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“Whoever it was, they used a fake ID. The credit card was a fake, too, taken out in the name of a guy from Pittsburgh who’s been dead for six years.” Jock is murderous by the time he’s finished giving me the rundown on what he learned so far about the incident at the brothel. “For what it’s worth, it was pretty convincing. Top-notch work, obviously done by a professional.”
Is that meant to make me feel better? “They’re supposed to be able to see through schemes like this. What do I pay these assholes for?”
“To be fair,” he reminds me, “they did their job. They scanned the ID into the system and all. So we have the guy’s face, at least.”
Like that makes anything better. “Great. We’ll have posters made up. Hang them all over town.” It looks like a single drink isn’t going to be enough tonight. This has been one of the longest days of my life, and the hits keep coming.
Jock continues while I cross the room. When I lift my glass in a silent offering, he shakes his head. “This isn’t like some dumb kid using a fake ID because he hasn’t turned eighteen yet. That’s the kind of shit they’re trained for over there, to spot kids. And obviously, everybody gets frisked and all that.” He strokes his jaw, thoughtful. “But this? This is professional. This was done purposely. Somebody set this guy up with an ID, knowing we’d card, and he went in there with a specific job in mind.”
He’s not telling me anything I didn’t already suspect. We’ve all been around, we’ve seen things. I’ve witnessed the aftermath of more than one out-of-control customer who got a little too enthusiastic. But this is more than rope burns and bruising. This girl is supposedly hanging on by a thread.
“So, do we think it was Bernardi?” he asks, cutting to the heart of the situation as usual. That’s something I can always count on him to do. We don’t bullshit each other, and neither of us has the time to waste on being nice.
“They’re at the top of my list. I want a team on this. I want this guy tracked down. I want him held, alive, until I can question him myself.”
“Of course.” There’s a light in his eyes I’ve seen before, most recently when I tasked him with finding Jimmy after my old friend went on the run. How does that feel so long ago? Life moves too fast. It isn’t that I exactly expected to have the time to grieve Jimmy—and I wouldn’t even if that time was available. I wasn’t fucking around with him. He’s dead to me, it’s that simple. Cross me, and you might as well not exist.
Jock pulls out his cell, typing out a message as he speaks. “I’ll send my contacts to the normal Bernardi hang-out spots. One thing you can always count on from those assholes: they have big mouths. Whoever did this was a sadistic fuck. He’ll want to brag about it to anybody who’ll listen.”
The idea turns my stomach. Something my father always instilled in us was an understanding of the lines that don’t get crossed. Sell a woman, fine, but make sure they’re kept comfortable and healthy. It doesn’t make me a prince, but I like to think it puts me head and shoulders above a lot of men in my world. We don’t brutalize, not even to score points against the enemy.
After all this time, I still ask myself what Dad would do if he was here. How would he handle this?
One thing I’m sure of. “I want a message sent.”
Jock takes a seat on the leather sofa in front of the fireplace, across from where I stand at the mantle. “What did you have in mind?”
“I want them to know we know who did this. And I’m not going to let it go. They want to interrupt my revenue streams? That’s fine. We’ll do the same for them.” We exchange a look. “You still know that firebug we used a few years back?”
A knowing smile stirs his lips, his eyes lighting up. “As a matter of fact, I think he just got out on parole a few weeks ago.”
“Do you think he would mind getting back to work so soon?”
“Are you kidding? He’s probably already burned something down by now.”
I don’t understand the impulse, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take advantage of it. “That bar downtown. The one that closed down before the Bernardis bought the building to use as a place to stash shit?”
“Sure, they use it as a safehouse sometimes, too.”
“Looks like they’re about to have a tragedy.” Jock nods, and I know he’s got the message. In a situation like this, you don’t come out guns blazing, demanding vengeance the way they do it in the movies. It’ll be enough for Bernardi to know I’m on to him, and while this act against one of my girls might not mean war exactly, I’m not going to let it go, either.
Still, Jock frowns. “You know they’re trying to lure you into shit, right?”
“Tell me something I didn’t already know,” I snap. “Why bother wasting your breath?”
As usual, he absorbs my flash of temper but doesn’t react in kind. “Just making sure you see what this could lead to.”
“Tell me something.” I turn to him, and something about my expression makes him sit up at attention. “Do you think I could ever forget what happened last time? Do you think I forgot how I ended up losing everything in a single day?”
“Of course, you could never forget that.” He lowers his brow anyway, rather than backing down the way I wish he would. “But that’s my point. Look at everything the family lost. Not just you,” he makes a point of reminding me. “I lost, too. I might not share your last name, but this is the only family I’ve ever had.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant. And I get it. But you can’t blame me for getting a little worried when I see you walking right into the trap Bernardi set a year ago.”
“This isn’t the same.”
“How so?”
