Calisto
Calisto checked out the small caliber handgun that he had taken from Poppy Johansen’s messenger bag before he’d left the apartment. He looked the clip over, made sure the ammo inside was in decent condition, and then slid the gun into the back of his pants.
There was nothing wrong with a backup.
Across the street from his parked car, Calisto took note of the strip club that was still lit up for business. There weren’t a lot of cars in the parking lot. In fact, there hadn’t been very many people coming or going from the business. Checking the clock, he noted it was after one in the morning. That could explain the dwindling patrons to the club, but the more likely reason was because only certain people used the place—the kind of people that normal, everyday people wouldn’t be comfortable being around.
He’d been watching the hours crawl by, and counting down the time that he was losing with every passing second.
“Antsy” was not a good enough word for what Calisto was feeling. Twice, he’d taken routine calls from his uncle over the day, and twice he’d managed to lie his way through the details of Emma’s whereabouts and whatever else Affonso wanted to know.
Calisto couldn’t keep that up forever.
Say in thirty hours when the girl needed to be on a plane to New York.
Second-guessing oneself was the best way to fuck up a situation. Calisto refused to even consider whether or not he was out of his league with what he was about to do. He couldn’t afford the doubt. It wasn’t such a surprise to Calisto that the Russians had their hand in a skin trade right under the nose of the Sorrento Cosa Nostra. It wasn’t all that uncommon for many organizations, both little and small, to be working around one another. Families and syndicates weren’t likely to step in on another family’s business unless it was causing them some kind of problem. Maximo probably knew that the Russians were running a scheme, but unless it was affecting the businesses he had a hand in, the man wouldn’t bother to put a stop to it.
Besides that, Russians and Italians never worked well together in business. The organizations were run in entirely different ways with bosses that had completely opposite morals when it came to life and the mafia. The two syndicates wouldn’t put their hands in a pot together, unless it was absolutely necessary.
It didn’t make Maximo a bad boss for letting the Russians run their trade. Just like it didn’t make the Russians weak because they allowed the Italians the majority control over the drug and gun trade in Vegas.
That’s just how things worked.
Turf wars were only good for one thing: spilling blood.
Nobody wanted that.
Grabbing the black bag in the passenger seat, Calisto stepped out of the Porsche and locked it up tight. He kept a firm hold on the bag, and felt the cold metal of the gun at his back.
The bouncer at the front door looked like he had taken one too many shots of steroids. The budging veins under the guy’s skin-tight black shirt were as thick as ropes. Calisto tried to pass the guy, only to find a trunk-like arm blocking his way.
“Wait,” the bouncer said. “What’s in the bag?”
“Money,” Calisto replied honestly.
The bouncer cocked a brow. “How much?”
“A lot.”
“Why?”
“Because I intend to spend it,” Calisto said, smirking.
The bouncer eyed him speculatively, but quickly seemed to take notice of Calisto’s expensive suit, Italian leather shoes, and the gold ring on his pinky finger. Calisto rarely, if ever, took the ring off. With a ruby set atop the gold band, it always drew attention.
It had been his father’s.
Calisto probably didn’t look like the strip club’s usual patrons.
But he had money.
No one refused money.
“Open it for me,” the bouncer said.
Sighing, Calisto unzipped the bag. He only opened it enough to flash the cash, cell phone, and a few other knickknacks that he’d tossed in to make it look like he carried a regular bag.
“Go ahead. No touching.”
“Don’t plan on it,” Calisto muttered under his breath as he passed the bouncer by.
Calisto strolled down the dark corridor of the entrance to the strip club, still silently counting the time he was losing with every step.
He only had one shot.
Just one to get this right.
Calisto leaned back in the worn leather seat, rested his arms over the sides, and pretended to give a fuck about the woman shaking her ass five feet away. Up on the stage, the dancer bent over and used her hands to support her weight by holding onto the metal pole. Her G-string hid nothing, and she had long since taken her top off.
She didn’t hold even an ounce of Calisto’s interest, but he tossed another fifty-dollar bill to the stage for her efforts.
And for the men watching him from across the club.
Behind a roped off section, a man sat watching Calisto shower stripper after stripper with cash. A bottle of Patrón sat on the table in front of the man, half empty. A deck of playing cards rested neatly beside the bottle. His guards rarely moved from their spots, unless the man asked for something. Usually with a snap of his fingers.
Calisto would bet every dollar in his bank that the man was Mika Orlov. He’d heard a few people refer to the guy as their boss, but not much else. What was more important, was that Calisto had gained Mika’s attention with his show of money and his disinterest in the strippers.
