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“Okay. Do you want anything from your place, hon?” Milo asked. “Any comfort items or anything?”
“I’m okay for tonight,” she said, but gave him half a smile.
“Come on, baby, let’s get you in bed so you can get some rest, okay?” I asked, leading her down the hall.
From there, I got her into bed and set her up with her meds, some water, the coffee Mass brought her, and turned on the TV.
“I’ll throw something together for you to snack on,” I told her, giving her one last squeeze to her shoulder before heading out, making sure I closed the door completely so she didn’t overhear anything she didn’t want to hear.
“Tell me we have something,” I demanded as I walked into the kitchen and grabbed one of the cutting boards I had collected—round with a thick handle—and set it on the counter to start building a snack board.
“Luca checked in fifteen minutes before you got here. The security system was fried,” Massimo told me.
“What do you mean it was fried? It has backups.”
“Don’t know,” Massimo said. “It sounds like there was nothing to be seen on the backups. We don’t know how long they were in your office, if they were in there long enough to wipe the backups. Luca did get in touch with your office manager…”
“Cara,” I supplied. “She went home early for her sick kid.”
“Yeah. She was horrified, Luca said.”
“It wasn’t her fault.”
“He said he told her that, that he just wanted some information about who was still there when she left.”
“And?” I prompted, gathering cheeses and meats out of the fridge.
“She said there were at least four people she saw. She cut out at four-twenty. So most of the staff was likely still there until five,” Massimo explained.
“I will contact everyone individually to see if they saw something. As soon as Josie is asleep,” I added.
“She’s gonna pass out soon,” Mass said. “She’s running on a little shock and adrenaline. Now that she’s safe, she’s going to crash.”
I hoped so.
I rushed through getting the board ready, then brought it in to her, sitting with her as she munched and then, eventually, passed out like Massimo had suggested.
Then it was time to work.
I moved back into the kitchen, grabbed some notepads, and started making my calls, waking most of the staff up to question them. Luckily enough, everyone loved Josie and were horrified about what had happened to her, and wanted to give as much information as they could remember.
There wasn’t much.
But the last one out seemed to be the groundskeeper and he did mention seeing a car parked down the street. A car that sounded pretty identical to the one Josie had seen following me.
Unlike Josie, though, the groundskeeper was a little more versed in car makes and models and even years, which gave us just a little bit more to go on.
“The fuck, right?” Milo asked, going for yet another cup of coffee as the sun was coming up. “Who would come after the Family after all this time?”
“That’s what I intend to figure out,” I said, shaking my head. “Was that a car?” I asked.
“It’s Smush,” he said, using the nickname we had for one of his older sisters who’d gotten the name as a toddler when she’d been, well, really insanely pudgy. Whether she liked it or not, the name had stuck for most of the family. “I figured she would be better to run the errands. Knows more about all the little shit a woman might need.”
“That’s true, I guess,” I agreed as Massimo opened the door to let Smush in. She’d long since lost all her baby fluffiness. Smush was tall and fit with black hair, dark eyes, olive skin, and a perpetual ‘don’t fuck with me’ look on her face. “Hey, Smush,” I greeted, getting a perfectly arched brow raised at me for using the nickname when she knew I knew she hated it.
“I’m gonna let that go because you got a girl laid up in your bed who was attacked because of you.”
“That’s not—“ Milo started to object.
“It is,” Smush said, rolling her eyes. “It is true. Like it or not, it is true. And I get you being grumpy and tired and stupid because of it,” she said, giving me a hard look. “So I will let it go. But call me that name again and you’re not gonna be happy with the consequences.”
Lucky’s sisters were, well, women raised by a strong woman. Lucky’s old man had been killed when Adrian had been pregnant with Milo, leaving her with five kids to raise on her own in the middle of a mafia Family. Adrian had needed to become as tough as nails. And she’d raised her daughters to be the same.
You might not want to mess with a member of the Family. But I would be quick to remind anyone that it was the mafia women you really had to fear.
