Page 97 of Thin Lives

“And do you think it’s going unnoticed by everyone else around you, or what?” Ray asked, a biting sarcasm thickening his tone. “All of your men see it—they’re talking. You’re too old for this, they think. You’re letting shit go when you should be handling it. They think you’re weak, and maybe you are. Maybe you are—”

Ray’s words cut off with a garbled choking sound that made Emma’s breath catch hard in her chest.

“Would you like to finish that thought?” Affonso asked, deadly calm. “Or would you like to think it over first? I’ll give you a few seconds to choose, but know, you leaving here tonight with your tongue still in your mouth depends on your answer, Ray.”

“My apologies, b-boss.”

A few more seconds passed before Emma heard a loud intake of air whoosh, like someone had taken a long, deep breath.

“You have to understand, I’m only telling you for your benefit,” Ray said quietly.

“Or is because now you think you have a chance at my seat with Calisto gone?” Affonso asked.

“He isn’t really gone, though, is he?”

“Do you know where my son is?”

“No,” Ray said.

“Then I will go on assuming he didn’t survive the aftermath of my message,” Affonso replied. “He might have made it out of the alleyway, but that doesn’t mean he won’t still show up in a morgue somewhere.”

Ray didn’t respond.

Affonso chuckled darkly.

“Maybe you should go underground, too,” Ray suggested. “Get away for a bit—take your wife and son until this is all settled.”

“Your intentions are showing.”

“No, you’re just paranoid.”

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you, Ray,” Affonso said after a long while. “That hand can kill you just as quickly, and just as easily.”

Behind her, Emma heard the soft wails of Cross starting up again.

She couldn’t get back to her son fast enough.

Emma couldn’t remember a time when she had felt as nervous and unsettled as she did walking into the large, three-level mall alone.

Well, she wasn’t exactly alone.

Glancing over her shoulder, she found her enforcer trailing behind a few steps. But even with him there, it didn’t help the sinking feeling in her chest. At Affonso’s demand that morning, he’d informed Emma that she needed to get out and update her wardrobe with a few things for some events they had coming up.

Dinners, charities, and that sort of thing.

Apparently the walk-in closet full of designer dresses wasn’t good enough, because she had worn them all at least once in their marriage. He wanted her to have new things.

Emma tried to refuse, saying she would order stuff in, but Affonso wasn’t having that. Her stomach had dropped a little more when she asked if she could take Cross along, and was quickly refused that request, too.

She hadn’t left Cross alone once since his birth two and a half months earlier. Certainly not for long enough that she couldn’t be there if he needed her.

As she walked to the first escalator and stepped on the moving stairs, Emma reminded herself that Sherry—their cook—was there to handle the baby. Affonso would likely leave Cross with her, knowing he was out of his element for most things the baby needed.

Heaven forbid he had to see a dirty diaper.

It wasn’t long before Emma found a department store she recognized. The dresses might not have the label Affonso would approve of, but she had no desire to drive further across New York just to go to those specialty boutiques. Her husband would have to settle for what she could get close to home.

While Emma searched through racks, and tossed dress after dress over her arm to try on, her mind was somewhere else entirely. Between worrying over her son, and obsessing over Calisto’s still missing status, she rarely had any room left in her mind for much else.