Lost Girl Read online

  “So, what was it?” she asks conversationally, seemingly bored.

  “You bitch, why would I tell you anything?” he spits, still not understanding that the mountain of the man beside her isn’t his biggest threat, because he’s been trained to think that his only threat is from someone bigger than him.

  She doesn’t even blink as she kicks his knee out from under him, making him buckle and in the process making him slam his chin on the semi wet bar with an audible crack.

  “I can do this all night,” she says, still sounding slightly bored. I see Gio roll his shoulders, but I can’t read much from him. Luca on the other hand looks like he wants to worship the ground she walks on and Toni, he’s looking thoroughly impressed.

  “Does she know who he is?” Gio says.

  I shake my head, “Looks like they danced earlier before I spotted her, and she just thinks he’s some fucking creeper,” I tell him.

  “So, what’s it gonna be? I keep doing this, and you eventually tell me, or you tell me, and we go from there.” She asks, now examining her nails.

  Toni fights back a laugh.

  “Should we enlighten her?” he asks once he gets his shit together.

  “No, let her do her thing, let her set the example for the other families, show them how much they don’t mean anything to her,” Gio says, ever the strategist.

  “Fuck you bi-”

  She snatches an open bottle of liquor from behind the bar, and like lightning smashes the bottle over his head, liquid flowing down his already wet hair, down his face and to the floor, in a foul smell of cheap vodka.

  He falls the rest of the way to the floor holding his head, writhing in pain. As a member of any of the local families he should be ashamed of himself, we don’t show weakness. He reeks of it, like it’s all he is, weak, and that weakness makes him do stupid shit. Like try to drug a gang girl in her own den.

  She is quiet as he groans in pain, and I honestly begin to wonder if she’d needed my help in the DJ booth at all. The cold air around her gives off a vibe that she is exactly what Cobra taught her to be, maybe even more than he intended.

  She shoves him over to his back, and before he can think about how vulnerable he is she steps over his pubic bone, the toe of her Timberlands pressing right against his tiny dick, and she starts to put her weight down.

  Panic floods his eyes, and finally, he realizes he was worried about the wrong person this whole time. Bones is looking down at him with a smirk, obviously proud at how she handled the situation, and I see the bartender’s eyes flash with laughter.

  “GHB! Fuck it was GHB!” Vin screams, his voice an octave or two higher than it should be.

  “See, that wasn’t so hard was it? What were you hoping to happen? Are you a sick fuck like Bones thinks? Can’t get ass any other way than to take it?” she asks, her foot not leaving its position, but she’s lessened the pressure she was exerting.

  “I was trying to capture you. I was sent,” Vin begins, and this is when Gio steps in.

  “Priest,” he calls, and she looks up at him, eyebrow arched at his familiarity.

  “I’m with Alex…” he says, sounding put out at having to sound lower than me, but then he nods at Vin, “He’s a part of what happened earlier.”

  She looks at me, waiting, so I nod, and she turns her attention to Bones, and he bends down. She hides her mouth, not with her hands but behind her mane of curly hair, making it look natural that she was keeping whatever she’s saying to just them. He just nods after a brief second and she looks back at me.

  “This way.”

  All of us follow her behind the bar, Bones stopping to collect Vin Russo as if he were trash to be taken out. We don’t say anything, just follow her through the back, past the bustling kitchen and out to the loading dock. Cobra is there, a grim look on his face when he looks at the state Vin is in, and he’s the first to speak.

  “Did you have to go easy on him Priest?”

  That pulls all of us enforces up short. That was her going easy? I hear a deep rumble and realize it’s Bone’s chuckling. He drops Vin unceremoniously in the waiting truck with the bar’s name on the side and peeking in I can see the other two from the DJ booth tied in the back.

  Bones’ looking at me, shaking his head before he answers the unasked question.

  “I take it you haven’t seen what she can do with her favorite little knife, huh? Asshole here is lucky your friend interrupted. For bringing that god-awful shit in our house and attempting to drug her, I’m sure his sins would have been aplenty.”

