Page 42 of Wicked Mafia Beast
"Sleep well?"
The question comes out casual, tossed over his shoulder without turning around, his voice stripped of anything I could read into. But his hand pauses on the spatula for half a beat before resuming its rhythm.
"Fourteen hours." I take another sip, keeping my tone light, breezy, the voice of a woman who absolutely did not fall asleep wearing his shirt with her face buried in the collar. "Apparently being deflowered on a rooftop is exhausting."
I try to keep the sass out of my voice, but I fail.
His shoulders tense, the muscles across his back drawing tight beneath the black henley for a fraction of a second before he forces them to relax. The movement is subtle enough that most people would miss it. I'm not most people.
"You needed the rest." His voice stays level, carefully neutral, but the accent thickens on the wordrest, the vowel stretching just slightly the way it does when he's controlling something underneath.
"Is that concern I'm detecting, Beast?"
"That's an observation." He still doesn't turn around, but I catch the slight tilt of his head, the barest angle toward me, like he's fighting the impulse to look. "There's a difference."
He's making something with potatoes and onions, the sizzle of the pan filling the silence between us. I watch his hands work. Those scarred knuckles and calloused palms that mapped every inch of my body yesterday. Heat flickers low in my belly and I force my gaze to the window.
"We should do the debrief today." His voice is all business. "The more intelligence I can bring to Rafael, the faster we move against your uncle before he does the same to us."
"Fine."
He slides a plate in front of me. Potato hash with eggs and herbs, golden and fragrant. I take a bite and hate how good it is.
"Your family's shipping operations." He leans against the counter, arms crossed. "Walk me through them."
This, at least, is familiar territory. This is why I'm here. Getting rid of my virginity was a must. I took that card off the table to be used against me and I did it my way. Now it’s all about justice any way I can get it and that means making the enemy of my enemy my friend.
With benefits.
"Seamus runs everything through three shell companies. Emerald Logistics, Celtic Transport, and Shamrock Shipping." I tick them off on my fingers, falling into the rhythm of reporting. "All registered in different states with different dummy boards, but they all trace back to a holding company in the Caymans."
"Routes?"
"East Coast primarily. Baltimore, Newark, Boston. But he's been expanding. Six months ago he started running trucks through Chicago, which I'm guessing is why the Syndicate started paying attention."
"Da.He was moving into our territory." Something dark flickers in his eyes. "What's in the trucks?"
"Officially? Restaurant supplies, industrial equipment, auto parts." I push a potato around my plate. "Unofficially? Drugs. Weapons. And more recently..." The words stick in my throat. "People. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach he’s partnered up with Society 69. I had no idea they existed, now that I do they sit at the top of my list along with my family to eliminate."
He makes a sound of approval. “You’re in good company to find some help.”
“Yet to be seen.” Bad guys are bad guys, right? I don't say that out loud, but the black and white of it is simple. If you make your money through crime, you sit at the same table as my family.
“This society group seems to have a lot of claws into a lot of people.”
"Da, malyshka.”
I add the Russian word to my list of words to look up. But right now I’m more focused on his reaction to the mention of Society 69.
His jaw tightens. The muscle in his cheek jumps. His knuckles go white where his fingers grip his crossed arms, tendons standing out against the tattoo ink, and his breathing changes. Notfaster. Slower. Controlled. The deliberate inhale of a man forcing himself to stay still when every instinct screams at him to move.
The mask slips for half a second and something raw surfaces underneath. At first it appears to be anger. Nah. What I am looking at is deeper than anger. His reaction is one that comes from recognition, from knowing exactly what those shipping containers smell like from the inside.
My journalist brain flags it, files it, tucks it away for later. There's a story behind that reaction. A personal one. And someday I'm going to ask him about it.
But not today. Today, his pain isn't my focus.
"Has your family always been into trafficking?"
