Page 74 of Dirty Pool

Including now.

I’ll be there, she texted back.

THIRTEEN

“I should kill you.”

In the backseat of the town car flying through the downtown streets of Detroit, Michel’s first thought was that’s nice. Thankfully, his arrogance decided that probably wasn’t the right thing to reply to Sal’s statement, and he kept quiet. Turning the screen of his phone off as the Capo looked over at him from the other side of the vehicle, he wanted to keep his last text to Gabbie asking her to meet up with him later private from the man.

Especially after that statement.

“Pardon me?” Michel asked.

“Yes, exactly that,” Sal snapped back at him. “Excuse you, Michel. You seem to forget what blood runs through your veins, and where your loyalties are in this city. Would you care to let me remind you?”

Michel’s jaw clenched. “Not particularly.”

He seriously doubted Sal gave a shit about Michel’s opinion here. And he didn’t particularly care to hear Sal spew his bullshit, either.

“I should kill you,” the man repeated, shaking his head, the frustration clear in the lines on his brow. Tension drifted through the car, heavy and unpredictable. A lot like what Sal’s intentions with Michel were, and what he might do next. “If you were any other man, I would fucking kill you for what you did here today.”

Michel arched a brow. “And what did I do? Take off classes because you demanded I follow you to a meeting today. I’m not a made man—I don’t have to follow your goddamn rules, Sal.”

“I’ve never been more aware of your standing, Michel. Trust that.”

“What in the—”

“The only thing that’s keeping you alive right now is the fact your father is the boss of the largest North American crime family—that is it. Because if your father wasn’t who he is, I would have you delivered to him in enough little pieces that they would never be able to put back together before they buried you.”

Okay, that was quite a threat.

Michel respected it, even.

“All this because I chose to see Gabbie Casey,” Michel stated.

It wasn’t even a question.

Sal laughed a bitter sound, and swung his gaze to the window where he could watch the buildings and streets pass their vehicle by. “See, right? That’s a funny way to explain how you’ve been regularly fucking the Irishwoman behind everyone’s back, I suppose.”

Was it behind their backs, though?

Because Michel didn’t think so.

There was a difference between purposely doing something with the intent of hiding it from others, and simply thinking it wasn’t anyone’s business in the first place. He was more of the latter opinion than the former. This conversation was the perfect example of exactly why he felt like that, too.

They didn’t care about him, or what he wanted. All they expected Michel to do was toe the line of what they thought was acceptable, and his opinions didn’t matter at all to their endgame. Something he still hadn’t figured out, and it was yet another reason why he didn’t trust one of them anymore.

“I’m not a made man,” Michel told Sal again. “You don’t, and will never, get to dictate to me who I can date, or otherwise. And even if I was a made man, you can bet your ass that I would always defer to my father before I would ever remotely consider defaulting to your opinion or wants about my life.”

Michel wanted it heard, no excuses.

It better be understood now.

He’d let the Detroit faction of the Marcello family control him a little too much since making friends with Sal, and some of the others in the man’s crew. It was made worse when he agreed to work for the man, but that was over now. Sal didn’t even have that way to control Michel, anymore, and good thing. Because he’d have told him to shove it right up his ass after today.

“I hope that’s fucking clear,” Michel said, his tone as sharp as a blade’s edge. “Because I don’t ever want to have to say it again. You have never—and will never—get a say about me, or my choices because I didn’t take your oath. Remember that.”

Sal chuckled, dark and edgy. “Oh, I can’t forget it. Honor, respect, and loyalty, Michel. Three things the code of Cosa Nostra asks from us men. All things you don’t seem to have the slightest grasp on in any way.”