Page 110 of Tempt Me (Dark Odyssey 4)

Half an hour later sees me walking across the rooftop of one of the warehouses at the docks.

My three brothers are here. Salvatore, Gabe, and Nick.

They stand by the edge of the roof looking like shadows against the night.

Their faces are stern and crude.

Salvatore said he picked up some suspicious activities here and saw Dmitri with a bunch of guys looking like they were up to some illegal shit. We’re always up to some illegal shit, but this is different.

It’s dirty, and it’s not dirt I know of, but I’m about to fucking find out.

I approach them, and they give me curt nods.

“Anything happen yet?” I ask.

Salvatore shakes his head.

“No. They’re waiting for something, though, and that boat there is theirs.” He motions down below.

I see Dmitri talking to a guy. In the amber light from the streetlights and the moonlight, I make out his dark olive skin. He looks Mediterranean.

“Here, get a closer look,” Nick says, handing me a pair of binoculars.

I take them and get a closer look, alright. I don’t see anything much to jump out at me, but what I see is truth. I’m looking at Dmitri, and that mask of playing the nice businessman isn’t there anymore.

He stands differently, feet apart and shoulders back. He’s smoking, and the look on his face feels like the real him. The real devil. It’s cunning and manipulative, that’s what it is. Criminalistic and animalistic.

It was the look he was trying to hide.

That fucker. What the fuck are they up to?

“They’ve been waiting for something or someone,” Salvatore adds.

“That guy,” Gabe begins. “There’s something about him. He was talking to another earlier. A gut called Andreas, who’s part of the cartel, wanted by the fucking feds for drug trafficking.”

I lower the binoculars and look to Gabe. “You’re shitting me.”

Gabe shakes his head. “I saw them in a bar. That’s what started this.”

“Give me more details,” I demand.

“I went to check something out at the bar. First, your boy Dmitri was there. When I saw him, I decided to lay low. He didn’t look like he was there for a drink, so I didn’t want him to get fazed by seeing me. He went out back, and I followed. That’s when I saw him link up with Andreas and this guy here.” Gabe points below. “I don’t know that guy, but if he knows Andreas, then he can’t be anybody good.”

Shit. This was it. The thing my instincts were warning me about.

We haven’t seen much yet, but it’s something.

Gibbs hasn’t been able to find anything. It suggests one of two things: that there’s nothing to find, or that whatever there is, is well hidden. So hidden it’s clean and passes through our checks.

“Maybe this is about drugs. Maybe they want to smuggle drugs. Maybe it’s not the fucking diamonds, oronlythe diamonds,” I state.

“Whatever the shit is, I don’t think we should have anything to do with it,” Salvatore says.

“I need something to work with.” I take out my phone and zoom in on the guy talking to Dmitri.

We couldn’t find shit on Dmitri. Maybe this guy is the fucker who will give me an answer. I take a few pictures of him and message them to Gibbs telling him to look into it.

He messages his acknowledgement straightaway.

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