off my game recently.
If anything, my trip back to Japan had shown me how much I needed to control my destiny.
No one would ever take that feeling of freedom from me again.
29
WYNN
After our sparring match, Ciel filled us in on what he needed.
Data.
Even though he was the best hacker in the world, and the Shadows were the most elite assassination and clandestine organization, that didn’t mean we were all-knowing.
Something that had frequently frustrated me when Ciel couldn’t just magically track down all of the trafficking dens in the world for me to eliminate one by one.
Sadly, it wasn’t that simple. One needed data and access to resources often protected by deep firewalls and entire security teams.
Specifically, if we wanted to track where the Italians were bunkering down in preparation for war, Ciel needed better eyes on the ground, more concrete numbers of the Italians and Russians, and the ability to monitor and ID large groups of people at once. We needed to know who was who to track their movements around the city and cross-reference them with potential sites where Caspian might be located.
Leona had tried her best to give him information about essential locations to the Italians—which he marked down forsatellite monitoring when possible—but unfortunately, most of what she knew was either irrelevant or out of date. Once again, I was annoyed at the old Don for doing his utmost to keep Leona out of the Family business. She would have been so much better served if he had prepared her for the world around her.
I shook my head, not wanting to disparage a dead man. What was done was done. It had led Leona straight to me, so I couldn’t be too frustrated. She would grow into the strength she had within if I had anything to do with it. All she needed was someone who could nurture it. Nurture her.
To get Ciel’s data, he needed more tech around the city that could run his tracking and ID programs.
Hacking street cameras could only do so much, especially when our targets were trained to avoid cameras at all costs. We had informants in the Russian Bratva and Italian Mafia that kept us up to date as best as they could—which was how Ciel learned about the Russians hitting that Italian casino—but it wasn’t enough to piece together what we needed.
Once it got dark, Leona and I would case the city, setting up Ciel’s special little cameras that not only used facial recognition software to catalog every person it captured but also attached a tracking bug to any cell phone within range. It was the newest government tech Ciel had pirated from the CIA’s systems.
But right now, I was trying to snag a few hours of sleep.
Leona had passed out two hours ago, shortly after Willow dropped off six giant bags worth of clothes. My sister had wiggled her eyebrows at me, giving me herwhat is going on here?look before chatting with Leona for an hour and then slipping out the front door without a word. I texted Willow a brief thank you, and she responded with that one smiling emoji with the hand over the mouth.
Leona quickly took the bags to her guest room and never came out. When I went to check on her, she had passed out on the bed, with piles of new clothes folded on the bed around her.
Even in sleep, she captivated me. Watching her come apart under my fingers was the sweetest feeling of euphoria. It filled me with that sense ofrightnessI was always searching for. I neededmore. I pulled a blanket over her shoulders and lightly kissed her cheek before heading to my room for a nap.
Sleep, however, still eluded me. Visions taunted me. Leona’s face when she came on my fingers, paired with her breathy little moans, played on repeat behind my eyelids. My cock was again rock hard, straining against the athletic shorts that she had her hands down only hours before.
I sighed, pushing myself off the bed, and stalked into my bathroom to turn the shower on. Slipping inside the heated water, I let the vision replay over and over as I stroked my shaft, imagining what it would feel like to finally bury myself inside her pussy. To feel her walls clench around me. I grunted with a jerk as I came, praying it wouldn’t be long until I had the opportunity to pleasure her again.
I leaned my head against the cool shower tile. Both my sister and my therapist had told me that one day, I’d meet someone who made me feel like there was good in the world, but I honestly never believed them. I thought I’d live my whole life as a shell, with only the next mission to look forward to and only relieving my body’s urges when necessary. I never expected to meet someone who made me feel like lightning ran through my veins, and especially not so quickly.
