But then my stomach gives a familiar roll of nausea. I close my eyes and cross my hands over my stomach. “At least let me finish eating before you squeeze it back out again, baby.”
Oh. God. I just spoke to my unborn child. This is really happening.
My hands smooth over my abdomen. I can’t feel any changes there yet, but there’s a baby inside. A small creation that’s part Dante and part me. Meremonthsfrom now, I’ll be holding him or her. It’s unbelievable.
I always thought I’d have children someday, but not this soon. I guess with the way my sisters and I grew up, I was afraid of what kind of life I’d be bringing them into. My mom’s apartment in Miami isn’t exactly worst-case scenario, but it almost feels like it sometimes.
Still, her place is better than being in the clutches of a lying, selfish, greedy-ass manipulative bastard of a husband.
Tearing into the last few bites of my burger, I try to push away all thoughts of Dante and focus on getting this food down. Afterward I wipe my mouth, take a long drink of water, and then pause. For a few seconds, I feel great. And then my stomach lurches.
Bolting out of the chair, I make a run for the dingy employee restroom, where I immediately throw that delicious burger right back up.
Damn.
Well, maybe Ruben will burn something he can set aside for me later.
3
Dante
Marcoand I have been trying to figure out the identity of the man Bregman implicated in our father’s murder, but we keep coming up empty-handed.
He sent Bregman’s phone to a woman named Yael who we contract with (under the table) for help with tech stuff, but despite her detailed sweep of the cell, it was no dice. The burner phone didn’t have any clues as to who—or where—the blonde man might be. To boot, the international number he’d texted from was, in fact, another burner phone. Which meant it wasn’t registered to anybody. Yael traced the number to an old school phone card company, but they sell prepaid phones all over the world, so we essentially hit a dead end.
Yael also turned off the tracking on Bregman’s phone so that no one would be able to trace it back to us—and so, out of options, we made a last-ditch attempt to pose as Bregman and text the blonde man. But our efforts to fool him into dropping clues hadn’t worked. After our initial exchanges, we didn’t receive any more responses. Marco says there was probably some kind of code word in the texts that we didn’t reply to properly.
We do, however, continue to receive texts from Bregman’s employer, girlfriend, and mother. Concerned at first that he’s missing, then angry that he apparently skipped town, and finally back to more concern and even panic. My insides go sour every time another message comes through. One of them will be calling the cops any day now, and we’ll have to destroy the phone for good.
This whole business with Bregman has been one more reminder of why my brothers and I are divesting ourselves for good of the sordid empire our father built.
Still, knowing that people care about Bregman doesn’t make me regret putting him out of his misery for the part he played in my father’s murder—and would have played in Marco’s, if he’d gotten the chance to tamper with Marco’s race car. Hell, I’d kill a hundred Bregmans to keep my family safe.
Even with Bregman out of the way, I can’t stop thinking about somebody tampering with my little brother’s car. Marco is reckless in almost every aspect of his life. Speed and adrenaline feed him. And while I’m sure his team is careful to check over his vehicle before he gets on the track, a skilled professional mechanic would know how to subtly tamper with it. I’ve had dreams almost every night of Marco’s Porsche going up in a ball of flame.
And if Marco is a target, I’m sure that Armani and myself are too. Likely Frankie as well. I don’t know yet how deep this goes, but we’re going to find out.
Speaking of Frankie, my wife has been gone for several weeks now. My calls and texts to her initially went unanswered, and then were blocked. So I went back and retraced her activities the last day I saw her, which led me to Ruby. She’d told me all about the financial documents Frankie had demanded for review. Including one very incriminating one.
“If you need to fire me, Mr. Bellanti, I understand,” Ruby had said, chin up.
“Ruby, you’ve been working in these offices for almost forty years,” I told her. “You’re not going anywhere. Unless you want to.”
She’d shaken her head emphatically. “I care about my job, and I care about your family. I’d like to stay.”
That loyalty is exactly why I’d never fire Ruby. On top of which, she’s a damn good admin. Competent, professional, highly discreet when necessary, and generally very pleasant.
What’s not so pleasant is the fact that my wife knows everything now. About the debts I forgave…and the one I didn’t. Her own family’s debt.
And while she has no idea why I did the things the way that I did, knowing her, she assumed the worst. And then she ran. Even though she had everything she could have possibly wanted here.
Well. Maybe not everything. I never gave her the full truth.
Obviously I know exactly where she is and what she’s been doing since she left. I’d turned on the GPS theft tracker on the Jag soon after she turned up missing, and watched her drive clear across the country. Straight to her mother’s place in Miami. Which I admit did surprise me. I would have checked a very long list of places before even considering looking for Miriam Abbott, who also goes by Miriam Wright, and who works a part-time job at some women’s boutique in Coral Gables and appears to have an active social life. Armani hasn’t had any trouble digging up information.
It’s taken all my willpower not to force Frankie to come home. In truth, the only reason I haven’t tried is because I don’t know if it would work. And if she runs again, she won’t be so sloppy with the trail of breadcrumbs next time. She’s a clever woman, even if she gets some of her facts muddled from time to time. At least with her in Miami, I can keep tabs on her.
I get up from my desk and take my tablet over to the window to look once more at the photos Armani’s surveillance guy sent me this morning. Good God, Frankie is really bad at waitressing.
