“Ha! Why doesn’t that surprise me? That magazine is like a manual for hookers.”
“There’s a lot of good information in there.” Alina shrugs. “You don’t seem to have any complaints.
I hum in response as I reach up and run my hands through her hair. It’s soft from the shower we shared before going to bed, and I can still smell my shampoo in it. I gather her hair in one hand and hold it out of the way as I lean forward and press my lips to the side of her neck.
I make my way up to her ear, kissing and sucking at her skin. Releasing her hair, I wrap my arms around her back and pull her closer.
“I don’t want to keep you from your work,” Alina says.
I pause, kissing her twice more before pulling back. I should continue my investigation—I feel like I’m close—but my dick disagrees.
“Your work is more fun.” I pull her down against my anxious cock and run one hand up to cup her breast. “Maybe we should just go back to bed.”
“If that’s what you want.” She tilts her head and smiles at me, but it doesn’t meet her eyes.
“What is it?” I ask as I run my hand up to her cheek. “You want to just go to sleep?”
“It’s nothing.” She shakes her head dismissively, but she isn’t convincing.
“Tell me.”
“I was just remembering something,” she says. “That’s all.”
“What were you remembering?”
“A friend from a long time ago.” She looks away for a moment.
I raise an eyebrow.
“You remind me of him,” she says softly. She licks her lips and then trails her fingers down from my temple to my jawline. She scratches at the stubble on my face, which is far more than I usually have. I’ve been busy and bad about keeping up with shaving.
“He always needed a shave?”
Alina chuckles and shakes her head. She tilts her head the other direction before leaning in and kissing me, deeper this time. I lean back, letting her take the lead as her tongue slides between my lips. She reaches down and slips her hands under my shirt, running them up my sides and making my skin tingle.
Without breaking the kiss, I stand, carrying her with me. She wraps her arms and legs around my body and holds on as I take her back into the bedroom and lay her down in the center of the bed.
Work can wait. I want her now.
*****
“This is exactly what we’ve been looking for.” I drop a thumb drive next to Jonathan’s laptop and fold my arms across my chest as he inserts it and starts checking over the contents.
Despite the lack of sleep, my mind is alert and active. Maybe the multiple rounds of sex with Alina last night contributed to how good I feel right now, but it mostly has to do with finally making a breakthrough.
“These are the accounts we were checking out,” Jonathan says as he browses, “the ones that had all the discrepancies.”
“Correct.”
“We found these accounts before. We were trying to tie them back to Landon Stark.”
“Right, but we couldn’t figure out where the money was landing in the end and couldn’t find a trace of Stark anywhere on them. Keep looking.”
I tap my foot in nervous anticipation. I can see his eyes light up when he sees what I found.
“Movement,” Jonathan mutters. “Over to the Caymans, then to China, UK, then wired back to the Caymans.” He taps on the keyboard for a minute. “Wow, that’s a lot of dough. What’s Greyter Sailor Incorporated?”
“Agriculture and fishing company,” I tell him. “Lots of land owned in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and Vancouver.”
“What the hell do you grow out there?”
“Nothing. They do have an actual fleet of shrimp boats, but they haven’t left dock in sixteen months.”
“Does Stark own it?”
“Nope.”
“Who then?” Jonathan leans back and looks at me.
“It’s an anagram.”
“No shit! Of what?”
“I took the letters of a couple of names and rearranged them into something else.” I lean over the laptop and point to the company logo. “Greyter Sailor can be repositioned to spell Taylor and Segreti.”
“Ho-lee shit. That’s custom.”
“Exactly.”
“Beni Segreti and Joshua Taylor have a company together?”
“I looked into it. Beni and Justin actually got it started. I think when Justin was eliminated, Beni pulled Joshua on board. They also have an office building in Seattle.”
“He needed someone on the outside to cover his tracks.”
“And Joshua is glad to help eliminate the man who killed his brother.”
“But Rinaldo didn’t order Justin’s hit. That was all you.”
“He doesn’t know that,” I say.
“But Beni does.”
“Beni wants to be on top. He needs funds to get himself there as well. Joshua is the ideal answer. He’s got motive to get back at the family and is the perfect liaison between Beni and the southern gangs. He has no other Chicago affiliations and would also work as the perfect scapegoat if it comes to that. More importantly, Beni needs Rinaldo out of the way, and Joshua is happy to help out.”
“Joshua is the one working with the gangs; we know that.”
“We need to figure out where he’s hiding,” I say, “and how he’s getting information to the gangs.”
“Do you think they’re still in it?”
“They at least started that way. Even after Marcello was eliminated, they still held some of our guns.”
“Like the one used to kill Felisa.”
“Just like that one.” I nod slowly as I stare at the screen, not meeting his eyes.
“We should bring this all to Rinaldo.”
“Not yet.” I shake my head. “We have to tread lightly. If Rinaldo thinks Beni has something to do with Felisa’s death, he’ll act immediately. We need to flush out anyone else involved.”
“You don’t think he could hold off?”
“Not with the funeral still ahead of us.”
“Point taken.”
