Lost Girl Page 4

  “Why?” I press.

  He doesn’t say anything, and I continue to follow the truck holding the lost girl of the Conti family. Most of the other families didn’t think we’d actually ever find her…little did they know, I’m like a bloodhound on a scent, and with nothing other than finding her on my plate there was no option other than success. Alonzo deserves that from me, he deserves to get to know the daughter he’s spent most of the last six years balancing between mourning and loving.

  “You’ll see,” he says with a resounding sign, and I get the feeling that he doesn’t want us to see, doesn’t want to have us watching her at all, which we have been since Alex made contact.

  What in the hell is going on here?

  But I keep following the truck until it stops in front of a small apartment complex, in a higher end of the slums. The building has been kept in relatively decent condition. Even with the massive amount of foot traffic present at the moment, it’s clear that the people who live here take care of the place.

  There is a fair amount of people milling about the building, some of them in small clusters, mostly woman with babies on their hips and toddlers clinging on to pant legs. The women, obviously gossiping, all seem to turn at the same time and take notice of the two vehicles, especially when Elda hops out of the truck.

  She’s tall for a girl, and when she stiffens her spine like she is, she seems even more so. She’s beautiful in that unearthly way, her tan skin and blond hair making her stand out in a crowd.

  The people don’t shy away from her though, even with her face looking like she’s ready to kill anyone in her path, a woman with a little boy clutching her leg steps forward, and puts her hand on Elda’s shoulder, leans in and speaks quickly. Even the child doesn’t seem scared of her as he releases his mom and takes Elda’s hand.

  Cobra quickly gets out of the SUV, and we all follow, now more curious than before.

  None of the people bat an eye at Cobra’s presence, but the woman all takes note of the rest of us, distrust and apprehension on their faces. Some grab their kids in tighter holds, others usher their families back into their apartments.

  “I called as soon as I heard the crash Priest,” says the woman who stops Elda as we walk up. Elda just shakes her head, pats the little boy’s head with her free hand. He looks up at her, his eyes bright with a smile to match…he looks at her like she’s a celebrity who’s graced him with her presence.

  “It’s okay Kit, really. Get Gabe inside, okay?” Elda says, but it’s not a question in the slightest and Kit knows it. She nods her head, takes the little boy’s hand and starts ushering the few women still remaining to go back to their apartments and stay out of the way. No one questions why, they just do as Elda says without having actually said it at all.

  “Did you see that?” Luca asks, his voice too low for anyone but the family to hear.

  I did see it, but other than seeing that she’s respected here, I haven’t fully figured out what it means on a larger scale.

  Once the majority of the people are in the apartments or heading that way she looks over at Cobra, her eyes still hold that steal edge like the switchblade that is in her pants pocket. She seemed to be trying to gather some sort of calm, and when she looks away from Cobra she seems to have found it. It doesn’t take but a heartbeat. With that calm comes a clarity that I didn’t realized was missing before.

  She nods her head at Bones then takes off up a set of stairs to the right of the building. All four of us enforcers follow her silent steps. Her steps don’t even make the soft patter our shoes are making. When she stops suddenly, next to what is quickly assumed her apartment she’s holding a Glock 19 in her left hand. I don’t know where she pulls the gun from, but I don’t have time to think on it.

  Bones and Cobra are on the left side of the door, both of them carrying guns I hadn’t spotted earlier.

  Elda walks into her apartment, seemingly without a care in the world. Bones follows her before I can step in behind her, obscuring the majority of my view with his large body, and I bite the inside of my cheek form ordering him back. He is not mine to command.

  “So, who might you be?” I hear her ask, but I can’t see who’s inside the small apartment, but I do hear the distinct sound of a dog tail thumping on fabric.

  Bones finally steps to the side enough for me to see Elda, gun held in the perfect marksman stance, her hand steady.

