Page 31 of Complications

COLLISION

CHAPTER ONE

Joey

“Fake Joey said to come out.”

“And you fucking believed him?” I shouted.

I stepped back immediately when Matteo’s look hit me. Jesus. That could melt glass. If I wanted to keep my job, my life, and probably my balls, I needed to remember who the fuck I was talking to.

“Would you like to try that again?” Matteo drawled.

“Connor, you said you were going to the restroom. I cleared it, and then you asked me to go get whatever the fuck that dirt was. I told you not to leave the restroom. Why did you?” I asked through clenched teeth.

As pissed as I was, I didn’t want Connor thinking this was on him. I’d fucked up my own goddamn job. It wasn’t his job to look out for threats. It was mine, and I’d failed spectacularly.

“You sounded a little weird, but I thought it was just the echo in the restroom or whatever, so I went.”

Connor looked small sitting on the leather sofa in Matteo’s office. Matteo had him tucked up against him, close and protected. The bruises on his cheek made me sick. I’d fucked up, and Connor had paid the price.

By the time I got back from my errand—two minutes, tops—the guy already had him. Grabbed him, smacked him around a little bit, and was trying to hustle him out the door before anyone noticed. If I’d been even thirty seconds longer, it would’ve been too late.

As it was, I needed to figure out who the hell would be stupid enough to drag Connor into anything. Anyone familiar with Matteo knew he’d burn the world down before he let Connor get hurt.

“It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”

As if my screw-up hadn’t been enough, Frankie was in the room too. He hadn’t bothered to join the group near the sitting area. He was off to the side like always, watching like some goddamn eagle perched above us. His face was, as always, blank—unless he was looking at me. Then it showed revulsion. He looked at me like I was shit beneath his heel.

I probably was.

Frankie had been part of Matteo’s crew since he was conceived. His dad had been Matteo’s father’s bodyguard. It was a given that he’d eventually work for the Leone family. Me? I’d worked my way up the crew because I was fucking good at my job. Unlike generational trust, my dad was a rat. All that work, and now I might be demoted to a goddamn gopher.

Doc had been called on the way home and met us at the door. Other than a few scrapes, Connor hadn’t been seriously injured, but Matteo wasn’t taking any chances. Doc had remained in the room, and Elio had joined us. Him being there was another reminder that my track record lately was in the motherfucking basement.

Elio had been misjudged by everyone, including me. I’d been convinced he was the fuck-up who needed a babysitter. Matteo had wanted to keep him out of the business altogether, but Doc saw through the distraction of his brash, overly flirtatious, pain-in-the-ass self. They were obnoxiously all over each other all the time now, and Elio was kicking ass in his legit job of community outreach for the on-the-books portion of Matteo’s business and the unofficial voice of the men for the other side.

Sam, an even bigger fuck-up, had been brought on by me, and he’d tried to rob Matteo blind and blame Elio for it. I’d vetted him from here to fucking Sunday, but I’d missed something somewhere. It made no goddamn sense because until now, I’d never been so wrong.

“Before you beat yourself up too badly, I heard from a friend,” Matteo said. Given that I was doing nothing but spiraling into every fuck-up I’d ever made, I was all ears to learn how I wasn’t the goddamn problem. “Sam was a plant.”

“What?”

“Pardon?”

Oh, the robot was joining the conversation. Frankie stepped forward, and I forced myself to stay rooted where I stood at the end of the sofa. He wasn’t going to push me around. We weren’t fifteen anymore.

For the first time, I also noticed Connor looked stricken and not in the “a bad thing happened” way, but in the “my world is falling apart” way. It was very much like the day he found out how dirty his uncle had done him. Whatever information Matteo’s friend had given him wasn’t good.

“Yeah, he was working for someone.”

“Fucking rat.”

“Yeah, but he was also on the take, so…” Matteo trailed off before he looked dead on at me and then turned to do the same to Frankie. “My friend thinks he might’ve given the police something on both of you.”

His words sank in slowly. It was a struggle to process their meaning in real time. We were so fucking careful because not a goddamn one of us wanted to end up in prison. This day couldn’t possibly get any worse.

“So what’s that mean right now?” Leave it to Frankie to ask the stupid question I also wanted answered.