He wanted the man to question.
He wanted Mika wondering.
This was good.
Calisto waved two fingers at the girl on the stage, catching her attention. Somehow, the dazed woman managed to stay upright without swaying more than she already was in her six-inch heels. The high look in her eyes, mixed with the shitty makeup job on the creases of her arms—an attempt to hide traces of track marks—were seriously worrisome.
No wonder the club didn’t do decent business.
This was fucking shameful.
“Another,” Calisto said quietly.
The woman’s brow furrowed. “But—”
“Take your money, sweetheart, and find me another girl to dance.”
Scowling, the dancer did as she was told. Not two minutes after she had left the stage, another high, young female clamored up the steps to earn her cash like the three women before her. Calisto kept his gaze trained on anything but the stripper. Her swaying and grinding did little to wake his dead desire, and he didn’t want to seem interested at all.
Calisto being interested wouldn’t make Mika seek him out.
Flashing more cash, tossing fifties and hundreds to the woman on stage, and keeping the aloof demeanor up was Calisto’s main game plan. Mika, the quick, business-savvy man that he was, would surely notice the patron in his club that was spending a lot of money, but wasn’t finding exactly what he wanted in the stripper’s offerings.
A rich man.
Money to spend.
Bored out of his mind.
Mika, the upstart that he was, wouldn’t pass up a possibility when he had the means and motive to get Calisto something far better.
A tap on Calisto’s shoulder stopped him from grabbing another fifty from his bag. Subtly glancing to his side, Calisto found one of Mika’s guards waiting with his arms at his back.
“Evening,” Calisto said. “Am I doing something wrong?”
“No. My boss, Mika, noticed that you’re spending a lot of money on women that don’t seem to interest you in here tonight. He was curious if maybe you would like to have a chat about possibly correcting that issue and working something else out.”
Calisto tipped his chin down, hiding his grin. “And what would that be?”
“If the dancing isn’t sufficing, he is more than willing to offer you something more private in the back. For the right price.”
“Of course,” Calisto murmured. “Money is the kicker, isn’t it? How much is he willing to make me spend for a ten-minute session with one of these junkies? I’m not interested in that, sorry.”
“Yes, well …”
“I had a rough day. Spending money and watching females take off their clothes usually fixes that for me, but not tonight. I stopped at this club because I thought it would give me a bit of privacy. Unfortunately, these girls aren’t anything like what I expected.”
The bodyguard cleared his throat. “My apologies.”
“I’ll speak with your boss if he has something better to show me, other than these … women,” Calisto finished with an indifferent wave to the girl on stage.
“Wonderful. Come with—”
“No, I like where I’m sitting. Ask him over here.”
With a quick nod, the man left Calisto alone. Out of the corner of his eye, Calisto watched as the guard approached Mika beyond the roped off section, bent down to relay the message, and then waited for his boss’s response.
Mika scowled in Calisto’s direction.
Calisto only smirked at the girl on stage and tossed another bill up for her to have. Five long minutes later, a form sat down in the leather chair directly beside Calisto’s seat.
“I hear my girls are not up to your standards,” the man said.
For a Russian man, his accent was quite American.
Calisto chuckled dryly and nodded at the girl on stage. “Look at her, is she up to your standards?”
“I look at her every night she works.”
“Maybe so, but if given the chance, would you fuck her?”
Mika raised a brow. “I have.”
“Before she started using, I suspect.”
“You would be correct, Mr. …?”
“You can call me Cal,” he told Mika.
Mika smiled a charming sight. To anyone else, it would have come off as friendly and approachable. Calisto knew better—he worked with men just like Mika on a daily basis. Smiles were simply another way to mask one’s intentions.
“Cal, then,” Mika said after a moment. “I did notice you weren’t drinking.”
“One pleasure at a time.”
“Ah.”
“Your man said you may have something more to my tastes,” Calisto prodded.
“For the right price, Cal, I can have anything you want in a matter of hours.”
Calisto tampered his urge to grin. This was exactly what he wanted.
“Be specific with your tastes, and I will see what I can do,” Mika added.
“Young, but legal,” Calisto replied. “Sober. Clean. And preferably someone with a bit more class than these ladies have. I don’t mind a dancer, but frankly, you couldn’t pay me enough money to get my dick wet with someone that might leave something behind. You get what I’m saying?”
“Perfectly.”
Calisto checked his watch. “Aren’t you the least bit worried that I’m a cop?”
