The Dark Elite (The Dark Elite 1)

Hopefully.

I catch my own reflection in the mirror, glancing over my broad chest and shoulders, lingering on the scars and marks on my body. There are so many of them that I don’t even remember where half of them came from anymore, what their stories are. I’ve considered getting tattoos to cover a few of the larger ones, but that’s always bee

n Ciro’s thing.

Grimacing, I press my fingers to the small cut and the purpling bruise on my cheek from Hale’s fist.

I know I’ll remember where this scar came from.

I’ll never fucking forget it.

Shaking my head and sending wet droplets flying, I step away from the mirror. Focus, Zaid. Focus on the damn mission.

I make quick work of changing into fresh clothes, then wander through the house to look for the rest of my team. I find the three of them surrounding the dining room table, each wearing a serious expression. Hale is on his feet, but Ciro and Lucas are sitting, so I take a seat next to my brother and wait for our commander to spill the news.

Hale stops pacing, turning to face the three of us.

Fuck. I can already tell this isn’t going to be good.

“I spoke to my father,” he says, leaning against the table.

By the tension in his shoulders, it’s clear his conversation with the head of our syndicate didn’t go well. Hale’s father is a good man and a good leader, but his tolerance for mistakes is pretty much nil—it’s how he built the Novak Syndicate into one of the most powerful mafia organizations in the country.

And although it’s hard to see how we could’ve handled the church debacle any better than we did, there’s no denying it turned into a shit-show. No denying that we failed in our assigned mission.

We were supposed to bring Samuel Weston back to Chicago alive, and we sure as hell aren’t doing that.

“We’re to bring Grace in,” Hale continues, his voice hard and his expression set. “In place of Samuel. Since she’s the only Weston left alive, my father wants her instead.”

All three of us nod, but I can feel the tension that settles over the room. This directive could mean any number of things for Grace’s future. No matter what Damian Novak decides, we won’t get a say in the final decision. And even though none of us want to admit it, Grace has gotten under each of our skins, one way or another.

I haven’t seen her in six years, but it only took two days for her to consume my thoughts.

“It’s not part of the original plan.” Hale sounds irritated. He hates when the original plan doesn’t go as it was supposed to, and I can tell this is messing with him. He’s a control freak. He likes things neat and orderly, and nothing about this situation is even remotely close to either of those words. “But since Samuel died at the church, she’s all that’s left. Whether my father wants to try to get information out of her or use her as bait, I don’t know yet.”

Ciro drums his fingers against the table, pressing his lips together as his eyes churn.

I can guess what he’s thinking about. Ciro handles a lot of our interrogations, and although Damian has a policy against hurting women, it’s possible he’d make an exception for the daughter of the man who betrayed his entire syndicate. The man who put Damian’s brother in jail for life.

The room is silent as we each process Hale’s news, individually trying to sort things out.

The thought of giving up Grace like that, just handing her over like a fucking prisoner, makes my hands shake with rage, but I know I need to push it aside. Bury it. There’s no such thing as mercy in the mafia, and just because we all knew her when we were kids…

“Things haven't changed,” Hale says, finishing my thoughts as if he can read my fucking mind. “Not in the way that we deal with threats to the syndicate. But other things have changed in the past six years. Circumstances. Loyalties. We can’t live in the past. We can’t be nostalgic. We have to live in the present.”

“And this is how things are now,” Ciro mutters, pushing back from the table.

His chair skims the floor, nearly toppling over from the force. He hates this just as much as the rest of us, but there’s nothing we can do about it.

This is how things are, I echo silently.

11

Grace

Time has blended into nothingness.

A glance at the dashboard clock shows that we’ve now been on the road for six hours with no stopping. We left the safe house early this morning, in the same procession as last time. Lucas brought me a fresh pair of clothes, waited for me to get dressed, then brought me out to the car where all the other guys waited. They all looked serious and stoic as always, and wide awake too—as if it wasn’t five o’clock in the damn morning.