Page 88 of Dirty Pool

“I’m quite smart,” Michel replied.

Even to his own ears, his voice was hoarse.

He’d not gotten nearly enough sleep, and then to be woken up only to have Gabbie yanked from the hotel room before they kicked the shit out of him … well, it wasn’t looking like it would be a great day.

He was tired.

Of everything.

“Aye, tell him, Aidan,” one of the older men said.

Michel’s brow dipped.

Aidan.

Suddenly, he remembered where he knew the younger guy from. At the club that first night when he was fixing Gabbie’s arm up, Aidan had come to the doorway with the girl … Aine. Weren’t they … cousins of Gabbie?

What did it even matter?

“Last warning from the boss,” Aidan said, “because he won’t feck around a second time, Italian. Stay away from his daughter … all you Italians want is a war, and he won’t have you using her as another pawn to get what you want. You feckin’ hear me?”

Michel blinked.

He didn’t want a war at all.

“Are you deaf, lad?”

Michel glanced up at the guy still hovering above him with fists ready to rain down on him once again. Like every other man that still remained in that room. He really didn’t give much of a shit about any of them.

He had other things to consider, now.

Both sides still thought he was … playing for the other side. The truth was a hell of a lot simpler than that. Michel was fucking Switzerland, here. He respected the life his father brought him into, even if it was from the outside looking in, when it came to the Italian side of things. And he loved Gabbie like nothing and nobody else, so he had no interest in causing her or the people she came from any harm, either.

But they thought he did.

Michel’s decision was set, then. He couldn’t be Switzerland anymore, and expect to come out of this thing a winner. And to him, being a winner meant having the thing he wanted more than anything else.

Gabbie.

He was going to have to do whatever he needed to do to get her—pick a side, make it easier for someone to win … or something else entirely.

Michel didn’t know yet.

He needed a plan.

• • •

Gabbie’s phone was either destroyed, trashed, or hidden away somewhere. It had to be—otherwise, why two weeks after being pulled out of the hotel room would she still not be answering his calls or texts? And she had made no effort to attempt to contact him in any way, either.

Michel didn’t think that was her choice. There was no way his girl would purposely keep a distance from him unless she was being forced to do so. Which only pissed him off even more.

So, he put those two weeks to use.

Or … tried.

Something was happening that Michel didn’t understand at all. Just a couple of months ago, he could have called any number of Italians—including Sal, and people in the man’s crew—and they would have picked up his calls in a heartbeat. If he asked for something, they would make sure he had it. He’d been invited into their spaces and allowed to be near when business was happening.

Now?