Page 56 of Blood Money
I knocked on the door, then walked in, as I was accustomed to doing.
“Oh! Whoa!” I called out as I slapped a hand over my eyes and spun away. The scrambling rustle behind me told me I’d shocked the shit out of them. “That’s something I can never unsee, Gabe. Have you never heard of locks?”
“Have you never heard of waiting for a reply before busting in?” Gabriel replied to the sound of his belt clinking as he refastened it.
Alia, his girlfriend, was frantically whispering before I heard the bookcase slide open. “Sorry about that!” she said with a giggle, and the bookcase closed. She took the hidden elevator back up to Gabriel’s apartment.
“Do you have your dick put away safely?” I impatiently asked.
“Maybe,” Gabriel replied, and I rolled my eyes.
Too bad if he didn’t because I turned around.
“Jesus. In the office?” I asked with an arched brow.
“Hey, when I have a woman like her, I’ll take it anywhere I can get it,” Gabriel shot back. “Now, what was so important that you had to barge into my office?”
“I still can’t find out who’s behind the increase in gang activity. Catalano found the kid who played lookout in the bakery robbery. He said his buddy asked him to make sure no one came in but swears he didn’t realize that was what his friend was planning. Georgie picked up the buddy this morning. That asshole refused to tell us who he was with—claims he was acting independently.”
“But you don’t believe that?” Gabriel sat at his desk, strumming his fingers on the top.
“Hell no, I don’t. He has a tattoo on his arm that matched one on a guy we found with a bullet between his eyes after a supposed gang altercation.”
“Did we call a meeting with Hefty?”
Hefty was the head of the gang the little fucker who was selling meth in our nightclub belonged to. It was supposedly the gang that left the bullet in the dead tattooed guy.
“Yeah, Catalano is meeting with him tonight. But he swears he didn’t authorize the nightclub sale. Says the kid’s customer told him to meet him there.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. Kid was an absolute prick. Cocky enough to think he didn’t have to play by the rules. Who knows? I’m just tired of coming up with dead ends. It’s pissing me the fuck off.” I stalked to the floor-to-ceiling windows and stared absently out at the city we ran.
“Vittorio. Chill out. We have people working on this. It’s not all on you. They’ve been very good at covering their tracks, but theywillslip up. And when they do? We end them.”
“What if I can’t wait for that?” I turned my head to face him.
He studied me like I was a species of animal he’d never seen before. “What’s really going on with you?” he asked, his tone dropping an octave.
“Kendall’s back. She’s running the bakery.”
“You mean she’s staying?” I nodded. “Well, fuck.”
Gabriel was the only one who knew the truth.
I rested my head on the cool glass.
“These are different times. We run things now. Maybe if you talk to her, tell her the truth,” he reasoned.
“And what? She forgives ten years? Forgets the heartache I caused? I still have her text messages.”
“What? How?Why?”
“Fuck, it’s stupid, but I saved that old phone. The piece of shit won’t hold a charge anymore, but if I plug it in….” I did it to torture myself. It was my punishment. My reminder of why she’d been better off without me.
“Butwhy?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I muttered, closing my eyes.