“I forgot I had that in my trunk. Figured you might want to get out of that dress.” She cocks her head at Ryland, a too-sweet smile on her face. “Sorry I don’t have any for you guys, but I don’t keep four sets of men’s clothes in my car.”
“I’ve got some stuff.” Dominic’s voice is groggy. He sits up slowly as I perch the duffel on the arm of Theo’s chair and unzip it, revealing a pair of jeans, a few tops, and a pair of shoes inside. He rubs his eyes, wincing as his fingers graze over the bruise on his forehead. “I’ve got extra weapons stored downstairs too.”
He rises to his feet, moving slowly as if he’s testing whether he can stand. I have to fight down the urge to go offer him an arm to lean on—if I suddenly start doing shit like that, he’ll know something is up.
Turning away from him, I glance at Victoria, lifting the duffel slightly. “Thanks for these. I’m gonna go rinse off and throw them on.”
I head back down the hall to the bathroom and drop the duffel on the floor. When I get a look at myself in the mirror, I grimace.
My once gorgeous gown is tattered and stained. My body isn’t much better off, with bruises decorating my pale skin and small streaks of blood drying a dark reddish brown. My blue-gray eyes are a little dull, with dark circles beneath them.
The simple updo I worked my hair into is completely demolished now, and my dark hair brushes my shoulders as I tug down the zipper on my dress. The fabric falls softly to the floor, and I step out of my heels and slide my panties off too before turning on the faucet in the bathtub.
The water runs a slightly brownish color from rust for a minute, and once it turns clear, I pull the small knob on the faucet to turn on the shower and step in.
Hot water pours down on me, the heated spray both soothing and painful. It relaxes my tight muscles and washes away the layer of grime that seems to cover my body, but it makes me intensely aware of every cut and bruise on my skin.
There’s a bottle of men’s body wash on a little shelf built into the wall, and I use it to lather my skin before massaging shampoo into my hair.
I don’t linger, taking only as long as I need to get clean. I turn the water all the way to cold before switching it off, letting out a muffled yelp at the sting of freezing water. But I feel more alert and much more like myself when I step out onto the smooth tile of the bathroom floor. There’s no bathmat, and I can only find one towel, so I use it as sparingly as I can.
Twisting my hair to wring it out, I leave it to air dry and tug on my panties before pulling on the jeans Victoria brought me. I hate to rewear anything from last night, but I’d rather stick to the same set of panties than go commando in Victoria’s clothes.
I tug the tank top on, then slip on the shoes, glancing at myself in the mirror again. We’re not an exact size match, but at least our feet are close to the same size. Her clothes fit me well enough, and I look somewhat human again.
As I’m wadding up the dress into a ball around my fist, preparing to throw it in the trash, someone raps sharply on the door.
“Angel.” Marcus’s voice is muffled by the wood, but I can hear the intensity in it anyway. “We found something.”
Chapter 19
My hand clenches tightly on the fabric of my ruined dress. Then I quickly unwind it and drop it to the floor, already striding toward the door. I’ll deal with it later.
I wrench the door open and meet Marcus in the hallway, keeping pace with him as he heads back toward the front of the house. Everyone’s gathered in the small kitchen, crowded around Marcus’s beat-up laptop.
Ryland is directly in front of it, but he moves over to make room for me as Marcus and I join him.
“What did you find?” I ask, scanning the damaged screen quickly.
“Everything.” Theo sounds smug as fuck, and when I look at him, he grins at me. “He had this shit well-encrypted for a reason. It’s the connection between him and the Viper, all the little pieces he couldn’t hide. Offshore accounts where he hid the money coming in from the Viper’s activity, the names of intermediaries he used to keep from ever having to directly touch the Viper’s business. It’s enough that if we put this shit out in the world, only a fucking moron wouldn’t make the connection.”
I glance from him to Ryland, then over to Marcus, hope swelling in my chest like someone pumped it full of helium. “So that’s it then. We have it. Do we send it to Gabriel and Michael? Try to get it out more widely than that?”
“That’s what we need to decide.” Marcus leans against the kitchen counter, his long legs stretching out as he crosses one ankle over the other. His fingers brush absently over the tattoos on his knuckles.
“Why wouldn’t we want to?” My brows furrow. “Don’t we need to tell them the truth to get them off our backs?”
Ryland grunts, stepping away from the computer and grabbing a chair from the small table that sits against one wall. He spins it on one leg so it’s facing backward, then straddles it, resting his forearms on the back. “Gabriel and Michael are both mafia. Two of the most powerful families in Halston besides Luca. Their organizations exist with Luca’s blessing and permission, but that doesn’t mean they're not powerful in their own right.”
“Isn’t that good? If we get them on our side, we’d have that much more firepower against Luca.” I shove my hand into the pocket of my borrowed jeans, glancing around the kitchen.
Dominic and Victoria turn away from the computer too, facing the rest of us.
“Well, they’d go up against Luca, almost definitely,” Theo says with a shrug. “Whether they’d be on our side or not? That’s a bigger question. If they decide to take on Luca, they’ll both still be gunning for ultimate control of Halston. It’d be a bloody fucking gang war that would infect every corner of the city.”
My skin chills a bit. Having been chased down a dark road by both Gabriel and Michael, I have a pretty good idea how vicious they can be. And the idea of innocent people getting caught up in the crossfire turns my stomach. None of these men asked to be part of this bullshit, and neither did the other people who’ll end up getting hurt if a turf war breaks out.
“So what other option do we have?”
“We don’t tell Gabriel and Michael. We don’t tell anyone the details of what we know except Luca.” Marcus’s runs his hand over his jaw, where the shadow of stubble darkens his complexion slightly.
My eyes fly wide at his suggestion, but it doesn’t take me long to figure out what he means. “Blackmail.”
He nods. “We give him the option—retire like he promised he was going to, step down from ruling his empire, or we unleash the dogs of war on him. He’ll either take the deal or he won’t. If he doesn’t, then we follow through on our threat and spread the word far and wide.”
“So you blackmail him into upholding the terms of the game,” Victoria says slowly, her eyes narrowing. “In that case, he has to declare a winner. Who do you propose it be?”
“Marcus,” Theo says immediately. Ryland nods.
Marcus doesn’t say anything. He just stares at Victoria as she stares at him for a long moment.