Page 90 of Dirty Pool

That was the point.

“Maybe,” Michel said, pointing a finger at the man because he was just feeling that kind of mood now, “had you answered any one of my phone calls, or allowed me to see you earlier in the week when I came around, it wouldn’t have come to this today. Right?”

Sal’s lips flattened into a grim line. “I don’t owe you anything, Michel. And I also don’t answer to you. If you’ve forgotten that this still isn’t New York after all this time, that’s not my problem. That sounds like an issue you need to work on.”

Michel let that comment roll off his shoulders like it was nothing. Because frankly, now it was nothing to him. These fucking Italians here kept using that statement to throw at Michel like it was supposed to be an insult. He no longer took it that way—he couldn’t. He knew this place wasn’t New York. No one in New York would behave the way these people did.

“I have questions about—”

“I don’t care,” Sal interjected sharply. “You no longer have anything I need, Michel. I got what I wanted from you, and now here we are.”

Michel stilled on the spot, confused.

What in the hell was Sal talking about?

“You got what you wanted,” Michel echoed.

“That’s what I said.”

Except it didn’t make sense, did it? What had Michel really given Sal? He worked for the man as a dealer for a couple of months, but that was it. It wasn’t like Michel had any real hand in the man’s business, or anything of that nature. He’d rarely been allowed a seat at the table when business was happening.

It just didn’t click.

And then all at once … it did.

The Irish kept saying it, didn’t they?

The Italians only want a war.

Michel knew enough about the families in Detroit to know there had always been a tenuous relationship between the Casey and Vannozzo families. They barely tolerated one another on their good days, and the Italians always felt like the Irish had a little too much control in the city. A complaint they often voiced whenever the Irish came up in conversation.

Yet … there were rules in this world.

Peace was peace.

No one disrupted peace without a reason.

Had Michel been the reason?

Gabbie, too?

Had he given them a reason—as stupid and as petty as it might be—to cause a problem with the Irish that would eventually lead them into war? Because wasn’t that exactly what they were heading to, now?

Michel thought so.

The Irish wouldn’t budge. They refused to feed into the violence the Italians kept throwing at them. Michel might not be on the front lines, but he knew just enough people to get details about the current happenings in the city. He could also watch the news on any given day, and see the escalating violence playing out on the streets day in and day out, although they tried not to name names.

He didn’t need names.

He knew how this worked.

Michel grew up in this life.

“Are you talking about … the Irish?” Michel asked, arching a brow because he was silently daring this motherfucker to deny it. “Are you saying you used me as an opening to get to the Irish—you thought, oh, there it is, and you what, fucking took it?”

Sal chuckled darkly. “Michel, don’t be offended. It’s really not about you. I just saw the opportunity because I knew the girl’s father would be uncomfortable with an Italian from our side of things being so close to her … and so I took it. I got what I wanted.”

“Yeah, you want a fucking war.”