Page 2 of Murder & Mayhem

“Well, I think—”

“I don’t give a shit what you think,” I blurt out, cutting him off. “I. Am. Not. Moving. In. Here.”I pin him with a dead serious look, hoping that what I just said will finally penetrate his thick skull. “So you can tell your lackeys to stop packing up my shit.”

When he doesn’t move to lift his phone from the desk and place the call, I stare him down, the two of us engaged in one hell of a stare-off. Neither one of us breaks eye contact, even when the door is pushed open, and in my peripheral vision, I notice Oliver step into the room.

“Uh, what’s the problem now?” Oliver asks, sounding weary. He’s gotten used to Cain and me having issues with every little thing the other says over the last few weeks. The three of us have only met up a handful of times, but Cain and I have ended up sniping at one another every single one of those times.

“Cain has men packing up my apartment, even though I saidno,” I answer with a quirk of my brow at Cain, still engaged in a silent stare-off battle with him.

“You told me she changed her mind,” Oliver grumbles, turning to look at Cain.

I snort.Of course, he did.The day after I agreed to help them, Oliver immediately raised the idea of me and Luc moving in here with them. He made it sound so fucking reasonable too—better protection for Luc, I’d be less likely to become a target, and it would give us more time to work on our plan. Except that there’s no fucking way I’m about to move my fifteen-year-old brother into a gang clubhouse. Hell-to-the-motherfucking-no. Besides, there’s absolutely no chance I could be around these two all day, every day, and keep my sanity, or my panties dry. Nope. Moving in is not an option.

“Well, I didn’t.”

Oliver steps around me, moving closer to Cain. “Man, come on.”

“I don’t even get why you’re so hellbent on me moving in. In fact, I’m beginning to think you’re secretly obsessed with me.” I smirk at him.

He scoffs, sneering right back. “Not likely. I’m trying to make the job of protecting you and your brother’s asses easier on my men.”

The smug smile drops off my face as I scowl.

“Cain, it’s fine,” Oliver assures him. “The kids are hanging out with Luc anyway.”

Oliver’s words don’t seem to appease him. “Yeah, well, maybe we’d actually have made some progress if we were all under the same roof.” He waves a hand in my direction. “Instead, she’s been avoiding us for the last two weeks.”

“I have not,” I argue, ignoring the thin line of truth in his words. “I have my own shit to do. Some of us actually work for a living.” Between shifts at Strip Tease and removing a few new assholes from the map, I’ve been pretty damn busy recently. There was no way in hell I was about to drop any of that just to come pander to Cain’s whims. Not while men like Python roam the streets.

“Well, now that you’ve decided to grace us with your presence”—cue eye roll at his dramatics—“we should get you up to speed on the Antonellis. What do you know about them?”

“Not much,” I admit with a shrug, letting some of the tension drop from my shoulders as I shift into business mode. Despite how infuriating Cain is to deal with, I can put aside our differences for the sake of a job, for the sake of making Black Creek a safer place for my brother.

Cain gestures to one of the empty chairs in front of his desk, and hesitantly I take a seat. Oliver casts a heated glance my way before claiming the chair beside me. The asshole makes a point of spreading his legs, ensuring his muscular, jean-clad thigh brushes against mine as Cain pulls open a drawer and rifles through it.

Yet, I don’t shift away from Oliver’s touch. Guess I’m a glutton for punishment. I can’t help the thrill that thrums through me when he’s nearby, even though my head is telling me to snap out of it. I stare at where Oliver’s leg presses against mine. My body begs for more, and my brain revolts. The same as always. Why can’t I just be a simple girl who doesn’t have deep-seated emotional issues? Life would be far easier. Instead, I feel like I’m letting myself down every time I melt beneath his touch or have inappropriate fantasies about him… or Cain. It seems so goddamn pathetic that after all these years of hating on the gangs in this town, I’d just toss that hostility to the wayside for some decent dick. Okay, so it’s next-level, amazing, out-of-this-world dick. But it’s still dick. It just doesn’t seem right.

I only pull my focus from where our bodies connect when Cain sets three photos down on the desk in front of me. They are all candid shots, clearly taken from afar with a zoomed-in lens, as none of the men in the images seem to be aware that they’ve been photographed. “This is Giovanni, the head of the Antonelli family,” he states, pointing at the first photo on the left.

Sitting forward in my chair to get a better look, I imprint every fine detail of the cold man in the first photo, from his gray-tinged, short-cropped jet-black hair to the cruel slash of his mouth, to his perfectly tailored suit, into my memory. I fight back a shiver as fear crawls along my spine. The dark shadows in his eyes, combined with his stiff features, sets an intimidating picture. Exuberant wealth and absolute confidence drip from his pores, and even if I hadn’t experienced firsthand what he was capable of when he sent his men to blow up G&T, the promises of death and destruction in his cold, hard eyes would be telling enough.

“This is his Consigliere—his second in command—Santo Ricci,” Cain continues, moving on to the second photo.

Again, I scrutinize his picture. He looks to be around the same age—mid-fifties—and equally as ruthless looking as Giovanni. However, his shaved dark hair and the row of X’s running down his right cheek make him appear more brutish. I can certainly see why he was chosen as Giovanni’s second. While Giovanni appears cold and calculating, Santo’s screamsdon’t fuck with mevibes.

When he moves on, tapping the third and final photo with his finger, I tense. Out of the three shots, this one is the only face I recognize, and I have to confess, I am surprised to see it amongst the other two. After running into him at Bella Donna, I knew the man that nearly killed me eight years ago was connected to the Antonellis, but I had no idea he was this high up in their organization. By the process of elimination, he must be…

“Giovanni’s son,” Cain states, confirming my assumption. “Dante Antonelli.”

I lift his picture off the desk, drinking in the deep furrow of his brow, the tight pinch of his lips, and the tense set of his jaw. If I thought Giovanni looked scary, it’s nothing compared to his son. It’s all in his eyes. While his father’s were hard and flinty, Dante’s are just blank. Like looking up into the dark sky on a starless night. The dark brown of his irises blends with his pupils to create this never-ending chasm. I could clearly read the greed and violence in Giovanni’s eyes, but in Dante’s there is nothing. There’s no emotion whatsoever. It’s like he’s an empty void, incapable of feeling anything. Unlike the other two photos, Dante is looking right into the camera, which only adds to his unnerving presence. This time I can’t hold back my full-body shiver as I feel the chill from his glacial glare seep into my bones. I set the photo down on the desk, pushing it away from me and feeling a bit ridiculous that a simple photograph could bother me so much. Coughing to clear my throat, I ask, “So, what’s the plan?”

When neither of them answer, I lift my head, glancing first at Cain before turning my head to meet Oliver’s unflinching gaze. “Uhhh.”

When he doesn’t expand, I roll my eyes.

“We planned to use the Reaper’s ability to sneak into places undetected to get us vital information that we could use to formulate a strategic plan of attack intended to take out the top figures within the organization,” Cain states in a flat tone.

My eyes narrow as I look between them, trying to put my finger on their hesitation with that plan. It sounds like a good idea to me. Without a doubt, something I can do, and yet they’re both frowning as if that’s not a possibility. My eyebrows hitch, and I gape at them as the realization hits me like a slap in the face. “And what? Because I’m a girl, you don’t think I can do that?” I bite back.

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