Page 9 of Twisted Throne
If we were lucky she would ghost Angelo just like her mother Catherine did all those years ago. Something told me that it wouldn’t be that easy. She was obviously nervous this morning, but I saw some fire flash in her eyes when I tried to spook her off.
Thinking back to those green cat eyes glaring at me, and the feeling of my hand wrapped around her delicate arm made my cock twitch. There was something about her that's sticking with me. Dainty but fierce, like the half-grown cats that roamed the alleys when I was a kid. I kind of wanted to see the claws. When I grabbed her arm, I wanted to yank her against my chest and watch the desire rise up in her eyes, to hear my name in her mouth. Groaning, I adjusted my pants slightly and tried to focus. I didn’t have time for women in my life at the best of times, and now was no exception.
Trying to shake the thoughts of Gia out of my head, I sighed and checked my phone again.Come the fuck on, Alec.I’d been waiting on a call from him for almost an hour now. After all of the uproar from Gia, Angelo, Alec, and I continued our meeting about the Sabitino issue. Antonio had crossed the line; we needed to hit back, and quick. Since Alec was generally our liaison to the majority of our informants, he was reaching out to find us a target that would hit them hard. I still didn’t trust Alec, so I’d also sent out some feelers of my own. With a snake among us, I wasn’t going to act on any information that I couldn’t also verify on my own.
My thoughts strayed back to Gia, a picture of how the fabric of her dress had clung to her breasts, the pink in her cheeks when she ran into me, and the gasp she made. But before I could get too lost in my thoughts, my phone began to buzz.
I glanced at the screen and saw Alec’s name pop up.
About damn time. I swiped to answer.
“Find something?” I said, skipping any pretense of pleasantry with him.
“Of course I fucking did,” he snapped back at me. “There’s a customs agent named Joshua Evans that’s been looking the other way on shipments coming in for the Sabitinos. Word is that Antonio Jr. has been bringing in a lot more weapons and drugs than we knew about. He’s definitely planning on expanding into our territory, and from the number of weapons he has coming in it looks like he’s gearing up for an all-out war.”
I had heard pretty much the same from my people as well.
“So we not only send a message of strength, but we cut off a large part of his supply chain as well. We can piss him off and cripple him all at once. Do you have someone with eyes on Joshua Evans now? I’d like to get this taken care of immediately if possible,” I replied.
“Frank is tailing him now, waiting for the word.”
“I want to talk to him first, see if he can tell us anything new. Tell Frank to bring him to Leroy’s, and ensure he can still talk when he gets there. I’ll be there shortly,” I directed, hanging up before he could respond, chuckling to myself at how much I knew that would have pissed him off.
***
I pulled around to the back of Leroy’s, a decent-sized bar downtown.
Leroy has been a friend of the family for many years. Not only did his bartenders make some of the best drinks in the area, he kept his ear to the ground for us and let us know if he happened to hear something useful. There was an added benefit of an unused storeroom in the back that we made use of from time to time. The place stayed busy enough that it was easy to pass through more or less unnoticed. And the pounding of the music and the constant noise from the crowd meant that any of the noises that should occasionally issue from within the storeroom would go unnoticed.
I entered from the alley door running alongside the building. Ordinarily, I would have gone inside and grabbed a scotch first, if for no other reason than to make Alec wait on me. But it had been a long, frustrating day, and I didn’t particularly feel like dealing with Alec for longer than necessary.
He was standing outside the storeroom door when I walked in. The music was loud, even back here.
“He just came to about fifteen minutes ago,” he said and turned to open the door.
“Wait,” I told him as he reached for the door.
He turned around sharply to glare at me.
“I can handle this. I need you to reach back out to your people, and see if there’s anything else going on we need to know about,” I said. Until I could be sure Alec wasn’t the leak, I wanted to limit the amount of information he knew about.
“They know to contact me if anything new turns up,” he said tersely.
“Check again. Maybe they’ve remembered something more.”
I saw the internal struggle he was undergoing. As much as he’d love to tell me to go fuck myself, he was smart enough to not disobey a direct order either.
“Fine, I’ll let the guys know you’ll need some cleanup,” he replied, then turned and walked briskly to the door.
I loosened my tie as I stepped through the door into the bare room. Joshua Evans was waiting for me, all nice and secured. He looked worried, but not scared. That was about to change.
“Hello, Joshua. I’m Paul, and we’re going to have a little chat,” I said as I began to roll up my shirt sleeves.
“I have a family, please! He said I’d be safe!” he protested.
“Who said?” I asked.
“Antonio! He promised me…” he trailed off, whimpering.