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“Your nephew came to my place intending to kill me and plant this. He wanted to make it look like I was stealing from you and he took care of the problem.” Nate leaned onto the four-top and felt the tips of his fangs tingle with aggression. God, he fucking hoped Uncle or one of his cousins did something stupid. “I don’t give a fuck who you are, you don’t show up on my property and try to pull that shit. He got what he deserved.”
Uncle stared forward for a couple of beats. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Jimmie Gimp and Blue Bill. “This guy. Can you believe it. Comes in here talking ill of our dead.”
“You know I’m right.” Nate kept his voice level. Not that it was hard. “Mickey was always trying to get up on it, but he never could function any higher than where he was. That’s why you never promoted him.”
Uncle shook his head. “You kill one of us, you know what the punishment is.”
“So try to drill a hole in my head right now,” Nate said in a bored tone. “Please, fucking do it. ’Cuz then I’ll be totally justified when I kill the three of you where you are, and walk out of here with a smile on my face.”
Uncle’s brows flickered. Then he laughed in an honest way and tossed back everything that was in his glass.
The ice clinked as he set the empty down with a smack. “You are the craziest motherfucker I ever met.”
“That is a correct statement.”
“But that doesn’t mean I believe a fucking word you—”
Nate was beyond done dealing with everything, so to cut the conversation short, he burrowed into the boss’s mind—and implanted what he’d learned when he’d popped the top off of Mickey’s consciousness and peered inside.
Uncle hissed and winced, rubbing at his temple. And then when that meaty paw lowered, he looked across the table with banked surprise… like he was trying to comprehend how the math equation, which he understood with total clarity, had gotten into his head.
“Mickey got what he deserved,” Nate repeated. “He made the choice, he ate the consequences. You know I got problems with no one. I just do what I do. In ten years, I haven’t fucked with anybody in your family. I let them make all the money, take all the women, and do all the things. I’ve been loyal to you, I’ve executed the assignments you’ve given me with no questions, and you and me, we’ve never had any trouble. Let’s not fucking start now. You won’t like what happens next, and I’ll be out of a good job.”
There was a stretch of silence. Then Uncle looked at the other two men and indicated the door with a sharp nod.
Jimmie Gimp huffed. “That ain’t smart—”
“Leave,” Uncle said. “Now.”
Nate focused on the blank wall straight ahead of him as the pair of organized crime felons played four-year-old-getting-kicked-out-of-the-birthday-party. When the door finally closed behind them, he looked at Uncle.
“Mickey was who he was. I’m sorry for your loss.”
Uncle lifted his glass to the ceiling and murmured something. Then he took a sip of melted ice cube. “Rest in peace.”
After that, it was just a question of waiting. Uncle liked to take his time as an exercise of control.
“Where’s the body,” he said eventually.
“There’s nothing left of it.”
That stare got good and icy as the man shook his head on a jerk. “His mother needs something to bury.”
Nate shrugged. “So give me someone to kill. I’ll give you a body.”
Bitty woke up on the couch in Safe Place’s living room, her eyes opening slowly on a flutter. As the ceiling came into focus and she recognized the nice landscape oil painting over the fireplace, she went to sit—
“Whoa, whoa,” Mary said. “Take it easy.”
As Bitty allowed herself to get urged back down, she tried to stitch together what had happened. She’d been at her desk in her office, and something had caught her attention—
All at once, she saw L.W. leaning into her, draping her with his heavy leather jacket… the one that smelled like him and was warm from his own body. Then he was staring into her eyes, and asking her—
“Where is he,” she blurted.
“Do you want to tell me what happened?” her mom asked.
Focusing on the female, Bitty had an urge to tear up and she tried to beat that back. Mary was already worried, that familiar face tight withconcern, the short cap of brown hair tousled as if she’d been pulling her hands through it.
