Natalya was impressed to see that such a large meeting with opposing gangs could be peacefully arranged.
After the police intervention on delivery truck heist a few nights earlier, Maddie contacted Im Yong Soo with the idea of coordinating an intervention on the Kohler-Vargas feud. She suggested getting everyone together to negotiate the key issues between the groups, with the hope of resolving some of them before the police can take advantage of any more discord. After some phone calls with each group, Maddie had booked this warehouse for hosting the late-night meeting.
To keep everyone civilized, the Dragon Triad had been recruited as both a neutral party and crowd control. Yao and Wai Hau had been charged with greeting the two mobs when they arrived. Tables had been laid out in a square format at the middle of the room, allowing each mob to take a side with the Dragon Triad at the back end between them. The front end was reserved for Madeline, since she would moderate and direct the meeting. There was a table along the back wall with a few snacks and bottles of water.
Natalya paced at the back of the room, not wanting to sit down just yet, while Madeline talked to the boys at the front of the room. Xiao Mei was stretched out in her seat with her legs propped up on the table, far more interested in playing on her phone. They had left Katerina to guard the base, since she was generally uninterested in such meetings.
At least, that was the obvious excuse. The hidden one was that at least one of the two sisters should keep as clean of a criminal record as possible.
Some loud voices were heard from the hallway, and everyone turned to see Romulus Vargas show up at the room's entrance.
"Buonasera, amici," the boss greeted as he entered the room with his followers, "I believe the Kohler group will be close behind, we saw some vehicles pulling into the parking lot as we were walking in here."
"Good evening, Romulus," Madeline replied as the Italian came over and went to kiss her cheeks, "I'm glad to see you're all here."
"Almost all of us," Romulus corrected, "Gupta stayed behind to watch the base."
"We'll get your group on the far side of the tables here, to Madeline's left," Im Yong Soo announced, "Everyone, please remove your weapons and place them on the table against the wall. Wai Hou will cover them and prevent access to them during the meeting, and we'll have the Kohler group disarm themselves as well. The refreshments at the back are for everyone, we ask that you act civilly if interacting with members of the other groups while back there."
As the cluster of mobsters crossed the front of the room, Natalya noticed a man with short curly brown hair give Madeline and Yong Soo a quick greeting before moving along to see Wai Hou. The brunette looked in her direction, and she recognized the man's face and piercing green eyes immediately.
What the fuck was he doing here?
Nataya noted that she had stopped her pacing to stare, so she looked away for a few moments while he was placing his weapons on the side table. She looked up at the front where the Vargas twins were sticking around to flirt with Madeline a bit while Romulus spoke to Yong Soo, before looking back at the table. When the man left the table and headed in her direction, she immediately pretended she hadn't been looking and went to the refreshments table. She first reached for the fruit, taking a lovely slice of watermelon and placing it on a paper plate before reaching for a water bottle. As the tips of her fingers reached the lid, a larger tanned hand swooped in and took the bottle from her reach, prompting her to look into the eyes of the man.
"Buenas tardes, Natalya," he greeted with a smile.
"What are you doing here, Antonio?"
"I work for Signor Vargas, am I not allowed to have a job?"
Natalya huffed, as she looked away to pick at the fruit again.
"You haven't had a legal job since you became that bitch's personal bodyguard. Speaking of the bitch, where have you been hiding her."
"You really shouldn't speak so harshly about her, she is essentially your sister-in-law in all but the legal sense. As long as you keep insulting her, you don't deserve to know where she's hiding."
"You should be in jail. Both you idiots and the treacherous bitch."
"You see, Natalya, it's exactly that attitude that keeps us from trusting you with our whereabouts."
Natalya slammed her plate of fruit onto the table, and turned to look at his obnoxiously cheery face.
"If you don't watch yourself, I'll call the police on your ass right now."
Antonio's smile suddenly turned into a malicious smirk, and his eyes focused into a challenging glare.
"And what would you tell the police? That I'm hiding around in the mobs? Even if you did rat us out, you only have that to go on. You don't know where the Vargas base is, so you can't tell them where they can trap me. By the time the police could do anything with your limited information, I can be long gone."
Natalya mentally cursed at that one, the boys had done that to her and Katya before. Still, he didn't seem alarmed to know that she was here, which led to another question.
"You knew I'd be coming to this meeting, didn't you? That I'd recognize you?"
"That's the real game here, Natalya. We allow ourselves to be spotted momentarily before we disappear into the night again. After all, it's when the hunters give up on finding the elusive prey that it gets boring."
Natalya gave him a glare as she mentally scolded him. If this was indeed a game, it was the cruelest and most nefarious game that the trio could possibly conjure.
She then realized he had been using unusual grammar.
"What's with using the royal 'we'?" she asked.
"Antonio, please behave yourself," Maddie suddenly shouted from the table, surprising them both, "Natalya can be deadly when she wants to, armed or not."
"Lo siento, querida," Antonio replied, slipping back into a cheery expression in a split second as he turned to look at the others, "The lovely lady here is merely resisting my charm, she doesn't know what she's missing out on."
