Dominic
My inner beast stilled and waited just under the surface to emerge.
Rosselli's man, Spider, had set off my predatory instincts, and now more than ever, I had the impending sensation of doom rushing to meet me head-on. It didn't help that I really wanted to beat the shit out of him for leaving my doe-eyed beauty to the fate of that fucking quack with a scalpel.
That blade-wielding asshole's death was far too easy and made me wish that I had more time to play with the sick fuck back in the cavern before killing him.
Spider held my gaze, and his unreadable expression made it hard to get a feel for him. But if what Rosselli had said rang true, then he and I had more in common than the generic titles of tracker and enforcer bestowed upon us both.
"Now, Yasmina," said Rosselli, "I may call you by your given name, yes?"
"It is my name."
"If you seek the umbrella of my protective hand, unlock your father's wallet." Rosselli tapped the top of the laptop. "Unless, of course, you cannot, which would cause a different course of action today. One of protection for you but on a different playing field."
Spider eased back the lapel of his suit jacket, exposing the butt of his weapon.
"My father's phone, may I have it?"
"But of course." Rosselli relinquished his hold on the phone.
Mina opened her father's phone, then pulled up a notepad with eight words: daisy, rose, flora, iris, tulip, holly, aster, and mint.
"Dom, bring up the image you took of my back—of the tattoo."
Without a word, I did as she asked, then sat my phone next to her father's outdated cell.
She opened a word document, then inserted two charts: a 10x6 and a 6x8. Inside the first, she typed out numbers one to twenty-six in the ten-column chart, leaving a row between each alpha section. Glancing at my phone, then at her father's, she quickly filled in the empty rows of the ten-column chart with letters, creating a cipher key.
It didn't take her long to match the numbers to their corresponding letters. The letter "Z" paired with the number one, "Y" with number two and it continued until "A" matched with number twenty-six. When finished, she turned the screen around.
"There's the first set with the key." Mina kept her hands on the shell of the laptop that now displayed the same words: daisy, rose, flora, iris, tulip, holly, aster, and mint.
"And what of the second set?" Rosselli spun the electronic device around.
"That's easy," she said, then her hands flew over the keys.
When she finished, a light chuckle left her lips.
"You find something funny, Miss Costa?" Spider raised a brow.
"Yeah." She nodded. "The first set of seed phrases were flowers—some of the ones my mother had kept in her garden when alive, and the second set were birds."
She showed the next set of eight words: loon, duck, coot, finch, crow, pipit, robin, and wren.
"That brings the total seed phrases to sixteen," said Rosselli.
"Yep." A small smile came to her lips. "My father said she loved birdwatching, so I'm not surprised."
"That leaves another eight words," said Rosselli.
"Uh-huh," said Mina as she read up on claiming the contents of a crypto wallet, "which would explain why my father had me memorize the last set."
"What are they?" Rosselli came across about as eager as a shark in the middle of a school of tasty fish.
"Do you have a crypto USB stick? Like a Ledger?" asked Mina. "If so, then in good faith, I can input the information."
I tapped her thigh, then shot her a look of warning. "Are you sure about this?"
"Yes, of course," she smiled sweetly. "It's the least I can do since my mother's dear friend, Mr. Rosselli, has offered his protection to both of us, and maybe he can help us figure this all out."
My doe-eyed beauty's ears wiggled, and her nose twitched twice, alerting me to the nervous little lie that had just passed her lips. In response, I only nodded, knowing full well that my little actress had kicked off another performance, leaving me at the mercy of her current impromptu improvisation.
She flushed the Word document and pulled up a website to claim her father's crypto wallet. After briefly reading over the instructions, she inserted the USB stick into the side of the laptop, keyed in the twenty-four seed phrases followed by a fifty-character passphrase, and then when the Ledger device prompted her to create a pin, a smile played on her lips, and she typed in eight digits. When done, the wallet opened.
For someone who didn't know shit about the crypto world, she was a fast learner. It had taken me a few weeks to get acclimated to the process—to get comfortable.
Oh, little sparrow, you're good under fire, aren't you?
"Click the search," I whispered in her ear.
The moment she did, a hundred accounts pulled up in the wallet with various crypto balances totaling over five hundred million dollars.
A gasp left her lips, and she created several different partitions within the wallet, dropping the accounts into them.
"What do you see?" asked Rosselli.
She angled the laptop for him to see only ten of the accounts, totaling eighty million dollars.
A smirk kissed the corners of the older man's lips, and then he snapped his fingers.
Spider turned his full attention to Rosselli. "Now, Sir?"
"Yes," Rosselli nodded, "now would be good. Thank you."
Spider reached across the table and halfway yanked me out of the booth. Together, in a mass of tangled limbs, he and I hit the tile floor.
"Log out, Mina," I shouted, grappling with Spider, who at the moment had the upper hand.
Even if I took the man out, the sentries would plow me down with bullets before I even reached my little sparrow.
Her fingers tapped vigorously on the laptop keys. Then she pulled the stick free of the device.
"What's the meaning of this?" She dangled the USB stick over her cup of tea. "Let him go."
"Go ahead, Miss Costa." Rosselli rose, shut the laptop, and picked it up. "I no longer need it."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that." Now it was Mina's turn to smirk. "Are you willing to take that chance?"
"Why do you say that?" Rosselli handed the laptop to one of his sentries, and the man took it, sat at a table nearby, and then started typing on the keys.
"Because you're not going to get shit unless I give it to you." She held the older man's gaze. "Now, tell your dog to release Dominic. Or this USB goes for a swim along with all twenty-four seed words and the PassPhrase."
"On your knees," said Spider.
Hands behind my back, I kneeled, keeping my gaze on Mina and the old Italian Don.
Rosselli turned his attention to the sentry with the laptop. Then his eyes flicked back to Mina. "Give it to me, or he dies."
"You want it? Take it." She handed the drive to Rosselli, who in turn tossed it to his man. "But if you want any chance of opening that wallet ever again, you'll tell your dog to release Dominic."
"Speak." Rosselli snapped his finger.
"Sir," said the sentry with the laptop, "she created a pin. We're locked out."
"Give him the password." Spider pulled his weapon, then pressed the barrel to my head.
"Nope, not gonna happen." She sipped her tea as if unfazed by the men who outnumbered her. "I'm not giving you shit. And if you kill him, Rosselli, you'll never see a dime. Now, tell me why the sudden shift. I thought we had an agreement—your protection. What has changed?"
"You want to know," Rosselli shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. "When he freed you, he murdered my oldest son."
My mind flashed back to the tunnel and the men I had encountered.
"Slit his throat like a stuck pig, covered him, and then left him to bleed out." Rosselli slammed a fist on the table, making Mina jump. "My son died alone."
The young girl's face came to mind. Her pleading eyes, asking for help, flashed before me. "Fuck."
"Is that true, Dominic?" Her eyes widened.
"Yeah, it is," I replied, "I found him raping a girl, so I did what anyone in my situation would do, I took him out. And I'd do it again if given the opportunity."
A boot slammed into my side, making me cough, then the metal of Spider's gun smacked the side of my skull, making my ears ring. My old friend, darkness, found me seconds later, and I fell face-first onto the tile.