“Are you sure she will listen? We are days away from the auction, and I don’t want to stumble across the finish line.”
We’ll be here all day, going around in circles if I let him continue on with this conversation. “How did things go with your spy last night? Did she hear anything else about the meeting?”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice the change in subject. Where is she now?”
I wave at the door. “In her room, tied to the bed. Why? Want to go make sure she’s okay?” I joke.
“If she is contained, then everything is fine. I don’t want this to go south so close to the auction.”
“As long as we don’t take anymore field trips, I think she’ll behave.”
“You think?”
I slam my hand on the desk and meet his eyes head on. “She’ll fall in line.”
The grinding of his jaw is the only outward sign of agitation he gives me. I let the silence stretch for a heartbeat too long and sigh. “Your spy? Any news on the meeting? It will be absolutely perfect if it happens the day after the auction. Then I can rub her sale in their faces before I take them all out at once.”
The idea of taking out the entire fucking infestation in one blow energizes me. Almost as good as it felt to have Celia under me. To be the one who takes away every scrap of innocence she possesses.
Soo says something I miss, and he levels me with a look, which tells me he knows why my mind is wandering. Then he repeats himself. “She is going to keep monitoring the situation. One of the Gardello boys is fond of her and likes his pillow talk. She doesn’t have the exact date yet, but she’s going to be seeing him soon and might weasel it out of him with her wiles.”
I snort. “Her wiles were definitely lovely.”
Of course, Soo betrays nothing. But that wasn’t the case last night. He’d watched every twitch his spy made, and then some. When Celia fled, he hadn’t noticed that either. Out of character for him. Soo prides himself on knowing every single detail.
“And Lucas, have you heard from him?” My brother hasn’t come home the last couple of nights. I’m not worried for him. He often rushes out for weeks at a time on his smuggling runs.
Soo’s eyes shutter. “He says he’ll be here for the auction, but he’s busy until the night of, acquiring the product we need to set the atmosphere.”
“But…”
There’s always a ‘but’ when Lucas doesn’t provide the entire story, and Soo tries to protect me from the truth about my brother. Like I don’t already fucking know.
“He hasn’t gone anywhere. He spent some time at the local hospital this morning, and then he went downtown immediately afterward.”
Why would Lucas be at the hospital? Unless he had a doctor contact providing some of his product.
“Do you have someone trailing him?”
It kills me I need to even ask. That my own brother has turned into someone I don’t recognize most days. Between the anger and the lies, he’s falling apart one night at a time, and I’m never able to reach him.
Soo sighs, and I realize he was talking while my mind wandered—again.
“I guess the only thing left to finalize is the guest list. Do you have a list of interested parties? We can’t reveal her identity until the event, but I’m sure you’ve been putting out feelers.”
There were several inquiries in my email about the special auction for Celia. All of which I forwarded to Soo since he’d do a background check on every attendee. We don’t need law enforcement screwing things up for us when we are so close to our goals.
Soo leans forward, bracing his elbows on the knees of his black jeans. “I do have a list. Several people have already been confirmed and checked out. I also ensured there are at least two extensions of the five families at the event. I know you want to use them to sow discord. It won’t take much effort if they are already closing ranks.”
I wonder how Celia will feel seeing men she’d lived life alongside, bidding to own her. The image of her in the dirt, my cum on her dress, her makeup mussed, rushes back into my brain. I can still feel her whimpers and every pulse of her cunt around my fingers.
God, I can smell her on my fingers, her sweat and arousal as I tipped her over the edge. She hates every orgasm I give her, and yet she begs by the time I put my hands on her.
A thought strikes me. “Do we have any record of the last meeting between the families? Records, video, anything that can tell us who attended and what they discussed? Also, the when, where, and lead up to the event? Most of these bastards, especially Ricci, are stuck in their old ways. If he initiated the meeting, he might have alerted the others in a similar way as last time. A letter, maybe? Verbal delivery?” I consider what I know about the man. “He wouldn’t trust anyone but family to contact the others. And since he has no sons, he’d have gone a different route.”