Me & The Devil

Eighteen

Laurent raked his hands through his curly hair, gripping it to the point of pain. "I told you!" He hissed to the person over the phone. "I told you to take this more seriously!"

On the line was Cillian McCaffrey, the Irish mob general. He sneered, "We did take that shit seriously, I poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into that ambush. Soldiers, bribery to get my guys into the catering company, the weapons and ammo, the cars we fucking lost. My businesses are under attack and I fucking know its Ivanov! How was I supposed to know your daughter would go berserk and was capable of killing someone. Why couldn't you have a normal fucking daughter that complied while being kidnapped?"

Laurent hissed, "I told you to prepare for anything and you didn't listen! You told those three men that she wouldn't put up a fight and it led to their failure. It's on you and now he's going to trace it back to us. We have no goddamn leverage McCaffrey!"

For a second, Cillian laughed under his breath. "You're worried about leverage now? When you came to me you were so distraught to get your poor daughter back from the big bad devil. From what's been reported back to me, Ivanov seems quite smitten with her. And she him. Your little girl isn't in need of fucking saving like you'd led me to believe. And now that you got me to go after what's his, the psycho is already on our ass."

Laurent inhaled sharply, rubbing his face harshly. He had assumed that McCaffrey would be able to get Salina far enough from Dominik to exploit him. Once the partnership he wanted was in place, he could return Salina to him and turn McCaffrey in himself. After Dominik had cornered him at the golf club, Laurent decided it was time to do something about the strained relationship. What was the point of marrying off Salina if he got no benefit from it?

Pinching his brow, he sighed. "Alright, alright. We'll figure something out."

"Yeah, you better. This entire thing is because of you, I'm laying low until we can pull the rug out from under the Ivanov's. Get back to me when you know how to fix this clusterfuck." Cillian hung up abruptly. Laurent screamed in frustration, throwing the phone at the wall. He watched it shatter.

"Stupid Irish fuck! Fuck!"

Drake stood outside of his uncles office, listening to the entire phone call now having broken out into a cold sweat with anxiety. This wasn't the plan, none of this was the plan.

Laurent sat behind his desk, grabbing another phone and making more calls to figure something out. "Drake! Get in here, we've got work to do."

~

It'd been days since the gala, Salina was curled up in their living room early in the morning. Dominik was going crazy, she thinks. She's seen him briefly over the past four days, he is so wrapped up in getting to bottom of everything that it's consumed him she thinks.

She isn't super surprised but still, Salina had woken up the morning after to him leaving. He'd given her a long kiss right as she was rousing from her sleep and told her he had work to do. And now he was in bed after she'd fallen asleep and gone before she woke up.

Truthfully, Salina was a bit lonely especially after everything that'd happened. But she'd never admit it. Lev came once a day to check on her and make sure she's eating. "Sel?" he called from the kitchen. Salina looked away from the tv to see him leaning against the doorway. Her brows rose when she saw the older man in her pink apron. Lev shot her a look, "Shut up, I made you breakfast. Dominik should be back later tonight. He left a note for you on the counter. I forgot to tell you." Salina grinned and came over, still in her pajamas. Her hand rested on Lev's shoulder gratefully.

"You didn't have to do all that Lev, I'm okay- really. Thank you though, for going through all the trouble." She gripped the note from Dominik, squinting a bit as she read the number he'd left for her. At the bottom all it said was Santiago, her eyes widened in realization. She'd mentioned meeting Vivienne Santiago that night and being unable to grab her number.