Mika laughed darkly. “No. If you were, you would have taken my man up on the offer of having one of the girls in the back. Any felony is a good felony, as a cop would say.”
“True.”
“Where are you from, Cal?”
“New York,” he answered. “I had some business to do in Vegas. I’ll be leaving in a day and a half.”
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“Just thinking,” Mika murmured.
Calisto didn’t indulge the man further. “Can you find me something more suitable, or not?”
“I can. How much money are you willing to spend, Cal?”
“As much as I need to. I like being able to come back to something, if it’s good enough. Do you know what I mean?”
Mika smiled. “Perfectly. I may be able to help.”
“Do tell.”
As Mika began to chat about a private event that he had been invited to for the evening—one that would offer a variety of skin to shop from—happening in just a couple of short hours, Calisto kept his mind on the time.
Time both he and Emma didn’t have.
“I take it that’s your car,” Mika said, nodding in the direction of the black Porsche across the road.
“Yes, my rental.”
“You could follow behind if you wanted.”
“Driving with you will be fine,” Calisto assured, lying through his teeth.
Mika climbed inside a black SUV with windows tinted all the way around. It was impossible to see inside the vehicle. After the driver—Nathan, Mika had said earlier—got behind the wheel, Calisto jumped in the back, too.
“I have another friend going to the event tonight, and he is curious to meet you,” Mika said as the SUV pulled out of the lot.
Calisto didn’t plan on meeting anyone else. As it was, enough people had seen his face in all of this. Those people, like Mika and his driver, needed to be handled.
“Is that so?” he asked.
“We’ll meet him at the venue. Usually I wouldn’t go, but tonight I have an invitation, as I’ve provided something invaluable for them. I should warn you, though, that my friend is distrustful of people he doesn’t know.”
“This place—didn’t you say everyone is anonymous in one way or another?”
“Yes,” Mika said, looking down at his phone. “But everyone is apparently vouched for by someone else. Newcomers are rare.”
Mika knew even less about the auctions than Norris had when Calisto talked to him. It was very likely that Mika’s catch with Emma had set the man up to be invited to the showing of women.
“We’ll say you’re an old friend of mine,” Mika said after a moment.
“Do you think he’ll believe it?”
“No, but he wants to make money.”
Calisto laughed under his breath. “I do have that.”
“You do. So, follow along and everything should be fine.”
Keeping his bag at his side, and the guns he had hidden, Calisto wondered just how much money he was going to need. Mika and his men were incredibly incompetent for a bunch of Russian gangsters. They trusted Calisto’s well-dressed,-well-spoken person without question and didn’t bother to check his things. To the men’s credit, Calisto hadn’t given them much of a reason to check him, either.
Calisto had managed to pull a good three hundred thousand from the bank earlier. The manager had nearly vomited when Calisto walked in not twenty minutes before the place was to close, demanding his personal account be emptied.
We don’t usually have that much cash in the vault, the man had said.
Bullshit.
Calisto knew better.
This was fucking Vegas.
They had the cash.
Calisto likely needed more than what he did have. His offshore accounts, the one he used to hide and then pillow illegal funds into his legal accounts, toted just over ten million between his dealings and his inheritance from his father’s and mother’s deaths.
He could use that, if needed.
From the side, Calisto kept an eye on Mika. He didn’t trust the man, but he had to keep him alive long enough for him to at least get him to the venue. By the way the event had been described by the Russian, as long as you showed up, you were let in. No one who hadn’t been vouched for would be given the address to where the auction was being held.
Calisto wasn’t all that surprised that Mika had quickly, and quite easily, taken to him without much question or concern. An enigmatic, rich stranger, willing to toss out money on a woman who could satisfy him was exactly the kind of client that Mika needed to get higher in the trafficking business.
Sometimes, being an upstart made you desperate to just go up.
Calisto’s willingness to follow along with Mika, find some skin to buy for the evening, and part ways, lulled the Russian into a false sense of security. Cops wouldn’t go this far, surely. A cop would have drunk at the club to fit in, he would have followed Mika’s man to sit down at another table, and he probably would not have gotten in Mika’s car.
Sure, it made Calisto uncomfortable. He wasn’t in his own territory. He still didn’t have time to doubt himself. This was far too important.
“Have you ever participated in an auction before?” Mika asked out of the blue.
Calisto shrugged, but answered honestly. “Yes.”
“When?”
When my uncle took an operation down because they wouldn’t pay him for being on his territory, Calisto thought.
“In my younger twenties. I didn’t get much out of it.”
Mika laughed. “I think you’ll have a better experience tonight.”