  Luca can’t help but open his mouth, “His sins?”

  Bones laughs, “Why do you think she’s The Priest?”

  “Wait, I thought it was just Priest…are you telling us she’s THE Priest…” Gio’s shock has the rest of us men looking at him sharply, confusion unmasked. Gio with his dark hair shakes his head like he’s trying to shake loose a thought, then looks us in the eyes like were insane for not knowing what the hell they’re talking about.

  “Remember that ring fighter that showed up to a fight with a cross branded in the back of his hands…because he’d been molesting his thirteen-year-old stepdaughter? Are you saying she did that?” Gio asks, looking at her as she stands off with Cobra.

  Their heads are ducked down and it looks like they are having a heated discussion…Probably about her father.

  Bones nods, “the mom was a friend of Cobra’s and Priest, before I came along, but the daughter told Priest and that sort of started her…feminist campaign for justice and mercy…at least that’s what my girl calls it,” he shrugs and begins to walk over to his boss, but stops and looks us all in the eye, “And it wasn’t just his hands she marked.”

  “what do you mean?” Antonio asks.

  Bones looks over at the girl in question before looking back at us, “She wanted to cut the fuckers dick off, and probably would have, if Cobra hadn’t explicitly forbidden it. I was there, and trust me when I say, she almost disregarded his order…instead she meticulously removed his family jewels…in another life she probably would have been an amazing surgeon.” He shakes his head and laughs.

  Gio turns away from Bones and looks at me, a look that says this might cause trouble for the family, it’s not like she’s exactly hiding what she’s doing. While I know that Alonzo will happily accept her with open arms, there are a few men in our family as well as branch families who might become problems for her. Not child rapists, Alonzo would strangle them with his bare hands, but I know for a fact that Andretti has been known to smack his woman around, and I don’t get the feeling that’s going to go over well.

  “Yeah, she gets a real hard on for people who hurt kids and woman…” Bones mutters as he continues walking to his boss who is now having a hushed conversation with Priest.

  Cobra gives an angry huff as Priest hops in the back of the truck, her boots making a thunderous sound, but I swear I hear the soft sound of a switchblade being released.

  Right before Vin lets out a squeal like a pig, Cobra looks at Gio and I and says, “Call your boss. Find out where he wants to do the interrogations that I’m assuming he’s going to want, as well as meet with Priest.”

  Priest

  If I didn’t know and trust Cobra with my life, I would probably think he was setting my ass up to get killed. Which might be why I’m taking out a little of my aggressions on the asshole who tried to drug me.

  I’m not sure what started it exactly, my little crusades as Cobra called them. Whether it was because of Mom’s death, or because of the issue that fell into my lap, I still not sure.

  It all started when some of the girls from the club mom worked at started getting assaulted. The police didn’t do anything about it, a bunch of strippers being rapped didn’t seem like anything worthy of wasting money on. I’d just turned sixteen, mom had been gone for six months, but the club’s owner, Burty, knew me. Without telling Cobra anything, I snuck out of the house, went to the club and did a shit job of Mom’s r
outine, under a fake name and even more fake ID.

  I did it for a week before the guy jumped me on my way to my car. Little did he know, while I wasn’t the best stripper, I was the best damn fighter he’d ever come across. He’d ended up in the hospital after I left him in that parking lot, leaving him with the first of my little cross reminders directly on his right cheek.

  That had been an accident, really, but somehow it became my calling card. When he came back to the club a few weeks later the bouncers wouldn’t let him in and personally escorted the girls to their vehicles…every strip club in the state got the tip off from Burty, and he was eventually convicted when he went after someone in a traditional dance studio.

  Vin makes a bitch squeal when he sees the knife coming at him, and I fight the urge not to roll my eyes.

  “Come on big man, shut up or I’ll put it on your fucking face rather than your neck. Choice is yours,” I can’t contain my anger, I don’t want to be dragged into this new world that I can feel breathing its way down my neck.

