Page 24 of One Step After Another

Luca raised a brow, only hearing one thing that interested him. “What do you want to talk to me about, then?”

“Business. Or the business you were discussing with Naz at the table.”

Shit.

Nothing got past the boss.

“I was just updating him on something he has me—”

“Ah, he has you on a job, then. You’re still ... finding the unfindable, yeah?”

Luca folded his arms over his chest. “It’s what I do best.”

Cross tipped his chin down, a half nod. “Hmm. You don’t want to tell me what?”

“Do I need to?”

“No, of course not. You should be careful, though. Especially when looking for things that don’t want to be found, Luca. You might not like everything you uncover.”

What in the hell did that mean?

Cross didn’t give him the chance to ask before the man pointed at the hallway, saying, “Go get my grandson, give him an appropriate discussion about behavior while dining, and don’t discuss business at the table again. Understood?”

Luca swallowed hard, forgetting that he was a thirty-year-old man who didn’t work for Cross Donati’s crime family. He didn’t have to be. A boss was a boss ... anyone with two brain cells knew it, too.

“Understood,” Luca murmured.

• • •

THE ONLY HITCH IN LUCA’Splan to meet with the reporter he believed had information on the Smithenson family and murder was the fact that the man didn’t know they had a meeting at all. Luca wasn’t really the whole set-a-date-and-time type. He much preferred to just show up and get shit done because taking people off guard usually ended better for him.

In different ways.

His contact that first brought the reporter to his attention was the same person that ended up giving Luca the information of where to find him, too. The shitty bar in Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t much to look at and wasn’t one Luca had visited before because when he needed to drink himself into oblivion, a place like this wasn’t where he liked to do it.

But it didn’t matter what he liked.

William Doley liked the place just fine by the looks of the half-empty glass of whiskey sitting in front of him at the bar beside an almost drained bottle of Jack Daniels. The pill bottle two inches to the left of the man’s glass was a little concerning once Luca was close enough to read the name of the anti-anxiety meds.

Would the guy even be sober enough to talk?

Luca was about to find out.

Sliding onto a barstool beside the man—he had set himself all the way at the end of the bar in a shadow far away from anyone else—Luca waved at the bartender. “A beer—draft is fine.”

He really didn’t intend to drink. Driving, and all. The speed of his Ducati never mixed well with even the tiniest amount of liquor, and he wouldn’t put his mother through the hell of burying her adult son because he was foolish.

“Sit somewhere else,” the guy to his left muttered.

Luca eyed the reporter, his wrinkled shirt and stained, striped red tie. The stain had a yellow tinge, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was, “Did you puke on yourself? That looks like bile.”

William didn’t even glance down. “At some point. Go away.”

“No can do. Why did you delete your social media posts? Apparently, you were going to publish a story about the Smithenson murder last week but then your posts went away ... and no story came out.”

That had the drunk—and probably high, depending on how many of those pills he had taken from his med bottle—man glancing up. His head bobbed and swayed as he eyed Luca on the stool next to his. The hazy gleam in his gaze said there were probably two of Luca in the man’s vision. Maybe this wasn’t the best time for a conversation, all things considered, but what choice did he have in the matter?

He needed answers.