Doomed alliance

*****Leo POV*****

“Wake up, you slugabed,” I hear Owen but keep my eyes closed pretending not to hear him. I need just one more hour of sleep but I know the annoying cousin of mine will never just let me be. Maybe I should indeed lock my bedroom door to keep him out.

After leaving the Davi estate yesterday, I summoned all my men leaders to find out if none of them were stupid enough to kill Jake. Eighty-five groups of tough, experienced killers with a good sense of self preservation. They would not just freely confess to disobeying my command to stay clear of the Davi’s until we were ready. My advantage is they are all terrified of me even though they should fear Owen more. I can be forgiving if you give me a valid reason for your actions.Owen on the other side does not deal well with stupidity. He is the shoot first ask questions later kind of a guy. That’s why I leave him to keep all of them in check, but this was a matter of life and death. Someone killed the devil’s heir and his first stop to his revenge will be me. After the Davi’s, my group is next most powerful, making me the first culprit, followed by the Siko’s. The smaller mafia groups in Asherway are not daring enough to make an enemy of the Davi’s and Nick knows it too. It took a lot of direct interrogation, roughing up and instilling the fear of god in each one to get my confirmation that none of them or the men under their command had gone rogue.

I left the group more frustrated because I had this gut feeling that Daniel and his men would not be that stupid either. I have been keeping tabs on him and know that his manpower is much less than mine after Nick took out over two thousand of his men. This was after one of them went rogue and orchestrated a robbery on one of the Davi banks five years ago.

It was just after midnight when I got back home, just in time to see my gorgeous enemy get into bed. She had shown everyone her tough front earlier and I was secretly impressed, but I got to watch her break down in private. She will hate to have it pointed out, but that’s another proof of her mafia gene. We never ever breakdown in front of our enemies no matter how much it hurts. I hate to admit it too but it really broke my heart to watch her in so much pain. The worst kind of pain that pierces through your heart, yet you can’t show it to the rest of the world because it can only be nursed in private. I know it too well. Every DBS member has been through it, and currently at different stages of it. The pain dulls down after some time, but never quite leaves you.

Niki looked so vulnerable and exhausted, not the usual defiant, intimidating, self-sufficient pillar.

If only I could reach out and touch her, hold her in my arms and assure her that I was not responsible for her pain. That’s just wishful thinking on my part though. The likelihood would be a verbal match between us if I were to actually be with her at that moment and she would not believe a word I say. I watched her until 2 o’clock in the morning when her shoulders stopped shaking and breathing became more regular, an indication that she had fallen of to sleep. That’s when Owen walked in, dragging me out because the Siko’s had arrived and wanted to have a word. I knew before Daniel spoke that my fears were true. We are meant to be rivals his family and ours, but we have always been civil to each other and never once had any confrontations. Maybe it’s because we were made orphans by the same man and hated the Davi’s more. Whatever the case is, he did not kill Jake and neither did his men. That left me with only two possibilities. It was either my uncle did it or we have a new daring player in the mafia world and I hope it is the latter.

Although not really answering to me, uncle Wesley is still under the Booi empire and hates the Davi’s with passion. He is the second born after my father and the only one of the three siblings still alive. He should have raised Owen and I when Nick killed both his brothers on the same day and we became orphans, but we hardly ever saw him except when he wanted us to sign some documents that always bleed money out of our accounts. Luckily, our parents thought us survival skills at a very young age and we had Mariah and each other’s backs.

Daniel was in the middle of a sentence when his face turned pale at the image on his phone. “Drones have just hit three of our warehouses. That’s hundred men and millions of equipment. We really are doomed!” he announced and I could feel his distress. My eyes met Owen’s, who had stepped outside to take a call. Over the years we have learned to read each other very well and I can tell that it’s not good news.

“Chero and Lorg has been hit by synchronised drones. There are no survivors and nothing is left standing. Nick does not even have to come out or send his men to kill us,” Owen’s soft, strained voice is an indication that we are indeed doomed. I have only heard that voice twice. The first time was sixteen years ago when our mothers were hit and three years later when our dads followed.

