Jax
My release made me tenser. Whaddya know?
I storm to my bike, get on it, clamp my hand on the gas and take off, trying to move as fast as my thoughts are racing. Why do I even care that Bella doesn’t want to have dinner anyway? I don’t want anything serious now after all. I have enough on my plate without some… whatever this is.
Emptied-out downtown Toronto is calming – just dim abandoned buildings, a finally-empty road, the hobos and me. Not the worst time for a nighttime drive. Really, I should be heading home, but I’m not done with the Russos. Not yet. They may have gotten away from the office, outnumbered me, but now I’m going to rip through their office.
I’ll find out what they’ve done with Sarah if I have to burn the place down.
I fly down the city streets like they’re highways, then the highway like it’s the Autobahn. By the time I pull up to the black building, I’ve just gotten started.
I park in front of the building and call Brax.
“I’m here.”
“3:00 am? Boss, you crazy.”
I laugh and hang up. The whole building is dark and locked down, but that’s okay. My boys are coming.
A few minutes later, some black-hoodied boys are unlocking the door for me. Then it’s to the elevator, to the Penthouse.
Brax is splayed in the front desk chair, wearing a ridiculous little pink sun hat.
“Hiya, Jaxy.” He makes the chair do a little twirl and the hat sails off his head and to the ground. He grins at it. “You won’t believe the kind of shit their desk bitch has: Cotton Candy scented body butter, Cotton Candy scented hand sanitizer, Cotton Candy scented pens – Hell, she has Cotton Candy scented Kleenex. At this rate, I reckon the bitch must shit Cotton Candy.”
As if on cue, he sneezes into the slightly pink sheet he’s got in front of him. “Think I’m allergic,” he adds, rubbing his nose with a scowl. I nod, staring at him, and he continues, “Yeah, right, the office. We didn’t touch anything, just like you said.”
He sweeps his arm in the direction of the paper-strewn hallway. “Looks like shit ‘cause a few of their guys were still trying to clear stuff out when we got here. Don’t think they expected us so fast.”
He twirls his gun in his hands, then places it on the pink Kleenex box. “We shot one of them, but had to put out the fires they’d started, so they got away.” Rummaging through a desk, he pulls out a Lindor. “Chocolate?”
I shake my head. “Where’s the main office – the head honcho’s?”
Brax shrugs and sweeps his hand out again. “Fucked if I know. There’s some Gerrard tool, an Anton, a Remy, your friend Emilio even has his own place, but not the head. Looks like he’s a teleworker.”
I scowl, though I’m hardly surprised. This whole time, the honcho has always been one step ahead of us, so why would now be any different? He probably suspected that one day we’d get ahold of this office.
“Which one is Emilio’s?” I ask as I head down the hallway.
“The last one. The one across from the boardroom,” Brax’s chocolate-filled mouth replies.
I follow his gaze and head there. Of course, the one whose door has a stupid golden handle.
Inside is a disaster – charred bits of paper, a cracked picture of a woman’s bare legs, a bashed hollow of a computer screen. Even the fan is a one-shuttered sad sputtering piece of shit. I smirk as I imagine the bastard twisting every which way here, trying to take all his things and destroy them and not piss his pants in fear all at once.
Something on his bashed-in desk catches my eye. A facedown picture frame. I pick it up.
It’s a family photo. A Russo family photo. They look like a regular old happy family: Papa Russo, Mama Russo, Emilio Russo and… a cut-off somebody. The longer I stare at it, the surer I am that the photo’s been cut. The photo is lopsided in the frame, not centered. Hell, whoever cut it even left the mystery person’s hand in.
I stare at the hand, its delicate-looking fingers. Christ, if I didn’t know better I would swear that the head of the Russo’s was a…
“Hey, boss!” It’s Brax standing in the doorway with a smile like he just found a full vault of Lindors. “Check this out,” he says, spreading out a ripped but still legible sheet of paper.
I stare at it, unable to accept just what it is I’m seeing. “They didn’t…”
Brax nods. “You bet those dumb shits did! It’s a map! Of the whole place!” He presses it to his chest, sighing in ecstasy. “Aw, sweet, Jesus.”
I walk over, take the map, and spread it on the table. It’s a complete, room-to-room breakdown of their property: from their family house to the compounds behind it, the Cleaning Supply Cupboard in Compound One to the Back Room in the Basement, this map has got everything.
The Russos just handed us a winning ticket. This is pure gold. With Papa Russo knocking on death’s door, and this in our possession, we can’t lose.
I turn to Brax. “Have your guys comb over this place for anything else that might be useful – any clue about Sarah or the Russos. In the meantime, call up the guys from the other districts. Let them know we’re going to meet in the club soon. It’s time to start planning our Russo takedown.”