CHAPTERS FOURTEEN

Achilles POV

Today was a long day.

I managed to thwart the plans of those silly men; apparently a container of my drugs is missing, someone is dabbling in business I do not like, and I come home to see our captive naked in the kitchen playing cards with my brother.

Emilio is in a state of undress too, although he still has his singlets and boxers on. “Achilles,” he grins at me. “Lyla and I were just playing a little game.”

Lyla. I refuse to acknowledge her name. It would just make her more human, and I needed to not be more attached than I already am.

“Care to join?”

I snap my fingers at him. “We have business.”

He looks at me, a silent language passing between us. Emilio grins. “Well, little bird, I think it's time I left you alone again.” He gets up and grabs his pants.

Lyla nods. “You have a beautiful library,” she whispers to me.

“You went in there?”

She looks up at me from her seat. “Yes. I was bored. You've left me in this oversized mansion with nothing to do, and I decided to snoop around.”

Emilio pulls on his pants. “I told you not to mention it, little bird,” he whines.

I should care that she went in there. I should.

“You can go there. "As long as you return every book you read.”

She nods. “Thank you. "Before I run mad, and then you kill me.”

She's feisty with me. “You always run your mouth?”

“When I'm captured and uncomfortable and bored, yes.”

Emilio grins. “Losing makes you angry, little bird.” He laughs at her. She doesn't smile back, whispering something under her breath instead.

“I need a chair there at least. Something to read with.”

I cock my head to the side. “Ordering me around?”

Lyla raised her palms in the air. “I wouldn't dare.”

I nod and walk out, headed for the car. “Emilio, let's fucking go.”

“Bye little bird, I'll collect it later.”

I can't hear her reply, but I hear her swat his hands away and his laughter.

I get into the driver seat and wait for Emilio to hop in. “Xiomar is already waiting for us,” I say, driving out of the compound. “What's going on?”

“ A couple of shipments went missing.” Emilio groans. “Fucking Russians would be pissed off.”

I couldn't care about the Russians.

“That's not important. What's important is that this afternoon, I decided to go to the docks for a little check-up. You know, without informing the guys. Guess what I found?”

He frowns. “I am not a mind reader, Achilles. Fucking talk.”

“A truck. Covered. I almost fucking missed it, you know. We had five trucks come in, and I was shocked there was a sixth one.”

This afternoon, after I got the call about the missing shipments, I cancelled the rendezvous with Leilani. Instead, I decided to go check it out myself. Usually, I had men to do all that, but ever since we started dealing directly with the source of the cleanest drugs we could find, I decided I wanted to make sure routinely I go check on what is going on in the docks.

“What was in the truck?” Emilio's face is turning white, his radar already going off.

“Children. Women”

“Fuck.”

We had one rule in our family. After our hostile takeover where we killed the man we had been working for, may his soul rot for eternity, We had just one rule for our men.

No more skin trafficking.

That was what they were known for. We renamed the family, giving birth to the Draghi family, had members pledge their loyalty to us in an intitation and take out fucking marks.

One of our men had betrayed us.

We were a brother hood now, we had mixed blood and sworn fealty to each other. They had sworn to follow and obey us and we made sure we took care of our own. They had one fucking rule. No fucking human trafficking.

“Who do you have?” Emilio asks.

“For now, just Thomas. I think we should ask him a few questions.”

Thomas was our guy in charge of the docks. He supervised the men and the dock, always on the lookout for trouble. A good man, he said he didn't want to work directly in line with the bloodshed. So I had put him in charge.

“At the old warehouse?”

I nod, pushing the car forward down the road. The anger coursed through my veins and I'm certain I ran a lot of red lights. Good thing the cops were in my fucking pocket.

“I don't think he is that stupid. But I'm itching to play with someone” Emilio has crazy in his eyes already. He is the reason we made it a rule for our men to abide in. He couldn't imagine our sisters being in that situation, so he made sure no woman would ever be in that situation.

“I don't think so either. Let's see when we get there.” I say, taking the sharp cute that lead to the place we torture people.

“Who else? It couldn't just be Thomas. What about Killian?”

Killian was our former boss' right hand man. He helped us upstage our boss. He was an evil conniving bastard so we were always wary of him. I wondered why he didn't take the throne for himself.

“Killian is on vacation, remember? He took his wife and children to Bali. He couldn't be in the know.”

We get to the warehouse and park the car in the garage.

“Alright. Let's go.”

Emilio steps out of the car, anger coursing from his body. I button my jackets, making sure I look the position of a primed up business man and stare at my hair in the rearview mirror. Not a strand out of place.

It was time to get answers.