Page 34 of Waste of Worth

“Right—a life,” Theo said, his snarkiness growing. “Is that supposed to be a joke? It felt like a joke.”

Dino sighed harshly, over the entire argument with his younger brother. “Listen, I am well aware you think I do nothing but sleep, eat, and breathe Outfit business, but the fact is, I do other shit, Theo. I have other interests. It’s not going to hurt you to take on a bit more work for the crew, if nothing else, you might fucking learn something.”

“Dino—”

“And isn’t that the whole point? You want the title to go with the button—you’re a made man, sure, but that means fuck all when you don’t have the title, too. You want to be a Capo, little brother, put in the work for it.”

Theo stewed in his anger, saying nothing in response.

Dino was grateful.

“Did you let someone in my office?” Dino asked as he flipped through the file for the fifth time.

“Who in the fuck would I let in your office?”

Dino stood straight, placing the file back in its spot and slamming the cabinet shut. He’d have to deal with the missing paperwork at another time. Maybe when he had an actual idea where the paper records might have gone.

“Nothing—never mind, it’s not important,” Dino said.

Theo stared hard at his brother as Dino grabbed his laptop off the desk, readying to leave. “Dino, I wouldn’t let someone in here. You know that, right?”

He did.

Theo had just as much to lose as Dino did where the business was concerned, should certain records fall into the wrong hands. Besides that, the brothers also managed product out of the strip club at certain times during the month. The dealers came in, traded money for bricks of cocaine, and off they went to sell for the month.

Should the cops get wind of any of that business, they would be in a hell of a lot of trouble.

Both of them.

“Is something missing?” Theo asked.

Dino shrugged on his jacket. “I probably just misplaced the papers for my offshore accounts and the transfers from them last month. I’ll find them.”

“The records of transfers into your businesses?”

“Glad you’re seeing the problem,” Dino muttered.

Theo’s brow furrowed. “I can look around and see if it is misplaced.”

“Sure, just keep people out of this office when I’m not around.”

“I didn’t let anyone in, Dino.”

Theo was the main person running the strip club, though, and that was by Dino’s recent decisions to keep him busy. So should someone have gotten in and found the few papers that would give inside details and numbers as to his illegal cash flow and how he was pillowing it into legal businesses to hide the funds, then it wouldn’t be on Theo’s head. Dino was the one allowing his brother control over who came in and out.

Dino would have to answer for shit that went wrong.

“It’s fine,” Dino said. “I’m sure it’ll show up.”

“All right.”

“And lay off the complaining, Theo. I’m only making you work for your own benefit.”

Theo scowled, but wisely chose not to argue. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m heading out, shoot me a message if you need something,” Dino told his brother as he passed him in the doorway.

“Sure.”