Lady of the Night (Downworlder Series, #3)

Chapter Nine: Part Two: Blood Money

I had been able to track down Enzo Alittori in the slums. It hadn't been easy, not that I had expected it to be. I had spent several hours going around in the slums asking about him, paying off some prostitutes for information and beating up a few pimps for theirs. In the end the information had told me that Enzo was in the company of a low class crack whore by the name of Vivienne Moreau on the lower east side of the slums.

That had made my mouth twitch up into a bit of a snarl. The lower east side was straight up slums. I had been in the slums all night but that portion of them was rough and horrible. Bodies had been known to stay in the streets for days, bloating and rotting, and no one would do anything about it. I understood needed to survive and ignoring things that distracted you but I knew the lower east side was all drugs, pimps, and whores. There was nothing good that ever came out of that part of the city.

Last I heard a dangerous drug someone resurrected from the Old Times had originated there. Thankfully the Doyens had smashed that operation immediately. Krokodil was no fucking joke. It didn't need to be distributed, so I was happy when the Doyens burned down all the drug dens that supplied it and killed all the people who knew how to make it. That was all the slums needed, a flesh eating drug that was cheap.

I shook my head as I moved through an oppressively disgusting alleyway towards the run down house that I now knew Vivienne worked out of. My gun was safely tucked on my side and it comforted me. I didn't want to hurt her but he still needed to be taken out if I wanted to get the marks and I needed the marks. I usually waited until my targets were done with their... business before I dealt with them but I knew Enzo stayed with his flavour of the night until the morning and I couldn't risk a daylight shooting.

I lowered my head, carefully watching my peripherals. These weren't good slums to be in, at all. Half the violence I had seen in the city came from these type of streets and even when I lived up in IronTown on Haven, similar streets like these had the same violence. Slums were slums no matter if they were human or beast.

A flicker of movement caught my attention and a familiar looking boy was holding a lit lighter and a cigarette that he was currently coughing on. I narrowed my eyes as I scowled. Of all the stupid and idiot shit to be up to! I fought back a growl, torn between finishing my job and grabbing Jovan by the ear and hauling him back home. My need to protect my family overrode everything else and I made a bee-line for the temperamental little beast.

"Jovan." The name came out on a wave of dominance and a growl and his head snapped up, his eyes widening as he dropped the lighter. Once close enough I snatched the cigarette from his fingers, throwing it on the ground before I grabbed his ear, pinching until he whined. "What the hell are you doing out here?" He did not need to be out here in the middle of the night. The thought made me bristle heavily. Anything could have happened to him out on these streets and I would not abide by such self-destructive behaviours.

He whimpered and grabbed my wrist, his face twisting with pain. "Getting away!" He yelped as I twisted his ear for good measure before I let him go to grab his arm. He rubbed at his ear with a scowl, staring at the ground.

"And the smokes?" I reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the rumpled pack despite his protests. I tossed them away and he set his mouth into a thin line and glowered at me. That was all I needed was to put a juvenile beast in its place. I smacked him upside the head, jolting him forward slightly. "El burro sabe mas que tu!" A growl rumbled from my chest as I watched as he rubbed the spot. "I don't want to see you with those ever again, comprende?" That was all Quinta needed to worry about, a delinquent little brother hellbent on getting cancer or addicted to who the hell knows what the cigarettes were laced with. I didn't have to be entirely smart to smell that wasn't just tobacco.