  “My god,” says the intruder, and I know that voice, have known it all of my life. Not only am I surprised to find it here, in the confines of this small apartment, I am also surprised by the sound of pure wonderment. He sounds like he’s had the breath knocked out of him, like a kid getting tossed in his first martial arts class, completely and utterly unprepared, and that is not a tone I am used to hearing from this voice.

  I should have counted on Alonzo being unable to sit still while we handled his daughter, but even knowing that I should have counted on him rushing head long at the one thing that’s occupied his mind for the last twenty three years, I would have never thought he’d go so far as to break into her house.

  Cobra stiffens at the sound of his voice, but I don’t think it’s out of fear. He lowers his gun, and Bones takes note of this action, but he doesn’t follow suit. He keeps his eyes trained on Elda, and since she’s not put her gun down even a fraction of a centimeter, neither is he apparently.

  Elda’s face doesn’t light up in recognition of the man she takes her features from, and I wonder what story she had heard about her father to cause that sort of apathy. She isn’t even looking at Alonzo in a way to attempt to see the similarities.

  “Rosary, heel,” she says, not acknowledging Alonzo in the slightest. I see a medium sized dog come into view, but I don’t look too closely. Instead I shove Bones to the side and put my hand on Elda’s arm that’s holding the gun.

  It’s clear that she isn’t a novice gunman when her finger doesn’t react to my touch, nor does her arm when my hand is placed there. She doesn’t even take her eyes off of Alonzo when I touch her.

  “Elda, this is your father.”

  She doesn’t react to my words externally, but the tension seems to slowly unwind from her.

  I look at my boss, and then quickly look away. He’s wiping tears from his eyes, like a man who’s looking at the most sublime landscape before him.

  “Hiya Boss,” Tony says, smiling in the doorway of the apartment, further breaking some of the tension.

  Alonzo gets a hold of himself quickly, though his voice is still thick when he says, “Good job boys, you’ve brought my lost girl home.”

  I notice Bones clench his teeth a moment before I hear Elda breath out a long-suffered sigh. She finally lowers the gun, and holsters itin an honest to God bra holster by lifting her crop top and clicking it into place under the band between her breasts. She doesn’t seem to give a shit about us men standing around her, as she adjust the bra into what I’m assuming is a more comfortable position, and a part of me, a part I try to beat down with a stick, finds her uncaring attitude attractive as all get out. Just the fact that she’d held a gun on my boss should have me freaking out.

  “Technically, you’re in my home,” she says, and Alonzo surprises me yet again by giving a loud laugh.

  “You are just like your mother,” he says, and at that she finally smiles, but she looks away from him towards Bones.

  “Come on big guy, put the gun down, no shooting my long-lost daddy and all,” her voice is carefully joking, and Bones rolls his eyes at her before slowly lowering his weapon.

  Alonzo stands up from his perch on her couch, and I see his eyes flit to Cobra for a moment before focusing back on his daughter.

  “Hello Elda, I am Alonzo Conti, as I’m sure you’ve gathered. I am your father.”

  Elda sits down in a chair I didn’t notice, slightly shaking her head, and while some of the frost in her gaze has waned, a slow burning anger seems to be swirling in the dark orbs now.

  She doe
sn’t seem worried with all of us men crammed into this little apartment, and I wonder how much of that comfort is knowing something we don’t, or trusting Cobra, Bones, and herself to be able to handle us if we become an issue.

  Then she gives a chuckle, surprising both Alonzo and I, I can tell from Alonzo’s tilted head, like he’s examining something unexpected.

  “Sorry,” she chuckles again, “that was just a little too Darth Vader for me.”

  She takes a deep breath, trying to get herself together.

  “Sorry, again, but at this point it’s find something amusing or shoot something, and since the latter isn’t really an option now that I know you aren’t some other crew with a death wish, I gotta burn the adrenaline off somehow.”

  “Other Crew?” Alonzo asks.