“I do need to give Rinaldo something though.” I step back and take a deep breath. “I’ll tell him about the connection with Joshua. As long as we don’t know where he is, there isn’t a whole lot of action Rinaldo can take.”
“Makes sense.”
“I’ll take care of that.”
“I’ll keep going through the security cameras until I find a sign of Joshua. Now that we have more account information, I can also try to track him through access.”
“It’s a plan.” I start to gather up my stuff to leave when Jonathan speaks again.
“I got something else for ya.” Jonathan taps at the keyboard and spins the laptop around so I can see the screen. “James Marino.”
“Who’s that?”
“Your whore’s father.”
The picture on the screen is a mugshot from several years ago. James Marino was picked up for running a prostitution ring of teen girls, but someone screwed up legal procedure, and he ended up walking. Turns out he did a year for narcotics possession, but the other charges were dropped.
“Where is he now?” I ask as I try to keep my hands from shaking.
“Oak Park.”
“Is he still fucking little girls?”
Jonathan glances at me, and I’m certain he knows exactly what’s going on in my head.
“You getting attached to this hooker?” he asks.
“It doesn’t matter.” I look at him and await his answer.
“He hasn’t had any other convictions,” Jonathan said. “Looks like he got put out of business when people caught on to what was happening.”
“You have an address?”
Jonathan hands me a piece of paper with an address on it. The place actually sounds familiar, and I realize it’s only a couple of blocks from the apartment Lia was living in while I was serving time.
I stare at the paper for a while as a
plan begins to form in my head. I might need a little assistance to get it all together.
“Where’s Paulie?”
“He’s at the hospital.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“Still watching over Rinaldo. I think Lele’s there, too.”
“Rinaldo was supposed to be discharged yesterday.”
“They’re running more tests on him,” Jonathan says. “He’s going to be there a few more days.”
“What tests? How long?” I hadn’t heard any of this.
“That’s all I know.”
I don’t like the sound of it. Forgetting James Marino for a moment, I immediately head for the hospital.
Rinaldo isn’t in the same room, and I have to harass someone at the nurses’ station to figure out where he’s been moved. Once I find him, Paulie is standing outside the door.
“What’s going on? “ I ask. “He was supposed to be home by now.”
“Beats me,” Paulie says with a shrug. “I just know they moved him here yesterday. Something about some tests.”
I open the door slowly and peek inside. Lele’s sitting on a chair near Rinaldo’s bed, and he’s sitting up and shoveling manicotti in his mouth.
“Come in, Evan.” Rinaldo raises his fork in the air and uses it to motion me forward. I enter, closing the door behind me.
“Lele, a moment please.” His voice is deadpan, and Lele just nods and walks out. Her eyes are red, and I assume he’s told her about Felisa.
I stand at the foot of his bed with my hands clasped behind my back. He takes a couple more mouthfuls of the meal Lele must have smuggled in for him and then finishes with a long drink of water.
“Lucia is going to handle the rest of the funeral arrangements for Felisa. Lele’s going to help her out.”
I nod and bow my head.
“How is your investigation going?”
“Found some ties between the accounts that have missing money and Joshua Taylor,” I tell him. “We definitely have him linked with Marcello’s gang but can’t locate Taylor anywhere. I’ve got a few leads I still need to follow up on. Now that we have account numbers, Jonathan’s trying to trace him through those.”
Rinaldo nods. He presses his lips together as he pushes the tray table out of his way and sits up a bit more.
“Evan, I need to show you something. Reach over there and grab those papers.” He points at a plain manila folder on the table off to his side, and I retrieve it for him. He opens the folder and takes a deep breath as he thumbs through the papers. Once he’s found the one he’s looking for, he hands it to me.
It’s a hospital report with a bunch of test results. I know enough about medicine to recognize those regarding bone reabsorption and endocrine system functioning, but the results mean nothing to me.
“What is this?”
“The doctor found something during surgery,” he tells me.
“Found what?”
“Bone fragments.”
I narrow my eyes.
“They operated on your leg. Of course they found bone fragments. That’s where you were hit.”
“Bone tissue would be more accurate,” Rinaldo says. “More precisely, bone tissue in my blood.”
I glare down at the test paper again, trying to make some sense of it. Rinaldo is obviously trying to tell me something without actually saying the words, but I can’t seem to figure out what it is. I scan the paper more carefully, reach for the rest of the folder, and read over some of the other tests as Rinaldo watches me closely.
Bone in blood—I can see the results from other tissue samples, but they are normal. It isn’t actually bone but something similar, something warped. On the bottom of the last page, I see the term osteosarcoma, and my body goes cold.
“Bone cancer,” I say quietly.
“Exposure to oxygen when they operated has accelerated its growth.” Rinaldo’s voice is calm and factual. “It’s in my blood, endocrine, and lymph systems. Apparently, all that money I spent at the chiropractor trying to fix my back was pointless. I should ask for a refund.”
He laughs, but I can’t bring myself to find any humor in his remark. All I can do is stare at the page as my organs feel as if they are sinking into my feet. Now that I know what I’m looking for, I can see all the indicators on the test page.
