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“You didn’t break into my house to ask me questions you already know the answers to. Why are you here?”
He was right. I knew what he’d done and why. At least, as far as Noemi was concerned. But if my suspicions were correct, and they usually were, he knew more information, information that I needed to understand—like who put a contract out on me and who tried to kill her. He may not understand the full implications of what he knew, but he knew something.
“How did you know where we were?” I started to build my case with information that really didn’t matter but would get him talking.
“How do you know half the shit you do? I have my methods just as you have yours.”
I wasn’t surprised. His connections were what moved our relationship forward from acquaintances to something more primal. Neither of us had expected to see each other at the negotiating table, but that’s where we’d found ourselves years ago.
“Ours has been a lucrative relationship over the years. I’d hate to see it end because you made poor choices.”
“It wasn’tmychoices that put us in this situation, Dante, and you know that.”
“Noemi is a grown woman. She can make her own decisions.” And as it turned out, her own demands.
“You’re not the kind of man she needs in her life. You’re not right for her. We both know that.”
“You can sleep easier knowing that’s not going to be an issue.”
His eyes narrowed. “You fucking bastard,” he hissed as the meaning of my words sunk in.
I ignored his insult and continued with questions. “Is that why you had your associate follow us? He wasn’t particularly good at hiding.”
He signed. “He wasn’t supposed to hide. He was just supposed to make her nervous. Make her question what she was doing, in Barbados, withyou.”
I nodded in understanding, but I felt my first pang of discomfort at his words. No matter how long we’d known each other, knowing that he thought I wasn’t good enough for her sent a current of anger through me. He knew me, my character, my career, but he didn’t know the man Noemi knew. No one did.
“He wasn’t supposed to get caught,” he grated. “I chewed his ass for what happened at the restaurant. He didn’t scare her too badly, did he?”
“Wasn’t that your intent?”
“No. Yes. Hell, I don’t know. I couldn’t just call her and tell her not to go with you. I had to do something more drastic.”
“Tell me, then, just how desperate were you to keep me from her?”
“What do you mean? Wasn’t that enough?”
I watched his movements, looking for a tell that said he was lying. I’d never known him to be a liar. He was one of the best men I knew - until he pulled that cryptic warning stunt.
I suppose I couldn’t blame him. If Noemi were my sister, I’d do everything I could to protect her from an ass like me, including putting out a contract on the bastard if that was the only thing that would get his attention.
I crossed my leg and leaned back in my chair. I wanted to see if Willis would slip and reveal something I needed to know. Too many pieces of the puzzle were missing. Desperation wasn’t a feeling that sat well with me.
“I hear my life is worth a paltry million. You and I know from our previous negotiations that there’s only one customer who pays such a small price to have someone else do their dirty work.”
Willis tilted his head and pictures of Noemi looking at me the same way flashed through my mind. Six or more years had passed since I’d seen brother and sister together, side by side, but there was no mistaking the family resemblance.
“We didn’t take that contract out on you, if that’s what you’re asking. I may not want you involved with my sister, but I have no reason to want you dead.”
“Maybe you don’t. But someone does.”
“It’s not us,” he denied, then spoke to me in his senatorial tone. “The federal government has no reason to want to kill someone who performs such beneficial transactions on our behalf. You need to look somewhere else for your answers.”
I barked out the laugh. “The federal government couldn’t give a rat’s ass if I lived or died. I don’t exist as far as Uncle Sam is concerned.”
It was a sordid affair that brought my neighbor and I together. The good Senator from New York was part of a closet group of politicians who worked behind-closed-door deals to help rid the world of some very nasty individuals. I don’t know who was more shocked, me or Willis, when I showed up to negotiate the first contract I took for the United States government. All under the table, of course. The deals were never official and there was nothing but a verbal agreement and an exchange of funds once the job was done. They didn’t pay as much as the other contracts I took, but the government was a lucrative, reliable customer and if it had been anyone besides Willis pulling the strings, I would have done one job and moved on. Our negotiations involved no one but me and him. I never had any contact with anyone else. I knew I could trust him. We’d worked together off and on for six years. If he were going to fuck me over, he would have done so by now.
Or maybe he just had. “You know about the contract on me?”