  Shit, I hadn’t told him about her crew status. I’m not worried about his reaction, exactly, but I wanted time to explain it so he didn’t take out his potential irritation at her being in even the slightest danger out on Cobra until he could see that Cobra had actually done him a favor. Having searched for her for twenty-three years I know full well just how overactive his imagination can be when it comes to how he imagined her to be fairing, and anything resulting with potential harm was always blown out of proportion at first glance.

  “Boss,” I try to cut in, but she’s got his full attention, so he disregards my voice.

  “Yeah, this is Phoenix Crews founding members right here,” she gestures to Cobra and Bones, and of course Bones grins, because I’m sure he thinks this whole thing is amusing. Cobras face is blank, probably trying to anticipate whatever Alonzo is going to do, but at this point even I can’t quite gauge where Alonzo is sitting on the meter of rational decisions and irrational ones.

  So, I’m surprised when his gaze swings to Cobra, and before can blink, he’s drawn the gun from the small of his back and has it pointed in Cobra’s face. Alonzo’s face is a mask of partially concealed rage and betrayal. I’ve heard the stories of how close they were in their childhoods and teen years, and no one but the two of them know what caused the immeasurable rift that lives between them, now this is just fuel for their fire.

  “Not only do you conceal what is mine from me, for years, you have dragged her into a mother fucking gang, Cobra, my daughter. Coretti, you are a dead man walking.” Alonzo’s voice is unlike his daughter’s rage, that dry ice tone. No, his is like the heat of a firebomb being throw in the face.

  I can’t move to stop him; it doesn’t look like any of my brothers are able to as well with his use of that tone. Not even Bones has moved yet, reaction time too slow to stop Alonzo from curling around the trigger.

  The loud pop that goes off in the room leaves us all with hearing difficulties, but that is neither here nor there, I am waiting for Cobra’s body to hit the faded gray carpet, but it never comes.

  Elda is in front of Cobra, her right hand slightly behind her like she’s trying to push him back, and her left is around Alonzo’s wrist, which she is holding raised over her head, only six to eight inches over Cobra’s head, but that’s all it takes to save a life.

  “You may be my blood, according to those men, but this man is my blood by deed far before we ever formed the crew. Try to kill him again and I will not be so generous.”

  Alonzo looks at his daughter and this time it’s like he’s seeing the woman that she is rather than the baby he didn’t get to raise. He isn’t afraid of her exactly, but there is something passing behind his eyes that seems to say he realizes that her life was nothing like the life he’d wanted to give to her, and there were consequences for not finding her sooner.

  Her face is set in stone, the tone again that dry ice, but behind her eyes was a wildfire, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s mentally burning him alive with the fire that flows from the dark depths of her eyes.

  Bones is the first to move near the three of them, placing a hand on Priest’s right shoulder, effectively making Alonzo aware that he’d have to go through more than just Priest to get to Cobra.

  The tension starts rising again, and just as it seems to snap Priest opens her mouth.

  “I hear that you’ve been looking for me, but you need to understand that I am not a child for you to raise, who has made a family with those I have chosen. I do not take kindly to those who wish to do harm to my family, and if you want the chance to get the same title of family from me, you are going to start by cutting whatever misguided vengeance you want on Cobra and instead thank him for keeping me safe when mom passed, instead of me ending up with the state. You get me?”

  Alonzo stares at her for a long moment before pulling his arm lose and handing her his gun, and if I didn’t know that he was more likely to have more weapons on him than just that singular gun I would have been surprised, but even just that concession is more than what most get.

  He then looks at Cobra between Bones and Priest’s shoulders and takes a deep breath.

  “As much as I hate it,” Alonzo starts, and it seems like he’s chocking on his own words as he continues, “and I’ll deny it to anyone outside of this apartment…thank you for keeping her safe…even if you couldn’t keep my Lene safe…”

  Priest is about to start back in on him, that’s evident by her open mouth, but Cobra’s hand on her back stops her.

  “He’s not wrong Priest,” his voice is rough, “I didn’t keep her safe.”

