TRISTAN
One Week Earlier
“My daughter must be one fine piece of pussy.” Scarlet’s father smiled a sick grin as he leaned forward and lit his cigar. He puffed a few times before leaning back and looking at all three of us. “So serious,” he said as he laughed.
“This is a serious fucking matter,” Seb spat at him. Could always count on Sebastian to let his anger rule his mouth. I was going to have to put a gag in it if he didn’t learn how to keep his mouth shut.
Domnul Dulca raised his eyebrow at the outburst, and I knew we were found out. He might have suspected we were fucking her the last time we met, but Seb had just outed us all in the worst way. With that little remark, he had exposed how important we thought she was.
The tension in the room was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
“Well,” he said between puffs. “Like any other good dog, I’m sure she will find her way home.”
“I’d honestly prefer she find her way home in one piece,” I snapped back before Seb could open his mouth again. “I’ve already had to use my cleanup crew more than I would like to admit in the past few weeks. I’d hate to have to bring them out again. I’ll have to up their pay if this shit doesn’t get sorted out.”
Elliot scoffed from the corner of the room, where he sat to keep an eye on everything. He was always lurking, always watching. He was the silent threat in any room. People knew he was there but rarely heard him.
“Okay, mutt,” Domnul Dulca said, leaning forward as far as he could with his belly in the way. “If I help you with this, what do I get?”
“What do you want?”
I looked over at Seb, who had spoken out of turn again. My blood was about to boil over, and I wanted nothing more than to slap him upside the back of his head. I knew he could feel my stare on him like daggers, but he ignored me all the same. Scar’s father laughed at our disorganization. In his eyes, there was weakness, a crack in the foundation of our supposed ranks. All the while his second, Mateus, sat there quietly like the obedient rat he was.
“Do you have the final say now?” he asked, looking towards Seb. “Or maybe you there, in the back? Do you sit and listen and then give little hand signals to your buddies here?” He laughed again, and I wanted to rip his jugular out to make it stop.
“I have the final say. What the fuck do you want, Dulca?”
His eyes swung back to me and narrowed at the clear disrespect in my tone. “How about a favor?” he asked with a smile.
“What kind of favor?”
“I’ll decide that later on,” he said, leaning back again in the chair. I could feel the atmosphere in the room change. I felt Sebastian and Elliot both go deadly silent. The only noise in the room was Dulca’s heavy breathing as he sucked on that cigar in his mouth.
“I’m not going to give you that much power over us. I would be an idiot to accept those terms. Try again.” Both Seb and Elliot let out collective sighs of relief. We used to be so in sync with each other, but ever since Scar went missing, we’d been slipping, making little mistakes here and there. If we didn’t get our shit together, we were going to fall apart. The entire life we’d worked so hard for would go under, all because of one woman.
I sighed and tried not to let my mind go down that road. That was a dangerous path that only led to me resenting her for something that wasn’t her fault. I was just angry and, honestly, a little scared that we hadn’t been able to find her yet. It was putting all of us on edge. Even Elliot was grumpier than usual.
“Lift the truce, then,” he said, bringing me back to the present moment. I rubbed my hands over my face and groaned. This man was really starting to get on my nerves. He was asking for impossible things, and he knew it. But I knew he was trying to see how far he could push us for Scarlet.