  Or maybe it’s the four sets of eyes I can feel following my every fucking step. Alex looks impressed by the whole thing, like he finds it justice. The other three are in an array of different states ranging from something bordering on the incredulous, to apprehension, and the unreadable. But I have a code, and whoever they are, they aren’t going to stop my justice.

  Vin screams like a baby as my knife meets the side of his neck, but he holds still probably out of fear of having his jugular nicked, but I know what I’m doing. It doesn’t take me any time to leave my cross, and while men often disregard the mark, the women of this state know, any man baring it isn’t be trusted. It’s honestly the lease I can do, maybe help some woman like Mom one day. Hell, a girl could hope, that’s for damn sure.

  I wish someone had marked the guy who’d killed Mom before she’d ever met him, so she could have stood a chance.

  Once I finish up, I get out of the back of the truck, the four unknown men standing there, faces now schooled to show no emotions. Bones hands me a rag and without looking away from the four unknowns, I clean my knife.

  “Priest,” is all I say as I nod my head in their direction.

  “Giovani,” he’s about the same height as Alex, but his hair is lighter, and in a crisp fade cut that screams badass when you take into account his facial scruff and eyes that scream that this man takes no bullshit. His face is broader than Alex’s making his cheek bones span across his face, his jaw line sharp and angular, but it’s the muscular build, less than Bones but still built that catches my attention. this man physically exudes authority with the way he fills out his clothes, a combination of clubbing clothes but on an elevated level that makes the jeans he’s wearing with the leather jacket over the dark colored v neck shirt look like he could have stepped out a magazine shoot or from a relaxed dinner with clients.

  He takes a step forward and offers his hand, and I can’t tell if I think that’s a smart move or not. They just saw me carve the cross into that guy, so this could be a sign of respect, but at the same time it feels like it could be a way of trying to dismiss me.

  I decide that it’s brave, so I take his hand. That seems to cause the other three to relax a breath I didn’t realize they were holding, and I get a sneaking suspicion that this had been some sort of test.

  God, I despise fucking mind games.

  “These are my brothers,” I quirk my eyebrow at him. None of these guys look alike and they all look to be about the same age, just a little older than me, he continues, “my childhood best friends, mi famiglia.”

  He smiles a little, like this is some hilarious thing, and his friends either crack a smile or have a twitch of their lip, but since I’m not in on what makes the statement funny, I make no comment.

  I’ve never really been one to talk just to talk, and as having been raised in one of the darkest parts of the city, I learned that you usually learn more interesting facts about a person just from observation than from what they are usually willing to tell you.

  “You’ve already met Alessandro,” Giovani says, and Alex nods his head at me, and I nod back, now noting that while his hair is slicked back, it’s in a tight knot at the base of his neck before falling into a dark ponytail, but somehow with his calm cool and collected actions earlier, the hair works for him.

  “That’s Luca,” the only blond in the group give me a killer smile, and with his bright blue eyes, angular jaw and lithe form, it sure would be a doozy if I hadn’t just cleaned blood off my hands. He’s dressed in chinos, and a slightly rumpled button down that’s rolled up at the sleeves. But something is off about the way he’s standing that causes me to give him a more thorough look.

  “If you’re not used to carrying your gun at your waist you should pick a different carrying place,” I say.

  he shrugs, so I smile and finish, “The same with the ankle carry, your holding your body so awkwardly even someone not in my line of work would note it.”

  The man next to him jabs him with an elbow and starts chuckling, and Giovani’s eyes snap over to them, but I see him roll his eyes at the antics even if he gives off an annoyed vibe.

  “I told you, you look ridiculous trying to carry that way!” the remaining man says. He’s wearing a blazer jacket in a fancier style than Giovani, but still looks casual and carefree then looks at me and flashes a huge grin, “I’m Antonio. Luca didn’t want to have to wear a jacket into the club, cause then someone would miss all that manliness,”

  I can’t help the smile that curves my lips, just as Cobra calls my name drawing my attention from the four men.

