Bow Down(151)

I nodded. We drank our drinks back.

“Did she talk?” I asked.

“A little bit. She talked about how the Spiders are a group of women fighting to liberate sex slaves. Said a bunch of idealistic bullshit, too.”

“Do you believe her?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t there. I’m just hearing this secondhand.”

“She seemed like a fucking fanatic. She let Lonnie tear out all her fingernails before she started talking.”

“Shit.” He poured two more drinks. “To that badass bitch.”

“To the Spider.”

We clinked glasses and drank.

“Ernesto didn’t seem happy, if I’m honest. He didn’t seem to like what they learned.”

“That’s bad for the journalist.”

“It is,” Vince agreed. “And it’s bad for us. If this really is a group of idealistic freedom fighters, we may have a serious war on our hands.”

“It wasn’t serious before?”

“No,” he said. “Before we could negotiate, maybe come to terms or some shit. But now? They’ll try to bleed us dry before they give in, assuming what this girl said is true.”

I nodded, understanding. If the Spiders were in it for profit, we could offer them a better deal and maybe go into business together. But if they were just out to destroy us, well, then we’d never be able to get anywhere with them. There was just no common ground with an enemy that disagreed with your fundamental existence.

And in business, you needed common ground. Dasha had seemed tough, and I was wondering why she’d put up with so much pain instead of talking. She gave us the journalist, but that made sense. She probably saw Cassidy as so low value, she could give us that bit.

Then she decided to fucking die before she told us anything useful. That was one tough chick. I had to admit, I admired her courage and her convictions, even if they were pretty fucking ominous.

“What’s the plan for the journalist, then?” Vince asked.

“For now, I told her to lie low.”

“That won’t be enough, not with this Spider dead.”

“I figured that.”

“You’ll need to think of something else if you want to keep her alive.”

“She doesn’t know anything. Ernesto will see that.”

“No,” Vince said, shaking his head. “I don’t think he will. Ernesto is a stubborn fucking cunt, and he’s pissed about the Spiders.”

“He’s a sick bastard.”

“He is,” Vince agreed. “The whole thing is fucked up.” He sighed and poured two more drinks. “Whatever happened to the good old days when the mob didn’t buy and sell human beings?”

We drank and I shrugged. “Who knows? We don’t do it.”

“We don’t. And there are others in the mob who are against it, too.”

“Lucas?”

“Lucas, for one,” Vince said, nodding. Lucas Barone was Arturo Barone’s son and the heir to the whole family. When that old cock Arturo finally died, Lucas would be in control of everything.

And the mob would change for the better. Lucas had everything his father had, but he wasn’t burdened with being a total asshole. Lucas was smart enough to know what needed to be done, and hard enough to do it. But he wasn’t an insane person like his father.

Though Arturo had done a lot for the mob. He had taken the Barone family and grown it bigger than anyone could have imagined by being one of most vicious mobsters to ever live. Now we were one of the most powerful groups in the country, but back when Arturo had started we were almost nothing. We owed a lot to Arturo, but he wasn’t invincible.

“Is this going to be enough to finally make him act?”

“Probably not,” Vince said. “Taking over the mob and killing your father is no small thing. We need to wait.”

“Waiting isn’t my specialty.” I put my glass down on his desk. “I’m heading out.”

“Fine. Keep your phone handy. Who knows when they’ll come looking for you.”

“Stall them for me.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

I nodded to him and then headed out.

Things were complicated in the mob, and now Cassidy had been thrown into the thick of it. There was a war going on both outside and inside, and nobody was safe, least of all Cassidy.

Dasha dying was the worst thing imaginable for her, especially considering the girl hadn’t talked. If only she had given Ernesto something good, maybe Cassidy would be safe. As it was, I knew Ernesto would be after her, and I had to make sure he didn’t skip talking to me and go right for her.

I headed out, nervous anger in my stomach, ready to find and make sure Cassidy was okay.