As everyone laughed at his remark, the door on the other side of the room opened to reveal Mikkel Kohler, and Yao went over to greet them with Im Yong Soo. Natalya tried to slip away while he wasn't looking, but he grabbed her elbow and pulled her in against him, bringing his mouth to her ear to whisper.
"I do suggest you behave yourself, querida. Identifying us in front of everyone here would only spell disaster, and such a move would still be in vain."
"You still haven't answered my question," Natalya pointed out, "Why the plural pronouns?"
"I'm only saying to keep your mouth shut," Antonio hinted, "I doubt I can convince you to do the same with your eyes."
With that cryptic explanation, Antonio finally left her and went to sit with the rest of the Vargas clan, with a few more bottles of water and her plate of fruit in his hands.
Natalya grabbed another bottle and slowly made her way back to her seat, watching as the members of Kohler's gang placed their weapons on the designated side table to Madeline's right. One by one, each member turned and came to the meeting table, and Natalya nearly froze in her spot when a large man with short hair the same shade as hers came into view.
She didn't even need the eye contact to confirm it was him.
Ivan raised his eyebrow at her, acknowledging Natalya's presence, before sitting down and talking to the woman beside him with long brown hair. Noticing she was still standing in shock, Natalya quickly sat down beside Im Yong Soo as if nothing had happened. She glanced at the other side of the table, where Antonio was blatantly watching her, arms crossed and a knowing smirk on his face. He didn't even notice the darker-haired Vargas twin slipping the slice of watermelon from the plate.
"Those bastards," Natalya muttered to herself.
"Who are these bastards you're muttering about?" Im Yong Soo whispered in her ear.
Natalya didn't get the chance to answer, as Madeline hit the table a couple times with a small wooden hammer to get everyone's attention.
"Alright, everyone, let's get this meeting started," Madeline demanded, allowing a moment for everyone to finish their whispering before continuing, "It doesn't take an idiot to realize that the mobs in this city are having territorial disputes, and this needs to be dealt with. The police are quickly closing in on us, especially that impulsive albino Sergeant, and every encounter between your mobs is increasing their chances of shutting you down for good."
"Maybe if some people didn't interfere with the delivery truck heist, we wouldn't have had this problem," a man with shoulder-length blond hair on the Kohler side blurted out.
"Vaffanculo, you interfered with our credit union heist first!" the lighter-haired Vargas twin yelled back.
"You shouldn't have been on our side of town!" the blond shouted again.
Both sides of the table had members stand up and start yelling at each other, and nothing could be understood over all the interjecting voices. Since the meeting was going nowhere for the moment, Natalya alternated her observation between the two key participants.
Antonio's comments to her earlier indicated that he knew Ivan would be coming, so they must have both known that they were in opposing mobs. She knew they must be avoiding harm to each other at the bare minimum, lest earning the ire of the trio's nefarious third member. If that were true, how much did they know about each other's work for the mobs? How much did the damn bitch know about what they were doing? If they are both here, could the bitch be hiding close by?
If at least two of the three are involved in the mobs, could they be up to something malicious behind the scenes?
The yelling was suddenly interrupted by a blaring sound, and everyone turned in surprise to see Madeline standing there with an air-horn in her hand. Once she had everyone's attention, she released her trigger on the air-horn and started hollering at the top of her lungs.
"You better all be sitting your asses down and shutting the fuck up within five seconds, or so help me God, I will lose it!"
Nobody dared argue with the blonde, and a few even muttered quick apologies in various languages as they sat down. A silence then filled the room that would allow them to hear a pin drop.
"You fuckers better listen up, because I'm only giving you this warning once," Madeline continued as she began pacing along her end of the table, "This warehouse belongs to a grouchy old lady who is sleeping upstairs as we speak. I warned her that she might hear this air-horn at least once if I need to shut you all up, but that's all the charity she will provide us. If I have to use this more than once, or if the yelling wakes her up, she has my permission to call the police and have them crash the meeting. Do I make myself abso-fucking-lutely clear?"
Various mutterings of acceptance and apologies came forward, and Madeline allowed her enraged expression to calm into a relaxed one. She took her seat again, placed the air-horn on the table, and picked up a sheet of paper that was there instead.
"Now, let us proceed with this meeting, shall we? As tonight's mediator, I understood that each group has various concerns that they want addressed, and we will attempt to get to each of them in turn. I already asked Mikkel, Romulus and Yong Soo for their ranking of importance for all the topics, and have put together this meeting schedule to keep our discussions to a single item at a time. If you do have a topic you want addressed, please keep it to either the section of the meeting it is involved in, or save it for any extra time we have at the end."
Natalya looked at the meeting schedule in front of her as Madeline began to introduce the first topic, noting that Im Yong Soo might be the only Triad member who would likely have much to say in the meeting. As she placed the schedule back on the table, she saw Im Yong Soo slide his hand under her arm and leave her a note. Her eyebrow raised as she discreetly took the note, unfolded it, and read its contents.
You didn't get to answer me before, and you still look agitated. Who were those 'bastards' you were muttering about?
Natalya softly chuckled to herself, before grabbing the pen between them. She saw Yong Soo watching her as she flipped the note over, so she positioned her hand and allowed him to watch as she wrote a response on the back.
I'll have to tell you the long version later. The short version is that Ivan and Antonio are very dangerous ghosts from my past.