  He’s clenching his fist around his cell, his eyes holding the thinly vailed murderous intent. I fight the urge to release the switch blade after I just finished cleaning it.

  “Someone broke into your apartment.”

  I clench my jaw to bite back what I’d like to say. Like why all of a sudden people are looking for Elda, who on paper fell off of the face of the earth long before mom died. Like why is no damn place sacred. Like why the hell me? As far as I can see none of this makes a lick of sense, I’m the daughter of a stripper and a gang member, there isn’t a thing that’s special about me for fucks sake.

  “Drop me off at home. I’ll take care of it.”

  All four men’s eyes jerk to my face, probably at how my voice has lost all inflection and turned to dry ice, so damn cold it burned.

  Bones is at my elbow, and I briefly notice that his eyes are on me, not Cobra. I say nothing to Bones or Cobra as I put my knife back in my pocket, my mind is too far away, thinking about someone’s hands on my stuff, invading my space. I take a deep breath, not to settle nerves or any bullshit like that. No, I take that breath so I don’t just take the fuck off toward my apartment, that’s just a few miles from Misfits. I know that Cobra will string me up if I attempted any vigilante shit without him there, this time.

  I look at Cobra, and he takes a deep breath himself.

  “If they fucking touched Rose, understand, you will not be able to stop the shit storm that will be raining down on whoever entered my home.”

  Cobra nods resign to the fact that if anyone touched my dog, all bets are off. I’ll make that movie were the assassin loses his shit after some punks kill his dog look like a goddamn daydream to anyone who lays a hand on Rosary.

  I hop in the cab of the truck we have set to haul Vin, and I don’t have to wait long for Bones to hop in to drive. Cobra pops his head in and says something to Bones, and then heads back over to the Conti men, before the five of them head toward a dark tinted SUV. Looks like he’s catching a ride with them.

  I can’t tell if that’s actually a smart move on his part, avoiding being in a confined space with me while I’m already just a hairs breath away from boiling over, or if he’s just signed himself up for extra bullshit from me for avoiding conflict.

  Decide later, focus on Rose.

  Bones doesn’t wait more than a minute to start taking off toward the little
apartment I call home.

  Giovani

  She’s was definitely Alonzo’s daughter, if just looking at how his features settled on her face wasn’t enough, that steal gaze and promise of retribution settles the matter.

  “Please don’t have let anything happen to that fucking dog,” Cobra mutters under his breath from the passenger seat. It’s easy to see the man is trying to contain his own want for retribution, his hands in tight fists at his side, his gaze out of the window like if he keep looking within the SUV he’ll somehow manage to set the damn thing on fire.

  “Dog?” Tony asks from the back seat, and a quick glance in the rearview mirror shows that he’s his usual unruffled self, even while being sandwiched between Alex and Luca. They, on the other hand, look like angry wet cats at the confined space.

  “Some terrier mutt that she found on the street after Lene died, and if anything happened to Rosary…let’s just hope nothing has happened with the dog.”

  “I know what you told Alex, but what promises did you make that prevented you from coming to Alonzo after she’d learned to handle herself?” I can’t help but ask, because I don’t think it took him this whole time to get her ready for the world, we live in.

  Just looking at how she carries herself, she’s going to be a great asset to the family, that’s obvious, but the other families had hoped that if Alonzo ever did find his daughter that she will be an ornament for them to throw their young men at to try to take over our family… they are going to look at her like the already brandished knife that she is, and realize she is far from the doll they hope to control.

  “I may not be active in the family anymore but do not forget who you are talking to,” Cobra Coretti’s voice is like steal, and it’s not hard to picture him in a suit like Alonzo loves to wear, prepared to rain down blood and kill those who opposed him. That’s what happens when the family’s favorite hired gun got agitated, or so I’d been told, but I also know that he won’t do anything at the moment. He had too much to explain and knows that Alonzo won’t be all that forgiving if he kills or maims Alonzo’s favorite enforcers.