Page 22 of Don’t Say Mafia

I scoffed. “Unbelievable. A man can’t casually pull background information on a woman?”

Cruz grinned unrepentantly.

“I thought we valued privacy in this organization,” I continued. “Discretion. Brotherhood.”

“You requested her full personnel file,” he said dryly. “Do you really think Lawson wasn’t going to say something? You’ve never done that before.”

“I allegedly requested her full file,” I dismissed. “Maybe I was simply conducting a thorough evaluation of an exemplary employee.”

Cruz stared at me incredulously.

“I take talent retention very seriously. You know that,” I added.

He smiled, looking deeply entertained and somewhat demonic. “This should be fun.”

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I checked it immediately, even knowing Cruz was watching and taking notes. My thumb unlocked the screen with the ease of someone who had absolutely not been refreshing it every few minutes since I told Lawson to dig.

The file was live.

I scrolled through her schedule and address while Cruz kept talking, obviously only half listening to him. Nothing jumped out at first. It was all pretty routine and predictable.

Until I got to her method of transportation . . . public transit.

I slowed my scroll, seeing her bus route and the fact that she would be boarding in four minutes.

The amusement drained out of me. It was two a.m., not a great time for her to be riding the bus alone. I slipped the phone into my pocket and stood, not understanding why I was standing but going with the impulse either way.

“I’m going to be a bit,” I said.

Cruz stopped mid-sentence and studied me. “That sounds like the beginning of a bad decision.”

“Relax,” I replied lightly. “I just need to run an errand.”

He didn’t ask what kind; he just smirked at me knowingly. “Don’t take too long,” he said.

“I won’t,” I called, already moving.

The motorcycle rumbled to life beneath me, the vibration settling something restless in my chest as I pulled out into traffic. Vegas stretched around me, wide awake despite the hour, pulsing as it refused to acknowledge the concept of sleep.

I’d always loved that about it. The city never apologized for what it was. It just kept moving.

I caught sight of the bus a few blocks ahead and adjusted my speed, keeping enough distance to avoid attention while never losing it. The strip of polished neon and curated chaos started thinning the farther we went, the lights getting harsher, the buildings more run-down . . . all the illusion of glamour peeling away in tired, cracked layers.

The bus veered off the main drag and into a part of town I hadn’t been to in a while. The boarded windows and bars on the glass of the buildings didn’t exactly call to me. I gritted my teeth as the bus sighed to a stop and the doors folded open. She stepped down exactly where the file said she would. Her shoulders squared as her gaze swept the street in a quick, practiced scan that told me a lot about how long she’d been living in shitty situations.

Eden started walking quickly down the sidewalk, and I hurried to park so I could follow her on foot without attracting her attention.

A streetlight stuttered overhead, casting an uneven glow that caught on the broken glass scattered along the curb where a car window had been bashed in. A man lay passed out on the pavement nearby, a syringe, crumpled foil, and a rusted spoon scattered beside him, spelling out exactly what he’d been doing before he went down.

She didn’t slow or even spare him a glance . . . like it didn’t warrant her energy because the sight of him was so normal.

Something dark twisted in my chest. I wasn’t shocked by the scene; I’d usually seen worse before breakfast. But she was moving through it all like prey that had accepted the ecosystem.

Where the hell was her husband?

The building she stopped in front of made me test all that willpower I’d been so proud of tonight. Peeling paint curled away from the siding. One exterior light buzzed weakly, threatening to give up at any second. The stairs sagged under years of use and neglect.

I watched as she jogged up the steps to the third story, unlocking the door and slipping inside quickly.