Jackson chuckled just as my phone rang. “Speak of the devil,” I said as I stepped out into the hall.
“Sergio.”
“O’Hara just took out four of my guys at a café in broad fucking daylight.” Shit. It had started. “Want to tell me what the hell is going on?”
“Let’s just say one of our mutual friend’s favorite pets had to be put down.”
“For fuck’s sake.” A few more curses followed. “I’m coming to New York. We need to meet.”
“Fine. Eight o’clock. The Yama in Desolation.” Desolation was neutral ground. I sure as shit couldn’t go to Chicago right now.
_____
Emilia was tense in the passenger seat as I inched through heavy traffic, her gaze fixed on the passing bustle of the New York streets. The black dress she wore clung to her curves perfectly, and I struggled to pay attention to the road.
Today had been a shitshow, with O’Hara taking out two of my own guys in Chicago. My mood was black, and yet in a sea of death and chaos, Emilia was like this shaft of pure white light that I wanted to bask in. Even if I couldn’t right now. She absentmindedly twirled my mother’s ring around her finger in what I surmised was a nervous tick.
“Where are we going?” she asked as we finally made it onto the bridge and headed out of the city.
“To a meeting.” I didn’t elaborate and tell her who it was with or why.
Sergio had tried to kill her, and I didn’t want fear driving her to do something stupid. Like run in the middle of Desolation. She’d be trafficked off the street in a heartbeat.
We fell into silence for the rest of the hour drive, and I gripped the steering wheel tight, the urge to touch her, to pull her from her head almost instinctual. But right now, I needed not to think about Emilia or marriage or any future past finding my rat and putting an end to this war. It had gone on too long, and with Shane O’Hara’s death, this was one step away from becoming the kind of blood feud that would span generations.
I pulled onto the dirty streets of Desolation. The town sat a few miles outside New York, a messy collection of run-down apartment buildings and graffiti-stained, boarded-up shop fronts. The place was a sess pit of crime, run by the Ruin, a collection of crime lords who used it as neutral ground. Nero had been invited to join, but of course, he didn’t play well with others. I parked in a side alley and helped Emilia out of the car. She looked around like someone was about to jump out and stab her.
“Don’t look so scared, princess. I’ll protect you.”
She glared at me, smoothing a hand down the front of her dress. She looked out of place, a flower growing in a heap of shit. “Did you bring me to a meeting with your drug dealers?”
I laughed. “Not quite.”
I released the gun from my chest holster and palmed it as we crossed the street to a nondescript-looking building. The sidewalk was littered with garbage, the odd homeless person rifling through it.
“Why have you really brought me here?” Her voice trembled slightly as she eyed the gun in my hand.
“I’m not about to kill you, Emilia.” I rolled my eyes. “I told you, I have a meeting.”
“So you say.” She looked around like she might catch a disease simply from walking along the sidewalk. “For all I know, you’re about to leave my body in a dumpster. This looks like a popular murder spot.” She was rambling, though even as she spoke about me killing her, she shifted closer, her body pressing into my side.
My arm came around her, tugging her closer still. I liked the feel of her too much, liked that she gravitated to me for safety.
I stopped outside a plain black door with a single light above it, all the windows of the building boarded up. “I’d never kill you, princess.” I rapped on the door. “You’re worth much more to me alive.”
She didn’t get a chance to respond before the door opened, the low trickle of music drifting from within.
There was a small, dark room with a single desk and an older man in a suit behind it. I placed my gun on the desk, followed by the other still strapped to my chest. The guy put them in a safe at the back of the room before patting me down. He looked at Emilia, and I shook my head, daring him to try to touch her. Seemingly thinking better of it, he ducked and backed away while waving us toward the double doors at the back.
As soon as I stepped through those doors, the soft thrum of jazz music surrounded me. To the unsuspecting eye, The Yama looked like a high-end club, a wild contradiction to its exterior. Velvet-lined booths and crystal chandeliers decorated the place, and groups of men and women alike gathered behind sheer curtains that gave an illusion of sordid mystery. Beautiful waitresses served drinks, leaving their guests wanting for nothing. This was a place where a man could have any fantasy fulfilled if he had enough money. But that was the pretty lie, hiding what lay beneath. The Yama was owned by the bratva, and in English, it meant pit. Right below our feet, in the bowels of the building, was a fighting ring. Men often spent more money betting on blood and violence than on whores. And The Pit offered no-holds-barred fights to sate even the most bloodthirsty. There was a time when Nero and Jackson had loved getting into that filthy ring. Before we became who we are. The entire place was a money-making machine, thriving on a man’s basest desires.