Page 106 of Orion Ruined

“Language, Orion,” Lisa warns, though her voice trembles. “That’s Mya’s new best friend.”

I kneel down by the bed to talk to her. “Hey, Mya. You know how I told you about your cool Uncle Orion?”

Her big blue eyes shift to Orion. “Mm-hmm.”

“Well, he just made sure that horrible man downstairs is sent to forever land–never ever to come back.”

“You did?” she asks him.

“Yes, kiddo. Come here.” She goes to him and he takes her in his arms. “You’ve grown so much. I missed your voice.”

“I missed your voice too.” She grins and wraps her arms around his neck.

Orion closing his eyes and visibly melting in her embrace is the best thing ever.

“I promise nothing will ever happen to you again,” he whispers.

ORION

“The art of profit is based on exploiting need, and no one perfected that dark art better than my father,” I decreed in the boardroom to an audience of Kai, Logan, and two additional members of each of their families, all looking at me impassively.

“And my father,” Kai added curtly.

“Yeah, let’s not forget about Lorenzo, either,” Logan interjected, as if this was a competition. “He loved to fuck, but he was fucking smart!” His relatives nodded approvingly.

I ignored them. “With his great business acumen, he invested in a number of companies that have turned out to be very relevant to the COVID crisis: multi-service businesses such as catering, cleaning and disinfection, industrial laundries, transport, funeral homes, waste collection, food distribution–and health,” I continued. “All of these sectors have been fundamental during COVID, which worked out great for us. I’m sure your fathers did the same, and you both have something you’re working toward.

“However, now that we’ve found out Milan was out to get us all this time, the mess the Slavs kept serving us for too long cannot be ignored any longer. It’s the perfect time to join forces and attack.

“Our relationship, if I could call it that, shouldn’t last long. But it sure will serve as a foundation for the future, providing it’s successful. I therefore propose we strike Milan’s HQ, get access to his safe, where all the important documents on us are held, take what’s ours, and go our separate ways. We don’t have to pretend to be friends here.”

I vividly remembered Maisy telling me the safe was what we needed. There should be three boxes in it, one on each of our respective families. Everything she’d read was placed in there. All the evidence of crime, snitches, profits, scams, and more. But selfishly, I wanted this for no other reason than to get my hands on that letter from my mother. Why the fuck would Milan have a letter from my mother at all?

“How do we know you won’t do something stupid? Like, pull the gun on us mid-heist?” one of Logan’s people asked with a scowl.

“It’s always our own division that destroys us. We’ve been on the verge of extinction and we survived, all of us, too many times. I’d have to be stupid to do something like that. One thing we all know is that there’s too much animosity. The family we each belong to is important, but it’s also about the honor and loyalty and character of the family members. I believe Kai and Logan have that.” As I concluded, both Kai and Logan nodded so everyone would know they agreed.

“So, do you believe the same about me?” I asked.

Logan stood up and offered his hand. “I do.”

I shook with him and nodded.

“Yes.” Kai got to his feet and offered his hand too. “You may be many things, but you’re loyal, Orion.” I knew he meant it.

Their family members rose and we all shook hands, sealing the plan tight.

As for executing it, we didn’t waste much time. We knew Milan had snitches everywhere; heck, we knew about Bobby from the Vitali family and so, officially, we said it would take place in a month’s time, when in actual fact we did it within mere days.

Two days from that meeting, fifteen of us–five from each family–were in Milan’s house. In and out. He figured something was going on when we took an expensive painting from his house, one that he shouldn’t have had in his possession in the first place, and left it outside the Interpol HQ, leaning against the sign saying The Stolen Works of Art Database. We dropped him in the shit, needing him to be focused on something while we were sifting through the information he had on us and making sense of it.

Initially, he didn’t know we infiltrated his safe. We didn’t take a lot, mostly just the three boxes Maisy had told us about. Of course, we went through everything, including a bunch of old DVDs, each with a photo of an underaged girl on the cover. That made us sick. I would’ve left them there if I hadn’t seen Maisy’s face staring back at me from one of the covers. A scared-looking little girl sitting in the corner of a dingy gray room, with short hair and dark circles under her eyes. That’s what I saw first, the abyss in her eyes. And then I decided I was taking them all, so I shoved the DVDs into my box and we left.

We went our separate ways, each with our own box. We had to go through the important documents, the money, the snitches, and our own personal shit before passing it on to everyone else.

~

It’s been three days since I’ve seen them, and Kai and Logan are due to come over today. I’m sure Milan knows what happened by now. Interpol contacted him the next day, and he’s bound to have joined the dots. And if he didn’t, I bet one of his snitches told him.

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