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Home / MM Romance / THE MAFIA'S BLOODY POSSESSION / Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

Lahat ng Kabanata ng THE MAFIA'S BLOODY POSSESSION: Kabanata 11 - Kabanata 20

168 Kabanata

The Witness

Sergei's Pov Six days of nothing and then everything changed at half past eight on the seventh morning. I was on the parking structure rooftop with cold coffee and binoculars, close to calling Darnell and admitting the job was impossible, when someone moved in the upper window of the penthouse. Young, brown hair. Moving slowly through the main floor like someone still learning the layout. He stopped at the window and looked out at the city. I went cold. Ace Rivera was alive moving freely in lean clothes. I put the binoculars down and called my background man. "I need everything on a student named Ace Rivera. Wellspring University. Close contacts, anyone he trusted before last week." "How soon." "Today." "That is tight." "Make it work." My phone buzzed befo

Outside

Ace's Pov On the fifth day Nikolai told me I could use the rooftop. "One hour. Musa stays on the door." He did not wait for me to respond. I went straight up. One camera above the door, one guard, no second exit. I noted it all and then sat down and let the sun hit my face and tried not to think about anything for a few minutes. It lasted about ten before Ivan came through the door with two mugs. He set one beside me and dropped into the other chair like he had been planning to come up here the whole time. "Musa called you," I said. "I saw you on the camera." "There are cameras up here." "There are cameras everywhere." He picked up his mug, no apology in it. I picked up mine. It was in the right temperature. I said nothing about the fact that he had paid attention to which one

Tighter

Nikolai's Pov The report came in at six in the morning and I read it before I got out of bed. Three surveillance positions confirmed active within the last seventy two hours. East rooftop, the adjacent building's second floor, and a street level point near the service entrance. All three vacated cleanly before my men could get close. Whoever it was knew how to clear a position without leaving anything useful behind. I called Rem, my head of security, and told him to come to my office. He was there in ten minutes with a folder. I let him sit down before I spoke. "Walk me through it," I said. "Three positions, all used within the same daily window." He opened the folder and turned it toward me. "The rotation schedule does not repeat, which tells us this person has training. The boot print from the street lev

The Name

Sergei's Pov The file on Ace Rivera came through at nine that evening and I read it twice before I put it down. Two close contacts at Wellspring. Marcus Webb, second year urban policy, and a girl named Priya Anand who Ace had tutored for two semesters. Bar work Tuesday through Saturday, closing shifts, a place called The Tap Room in East Vanguard. A weekend delivery route on the north residential block. I focused on Marcus Webb. His social media was easy to find. He posted regularly, food and campus things mostly. Three weeks ago he had put up a caption that read "Finally someone I know in this city" with a photo of two coffee cups on a table. That was enough. I called my background man. "Marcus Webb has a cousin who visited recently. I need a full identity built around that. Male, mid twenties, logistics work. Name is Daniel Osei."

No One to Call

Ace's Pov On the eighth day Ivan handed me a phone across the breakfast table. "One hour," he said. "Monitored. Do not try anything creative." I looked at it. Basic model. Nothing on it except a calling function. I picked it up and said thank you and took it upstairs. I sat on the edge of the bed and stared at it. The problem was that I had no idea who to call. I had not thought about that until the phone was actually in my hand. The whole first week I had been focused on surviving and reading the room and not making things worse and the other thing, the quieter thing underneath all of it, had stayed in the background where I could manage it. Having the phone changed that. I thought about Marcus. I thought about what I would say if he picked up. That I was fine, that something came up, that he should not worry. All of it would be a lie an

Personality

Ivan's Pov It happened at breakfast again. Nikolai was reading something on his phone and Ace reached across the counter for the coffee pot without asking and Nikolai moved his mug out of the way automatically, without looking up, like he had already known the reach was coming. Ace poured his coffee and set the pot back and said, "Thank you." Nikolai said, "I did nothing." "You moved your mug." "I moved my mug for my own convenience." Ace looked at him. "Okay." He picked up his cup and went back to his book. I watched all of that happen and then I looked at my own plate and thought about it for the rest of breakfast. Later that afternoon I found Nikolai in his office and I sat down across from him without being invited. "Ace's remarks," I said. Nikolai loo

First Contact

Sergei's Pov The clothing run happened on a Thursday. I had been watching the building for eleven days and the clothing run was only the second supervised outing I had seen. Three men on him. A driver and two others who walked close and kept their eyes moving. Whoever had arranged the security had done it carefully. I had been in position on the street since eight that morning in the delivery uniform, moving between three buildings on the block with a hand trolley and boxes. By the time the twins' car pulled up I had been on that street for four hours and nobody had looked at me twice. They went into a midrange clothing store two blocks from the building. One guard stayed outside. Two went in with Ace. I left the trolley and went in three minutes after them. It was a midsized shop, open floor plan, not many places to be invisible. I browsed near the back and

The Laugh

Ace's Pov The outing was a grocery run. Two guards, a driver, a list Ivan had written out and handed to me that morning with absolutely no commentary. I read through it on the way there. Specific brands, specific quantities. One item had a note next to it in Ivan's handwriting that said "not the cheap one." I had no idea what that meant but I found the item and did not buy the cheap one. The store was ordinary. Clean aisles, fluorescent lights, people with baskets moving around each other. The guards flanked me at a reasonable distance and I moved through the list without taking longer than I needed to. I was at the last aisle when I heard someone behind me say, "Marcus told me you were particular about coffee. He did not say anything about a whole grocery list." I turned around. Daniel was standing two shelves over with a single basket and a coffee cup in his other hand. He look

Telling Ivan

Ace's Pov I did not plan to tell Ivan about it. It just came out. We were on the rooftop that afternoon, the usual hour, and I was looking at the street below and thinking about the encounter in the shop and how strange it had been to hear a familiar name said casually by someone who had no reason to be a threat. Ivan was in the other chair with his mug and he was not talking, which was normal. He had stopped trying to fill the rooftop time with conversation after the first few days. We just sat. "I met someone today," I said. Ivan looked at me. "On the outing." "Yes. In the shop." I kept looking at the street. "He said he was Marcus's cousin. Daniel, said he moved here in January." Ivan was quiet. "He knew about the policy seminar Marcus and I had together. He was easy to talk to. It was just a few words before your

Cold

Ivan's Pov The photo came through at half past three in the afternoon. Musa sent it with no message, just the image attached. I opened it and looked at it for a long moment before I set the phone face down on the desk. I picked it up and looked again. Ace was standing in a grocery aisle and he was laughing, not a small, managed expression. Open, unguarded, turned toward the man standing two shelves over who I now knew was Daniel Osei. I sat with that for a while. The thing I felt was not what I expected. I expected concern or calculation or the professional alert I got when something in a situation shifted. All of those things were there but underneath them something else had moved, something cold and uncomfortable, and I did not have a name for it. I took the phone to Ni

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