We have worked really hard to get rid of all the illegal businesses we inherited and grew our supermarket chains instead. We only kept two places for the unpredictable times like these. Chero was our biggest warehouse with most of our sophisticated weapons and private jets. Lorg was the back up I never thought we would need but set it up for the piece of mind. All the men we could not incorporate into the supermarket business worked on those two sites. If my calculations were right, we have lost over five thousand men and over seventy billion. Despite all our planning, the DBS war has started again and it’s completely one sided. Daniel is now left with less than a hundred men and we have just over a thousand against a man who defeated our parents, with probable triple the number of men, technically advanced drones, surveillance and impenetrable walls.

“We can’t go to war. We have no choice but to bargain with the devil,” Daniel suggests and we all agree that it’s the only way if we want to live. That’s when the realisation hit me.

“Someone killed his son, he and everyone think it’s us. It’s also common knowledge that we can’t go against the Davi’s right now. I think Jake’s assassination is intentionally meant to eliminate us. We have to find the son-of-a-bitch.” I am more pissed off than worried about Nick now. The list of possible culprits has just increased. I still can’t clear my uncle off this. He stands to inherit everything if Owen and I are to die. I can even see him do a celebratory dance.

The north and the east we currently rule will be clear for an ambitious new player to grab if we and the Siko’s are eliminated, but there’s now a third possibility. Getting rid of the mafia at any cost is the current government’s strategy. The justice and military departments now have collaboration and have taken down multiple syndicate groups. Unlike the other groups, it’s hard for them to infiltrate the mafia. They can’t have undercover agents like they did with the syndicate. Getting us to kill each other instead, is a perfect strategy.

It was after 4 o’clock in the morning by the time Daniel and his men left and two hours later, Owen is here waking me up.

“Your blood-sucking vampire of any uncle is downstairs,” Owen says with a resentful tone reserved for our useless, selfish parent figure. I sent men to hunt him down and drag him here.

“Let him wait and he is your uncle too.” Uncle Wesley is the last person I would rush myself for.

“You have to wake up now if you want to talk to your uncle and attend Jake’s funeral,” he says.

I know that Owen is on urge when he does not bother disagreeing with me for calling Wesley our uncle. He disowned Wesley a long time ago when he faked Owen’s signature to assess half of his wealth.

“We can talk to Wesley after the funeral. Keep him in the basement or something,” I suggest, but Owen does not like that. He does not like Wesley lingering around our home, because he is a sneaky snake. I don’t too, but I am really tired.

“Drop dead gorgeous has just walked out of the shower. Hot!” Owen whistles with his eyes on the spyglass.

I really hate it when other men call her that. It always takes me back to our school days when she defiantly walked out of the bathrooms with only her undies. It was, of course, my fault, but every Tom, Dick and Harry at school called her that and wanted her after that.

I spring out of bed, pushing Owen away from the screen. “Fuck off! I will be down in twenty minutes.”

“I thought so,” Owen laughs while approaching the door. He has just tricked me into getting out of bed and it worked. “See you in an hour lewder,” he says with a smug.

At least he can still smile and joke. I like that about him. He really kept me afloat during the dark times.

“I said twenty minutes, dummy.” I really hate how predictable I am becoming.

“It will be an hour by the time you have your wank and shower,” Owen says with a grin. I really should lock my door.

“She’s grieving you freak!” I can’t imagine getting aroused by her today. Not that I have control over that these days. Maybe her father planning to kill me will talk some sense into my treacherous hormones.

“You are the one spying on her and I am the freak? Maybe I should tell Wesley about your spyglass, you two can synchronise your jerk off’s.”

I know that Owen is joking, but the idea of our predatory, lustrous uncle watching her gets my blood boiling. “I swear I would squeeze the life out of you if you ever mention it to Wesley.”

Owen laughs, closing the door behind him. He is the only one who is never terrified of my threats. I turn my eyes on the screen and argh, there goes my sleep. The Davi princess is not coming out of the shower but is already dressed. Gorgeous as always in all black. The black hat with a veil looks really good on her. She looks like she is going for an all black fashion show than a funeral. Owen was right, it does take me an hour to be ready. Definitely not good.