Dance Of Devils

Seven - Lorenzo

Chapter seven

Lorenzo

Nadia had been quiet beside me on the entire ride back to Dante's estate. Even with her hand in mine, I could feel her withdrawing into her thoughts, back into a place I wouldn't reach her. Something wasn't sitting right about our meeting with the Oracle. The information we had didn't put us at any more of an advantage than we had been before we went and now, to make matters worse, Nadia was receding into herself.

My phone rang out in the silence between us, loud and incessant and pushing me further into the rage that I felt brewing below the surface. I let it ring out for a long moment, not wanting to invite the outside world into the safety of our contemplative silence, but Nadia cut me a glance that told me if I didn't answer the phone quickly she would throw it out of the car.

Very few people bothered to call me unless it was absolutely necessary, they knew I was a busy man, so seeing Marco's name light up on my screen had my brows drawing together in concern.

"What have you got for me?" I asked in way of greeting, my voice gruff and unwelcoming to the intrusion.

"Twenty-two big ones," came Marco's chipper voice. He was one of my top runners, the best of the best when it came to weapons exchange and large exports. Normally his calls would be welcomed, always bringing with him good news, but there was something in his overly happy tone that set my teeth on edge with the day we were having. The kid should have known better than to call me about this shit.

"Marco," I said, feeling my irritation rise. "Why am I being called about it? You know how to deal with situations where we are under-provided. Deal with the situation."

A harsh inhale is all I hear down the line. My hand goes to my head automatically, squeezing the bridge of my nose to bite against the growing headache I could feel coming. It was too late in the day for this shit. But the devil worked hard and it seemed, this week, I had to work harder.

Just as I was about to hang up on him he spoke again. "That's not entirely why I called." I could hear the hesitation in his voice, the uncertainty, and dreaded whatever was going to be said.

"I'm beginning to lose my patience, Marco."

"Ah," he coughed covering up the discomfort at my tone. "I followed up on the information from that notebook that you gave us to go over, to track the deliveries and such, from the Mikhailov warehouse?"

Only a vague flash of recognition shot through me. "What did you find?" I asked, keeping my voice level when I noticed Nadia pretending not to listen in.

"Just regular shipments to begin with," he explained, a lilting sound of wonder tugging at his voice as he continued. "But then we looked into all the dates highlighted in red, the drops almost always coincide with a Reaper sighting not far away. And all of those deaths were always a member of the Russian mob."

"Why would they keep...'' I let the question die on my tongue as I thought it through. My initial confusion doubled. "How many dates had a confirmed sighting?"

"Almost all of them, bar maybe three."

It didn't answer anything, and could easily have been a coincidence. "I thought it was just a coincidence at first," Marco explains, voicing my own doubts. "But then I looked into it and these dates go back to when she was first handed over to Victor. So I double-checked where the sales were coming and going, and who they were passed through and so on—" my heart rate quickened as I realised I didn't like where this was going. "— all of them passed through the institute. At least seventy per cent went directly through Victor."