  Bones

  I hate hearing Cobra admit to failing at anything, mostly because only Priest and I know just how much guilt he feels. He feels responsible for Lene’s murder. Only Priest and I knew just how much our fearless leader wasn’t so fearless when it had come to her.

  He’d loved her, even when she loved someone else.

  It was one of many things he and I have in common.

  Looking at the man these four assholes claim is Priest’s father, it’s hard not to see a little of the similarities, but she is more than her genetics, which is evident in the way she is holding her mouth, much like Cobra holds his mouth when he’s trying not to bite someone’s head off. Nurture plays a big role in who we become, more so than genetics, as far as I am concerned.

  But then again, if genetics determined a person, I was beyond screwed, mama a crack addict and dad in prision for life for finally killing one of his women.

  Yeah, fuck genetics.

  “While the family reunion is sweet and all, we do have business to attend to and bodies to bury.” I say.

  My voice makes Rosary perk up, having long hidden under the small end table Priest had at the end of her couch. Her little whip of a tail making that thump-thump sound on the ground. Slowly my hearing is getting better after that asshole’s potshot in this dinky ass apartment, and sure, he might be Priest’s dad, but only an asshole shoots a gun in such a small space.

  “Bones, I told you, I haven’t decided if were leaving bodies this time.” Priest says, staring me in the face, her dark eyes flashing at my macabre humor.

  “What do you mean, business to attend to?” her father asks, and I flash my eyes to the four shadows, wondering what they have been letting their boss know.

  The one that seems to enjoy playing leader steps up, his shoulder brushing against mine and I have to fight the urge not to punch the dude in the face.

  “I was getting ready to call you to whatever location Cobra had decided on to let you know that somehow it seems the Russo family managed to track Elda down,” he starts but Priest interrupts him.

  “Okay, it’s fucking Priest. No one calls me Elda, and I don’t answer to it either so stop calling me a dead girl’s name,” she says, voice full of the unreleased furry. She’s the only person I’ve known to use her emotions for fuel, she’s even better at it than Cobra when she wants to.

  The leader looks at her for a second, like he’s trying to figure out how to handle her, so she doesn’t lose any more of her cool and do something he’ll regret. He might not be as dumb as I first pegged him to be, I’ll give him that, but what he lacks in
knowledge of Priest is going to be his downfall in this situation.

  “Okay, Priest, do you-” he starts, but she looks at me, dismissing him completely. She nods her head at the apartment door, ever so slightly, and I start making my way through the mass of bodies crowding her small apartment. She really needs to move out of these slums, both Cobra and I have been telling her, but she refuses to leave the girls behind.

  “I don’t really care what you all plan to do, I got information to acquire,” she says as she gets to the door, my large frame standing ready for her word just to the side.

  Rosary is on Priest’s heels, and Priest grabs her leash she keeps on the hook beside the door.

  Cobra and her father are staring at each other, some silent battle going on in the energy around them, and the remaining four seem like they don’t know what to do, like dogs pulled between two masters.

  “Boss,” I can’t tell who says it, but it gets his attention, like he just remembered they are there. He flings his hand toward the door, silently commanding them to follow Priest, but she hasn’t stuck around, already making her way done the stairs of her apartment, Rosary happily wagging her tail.

  I beat them to the stairs, and it feels like a victory, knowing I have no second leash binding me to anyone else.

  Cobra knows I only listen to him out of respect—for her. Priest has been the center of my world since the moment Lene had seen me hanging around the apartments they’d lived in, my body nothing but skin and bones at seven because my mother couldn’t be bothered to buy food…crack taking a higher priority than anything else in her world.

  Lene had taken one look at me, mumbled something under her breath and had taken me inside and fed me, Priest eyeing me with interest at five years old. After I’d inhaled most of my food, she’d looked at her mom and said, “Can Bones and I go play?”

  I’ve refused to answer to any other name since. Most people think I earned it in some sort of crew fight. Angel doesn’t even know my government name.