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Chapter One
TIZIO
“Manolo, man, thanks for coming.”
I’m trying to find the right fucking words here because prison isn’t a place I imagined I’d be visiting Fallon, one of my oldest friends.
“Shit.” My gaze drops to a tattoo on his inner wrist. I know fucking gang ink when I see it. “Want to explain?”
He tugs the long sleeve of the shirt beneath the prison garb, but the material doesn’t cover it. “It’s nothing.”
“Doesn’t look like nothing. It looks like fucking gang ink.” I lean back in the chair and stare at him with hard eyes, wondering what the hell he’s gotten himself into.
“Manolo, man, I . . .” He shifts to the plastic chair on the other side of the table. Then Fallon leans forward, pushing one inked hand through his dark brown hair. “Been involved in some things, okay?”
My stomach contracts. Fallon’s always involved in something, always on whatever side of the law he chooses, and he’s smart. He’d gone to college and got a degree. Fallon easilycould’ve chosen any fast track he wanted. He’s also one of the few who know about my deep past.
He talked me down off the fucking ledge the night my family died, and inadvertently helped me to this life by route of the business we set up.
So, for Fallon to sayinvolved in some thingsfrom the other side of the table bolted to the floor in the middle of a room for visitors in a fucking prison, with gang ink tattooed on his wrist, is definitely something.
“Talk, MacNamara.”
He sighs and rubs his eyes. “As I said, I’ve been doingthings. Doing work for others—Genesis—and there are different gangs and alliances caught up. I ran afoul of the Smith Group.”
My head jerks a little as I narrow my eyes. What the fuck is Genesis? And caught up in what?
He smiles slightly, just enough that most people wouldn’t notice. I’m not most people. I’ve known him since we were eighteen and at college. We’ve fought together and almost died together, and even after I sold the security business when I met Leo De Luca and his father, we remained friends.
Brothers. Best buds. Whatever the fuck you want to call it.
He had different fish, a mother to track, people to kill and hunt, and me . . . that wasn’t my path, but I know him.
Something isn’t right.
And he mentioned the Smith Group.
Bad motherfuckers by all accounts, who are on my horizons.
Fallon mentioned them.
I need to fucking think. I wipe my hand over my face, taking in where we are in this ugly-ass prison. The guard said it was a busy day for visitors, and as a VIP, he set me up in the private room. It’s still separated, but at first, I figured the guard meant VIP on account of being an enforcer for the De Luca crime family.
Even in prisons, the mafia is treated well, both sides of the metaphorical fucking barred door.
But now I’m rethinking the VIP thing.
Is Fallon the VIP?
In here, there’s no need for phones to talk into. Just the button on the intercom. If it’s bugged, then that goes to prison staff or the warden, not general population.
Anything he says won’t get overheard by prisoners.
“What do you know of the Smith Group?” I ask, pulling my chair closer, knees hitting the underside of the bench. “And who’s Genesis?”
“The last one isn’t important. The gang ink I’m wearing . . . fuck, not important either. I’m not here as part of whatever you’re looking into, but the Smith Group is bad news, which is all I have. You’re here, my friend, because remember I told you I found my sister?”
Guilt stabs me at that. I should have met her by now, but what the hell do I have to say to a kid?