“I certainly hope so.”
More than Mika knew.
Mika lifted his phone and showed off a message that looked like a bunch of numbers and gibberish. “This is our invitation to the event. We show it at the door, and we’re permitted entrance. Nothing more.”
Good to know.
“So, I don’t really need you, huh?” Calisto asked. “Your driver must know where the place is.”
Mika’s head snapped up. “What did you just—”
Calisto pulled the gun from his back, the one he had taken from Poppy’s place. The weapon met Mika’s forehead with a crack as Calisto pulled the other gun he’d been hiding from the bag holding the money. He pointed the second gun at the driver.
“I don’t really need you,” Calisto repeated.
Mika’s hands twitched like he was going to reach for something.
“Drive,” Calisto barked at the driver. “Move your hands a single fucking inch from the steering wheel and I will put a bullet in the back of your head.”
“Do what he says,” Mika said quietly.
“Your desire to climb higher in your business makes you an easy target, Mika. Tell your girl Poppy that I said hi.”
Mika opened his mouth to speak. Calisto pulled the trigger. Blood sprayed the passenger window as the man’s body jerked to the side.
Calisto didn’t take his eyes off the driver.
“Nathan, is it?” Calisto asked.
“Y-yes.”
“Did someone named Emma come into the club tonight, looking for your dead boss, here?”
Nathan nodded.
Calisto kept his gun aimed at Nathan, but leaned over to grab the phone from Mika’s dead hands. He only needed the message on the phone. That’s what the fool said.
“Keep driving.”
“Okay,” Nathan mumbled.
Fucking sickening.
Calisto was pretty sure these fools had never come face to face with anyone worth being frightened over. They probably thought they were top dogs in their worlds, when in fact, they were at the very bottom of the food chain.
That was their problem.
He had a hell of a lot to lose.
“Drive faster,” Calisto ordered.
The car sped up.
Calisto walked through the dimly lit hallways of an unmarked building that, from the outside, had looked like nothing more than a warehouse. In front of him, another man walked alongside another man who had greeted him outside of the building not ten minutes earlier. Calisto simply had to flash the message from Mika’s phone in front of their faces to be allowed inside. The men had asked him a few questions, of course, and checked him over to search for any weapons. Calisto expected it and answered with a cool smile and his usual vagueness. He’d left the guns in the SUV, knowing he would probably be checked.
His voucher to the event was Mika.
But his money got him through the door.
Kostya was the man’s name. He was far more Russian than Mika had been.
Thanks to the dark-tinted windows of the SUV, no one noticed a thing when Calisto put a bullet in the back of the driver’s head. Once Nathan brought Calisto to where he needed to be, he took care of that little issue.
There was only one thing left.
Emma.
“You have accounts to use tonight, yes?” the man asked, turning to look at Calisto.
“Offshore.”
“Those work fine. Almost there.”
Calisto followed behind in silence, unsure of what he was walking into. At the end of the long hallway, a woman waited with a wicker basket in her hands. He was more shocked to see a female at an event like this than he was over the intricately designed masks in the basket.
“Please, take one,” she said.
Calisto grabbed the one that was passed back to him. It was black, would cover half of his face, leaving only his mouth and jaw exposed, and had a satiny feel.
Once the other two men had donned their masks, the woman pushed open the door behind her.
Calisto didn’t know what he expected to see. Cement floors, maybe. Dingy walls. Cages for the victims caught up in all of this. Well-dressed men with their faces covered to hide their identities as women were paraded in front of them for surveying like cattle.
The only thing Calisto had right was the well-dressed men.
The room opened up to what could only be described as professionally decorated gallery with earth-toned walls, stylish furniture, and artwork on the walls. Men and women, impeccably dressed, milled around with their faces hidden by similar masks to the one Calisto had put on his own face.
Some of the walls had been draped with red curtains, but none of them had windows to look outside. Doors opened at the other end of the very large room, and people traveled in and out without question. Servers walked between the people, refilling glasses of whatever liquor was being imbibed. Laughter flowed freely.
What in the fuck was this?
It was like a goddamn cocktail party.
Calisto swallowed back the heaviness pooling in his gut. “Shall we?”
The man who had been mostly quiet nodded at his friend. “My boss will direct you through the process, as I don’t have the cash to participate fully tonight.”
Great …
“Come,” Kostya demanded. “We will get account set up for you, comrade.”
“Then what?” Calisto asked.
“Then we look at stock behind the curtains before auction.”
Stock.
Like cattle.
Calisto felt cold all over.
He let his mask hide it.
Somehow.