“Maybe they’re wrong.” I tap my finger against the paper. “You need to have more testing done. It could be a mistake—mixed up records. Hospitals fuck up all the time.”
I meet his eyes, and my chest tightens.
“They saw it during surgery, Evan. That’s why they did the tests.”
My vision blurs as I stare at the words on the pages.
“Does Lele know?”
“Yes.”
“How long?” I barely whisper the words.
“Six to eight weeks. Maybe three months with extensive chemo and radiation, but I’m not doing that.”
“Fuck.” I close my eyes, fighting the pressure building in my head. I manage to swallow past the dry lump in my throat, but it takes a lot of effort. When I look at him, his face is stern.
“There’s a lot to be done in the next couple of months,” he says simply. “There are some things I need to tell you—places you need to go to retrieve things for Lele, Lucia, and Nick.”
“Things?” I’m not comprehending what he means. My mind is spinning in circles, and a wave of nausea hits me.
Rinaldo’s going to die.
Six to eight weeks.
I can’t grasp the idea. Of all the people I have ever known in the world, I trust Rinaldo the most. He’s always known what I need, always understood without needing an explanation. He’s the only one who has ever seen past what I’ve become and understood that there was once someone else inside of me—someone who was lost forever while I was overseas, restrained in a pit. He understood and accepted there was no changing it.
If he’s gone, what do I have left?
“Stay with me, son.”
“I’m right here, sir.”
“No, you aren’t. Focus, Evan.” I look at him, and he’s pointing to his eyes with his fingers. “Get your shit together. I need you to be strong for Gabriella and Lucia.”
I’m not together. I’m nowhere near together.
“I need to start thinking about the future,” Rinaldo says. “The future of my family, my businesses. Have a seat and I’ll explain.”
I refuse to sit down. I can’t even say why it’s important, but if I’m going to be forced to listen to this shit, I’m not going to sit down to do it.
“You know what I’m going to say.” Rinaldo sits up a little more in the hospital bed and reaches over to a glass to take a sip of water through a straw. “Lucia can’t handle the pressure—you’ve said that yourself. What did you think I would do? Turn all this over to Nick?”
I glare down at him, refusing to answer. I don’t want to have to tell him about Beni right now—not yet—but I may have to. I can’t let him start giving everything away to Beni without knowing what’s going on between him and Taylor.
“It’s you, son,” Rinaldo says. His voice is softer now. “It was always you.”
I flinch, actually taking a step back from the bed.
“What?”
“There isn’t another choice. Beni’s not really family, and I want my business to stay in my family.”
“I’m not family,” I remind him.
“Yes, you are.”
“I don’t want it.”
“That’s why you’re perfect for the job.”
No, no, no, no, no!
“I’m just a hit man,” I whisper. “I can’t do all this.”
“You know you can,” Rinaldo says. “There’s very little you haven’t already done in some capacity or another. You have the strength and the will. You have the respect. No one will cross you and live to tell about it, and everyone knows that. You’re a big part of the reason I’ve been as successful as I have. You are the best man for the
job, and I don’t have time to look for another candidate.”
“Rinaldo…” I don’t know what to say. I never wanted this. I don’t want this.
Rinaldo is dying.
“Who else can I trust, Evan? Who else will make sure my family is always taken care of? They’re giving me weeks, maybe not even that long.”
All I can do is stare at the floor. I can’t seem to make any of my muscles respond to the commands from my brain. I hear the creak of the bed as he stands, but it doesn’t quite register until he’s next to me. He takes my hand.
“Say it, Evan. Tell me you’ll take over my business and run it right.”
My throat is dry. I lick at my lips, but it doesn’t seem to provide any moisture.
“Please, Evan. You’re the only option I have.”
“I’ll do it,” I reply as my stomach seems to fall to my feet.
I really don’t know what else I can do.
Chapter 15—Impulsive Arrangement
My head is still spinning.
I don’t go to Felisa’s funeral. I can’t bring myself to attend, knowing Rinaldo and Lele would be there. Instead, I spend the day driving around the city in the spring rain.
There are so many things going through my head, it’s hard to keep track of them all. Between Beni’s obvious betrayal, the elusive Joshua Taylor, and my apparent takeover of a giant crime family, my brain just can’t cope.
Jonathan keeps calling, but I haven’t answered the phone. I’m sure he’s found something, and probably something important, but my head is full. I can’t handle any more information right now. Besides, my perspective is totally different.
Everything I do has always been about Rinaldo—protecting him, protecting his business, eliminating any threats—and now I have to think about it in completely different terms. I’ve agreed to it. I’ve agreed to honor a dying man’s wish. I’m going to take over the businesses completely, and now those threats are against me.
The problem is, I don’t really care what happens to me.
I don’t care about amassing money. There’s more money in my offshore accounts and various safe-deposit boxes around the country than I’ll ever manage to spend. I don’t care if the car shops and the clubs are doing well enough to launder all the money from the illegal businesses. I don’t care if the books are balanced. I’ve only cared about one thing—Rinaldo.