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ChapterNineteen
Ishould’ve taken my clothes off. Blood was a bitch to get out, and you’d think after all this time I would remember to protect my clothes. I loved this shirt, and now Jasper would have to burn it. I stared down at the red stain with a pout that would rival any five-year-old in the state of Chicago.
“You know better than to wear your good clothes. I don’t know why you won’t let me get you one of those plastic jumpsuits to wear. You know, like the one in that Dexter TV show. It would save so many of your clothes.” He stared down at the same spot and just shook his head. We both knew I wouldn’t remember to bring a change of clothes next time either.
“Do you have any idea how annoying that thing would be if I actually wore it? That swishing sound it made would drive me insane. Nope. No can do.” Not to mention I would look like a lunatic in it.
Not that the people I was torturing for information would really give a fuck about what I was wearing. They had bigger issues to worry about.
Looking over at the man lying on the metal table, I gritted my teeth in irritation.
It had been another dead fucking end.
No one seemed to have any information about who could’ve given my uncle the intel on the girls. Uncle Tony still wasn’t forthcoming either. He was due home tonight, and I decided it would be time to have that talk. Those photos were still on my phone, and I looked at them sometimes three times a day trying to figure out what the hell to believe.
They say a picture was worth a thousand words. It was obvious there was more to Gio and my parent’s relationship. They’d known each for a lot longer than Tony had said. They were closer than just employer and employee. The man was fucking holding me in one of them.
It was time to get some answers, and I was prepared for whatever I was going to find out. The only thing that was worrying me was whether Uncle Tony would tell me anything. He’d been surprisingly closed lipped lately. The fact that he wouldn’t say who his informant was had me on edge.
Every time I asked him about it, he would tell me that it didn’t matter who told me. He would apologize for relaying bad information, and for wasting my time. He would tell me he was going to handle it when he was back in town. It has been almost a month now since Nico shot me. Almost a month since I opened that storage container to find it empty.
If he was going to handle it, he would’ve done so by now.
Instead, I was still chasing my tail about this.
“I was able to figure out a few things about the bomb in your car. None of it is good news or helpful in figuring out who made it though,” Jasper said as he continued to wipe off the scalp and meat tenderizer I’d used on Gio’s man.
When Nico found out about him, he was going to flip his shit.
I couldn’t blame him. I’d told him his guys could rest easy. That I wasn’t after them anymore. I meant what I said at first. Then it became obvious finding out the informant’s name was going to be a little harder than I thought. Which meant I had to resort to old tactics.
Not that it was working. I was back to staining up and destroying my clothes and coming up empty handed in the answer department. I wasn’t even getting anything good about Gio. I was beyond frustrated. I’ve gotten to the point where I’m seriously contemplating just showing up at Gio’s condo or office and shooting him in the forehead. At least that would take him off my plate and I could focus on better shit.
“What did you find out?”
“It was your standard pipe bomb. Nothing sophisticated. It was on a standard watch timer. If Milo hadn’t stopped you from getting in the car it would’ve gone off with you inside as planned. There hadn’t been any other kind of trigger, so whoever planted it just set the time on a hope and prayer that you would be on time. I find that hilarious and a little telling. They don’t know you all that well if they thought you would be on time for anything.”
“What about the materials used to make it?” I asked, completely ignoring his last statement. Intending to not get upset that he was basically accusing me of always being late. It might be an accurate assessment of me, but he didn’t have to point it out.
“Standard stuff you could get at any hardware store. Nothing with serial numbers, and no specialty pieces. Even the watch was some ten-dollar piece of shit you could pick up at your local Walmart. I hacked the police database to see if they’ve gotten any fingerprints or anything, but it seems as if they haven’t even sent anything off for forensics on it yet. I’m not sure if they’re just lazy or if someone told them to bury it.”
The Chicago PD wasn’t too bad of a department, but there were probably more dirty cops in the precinct than not. That meant there was no telling who could be putting a stop to the investigation. Santiago, Gio, or any one of the Valentino boys could be behind having that evidence put in a cardboard box and shoved in the incinerator.
I wondered if it would do us any good if we found a way to get into the evidence room and steal it. Jasper would do a better job of finding any information from it then they would anyway.
“Should we…”
“We’re not stealing evidence from the police. We’ve got too much shit going on around us to have the cops sniffing around,” he interrupted me before I could even voice the idea. I swear that boy knows me way better than he should.
“Fine. It really doesn’t matter at this point who is behind it. We’ll need to stay on our guard though. If they're willing to come after me in the school parking lot like that, then they’ll try to get me anywhere. I don’t want you, Alicen, or Milo to get caught in the crosshairs.” The thought of any one of them getting hurt because they’re too close to me scared the fuck out of me.
This was one of the many reasons I never wanted people to get close to me. I knew the risks of what I was doing. I was willing to take those risks. They didn’t. If anyone had half a brain cell they would know the easiest way to get to me was through one of them. Keeping them safe was one of my utmost priorities. I had every intention of us all coming out the other side of this alive and together.
The ping of my cell phone chimed in my back pocket. Pulling it out, I stared at the screen and was immediately swamped with the feeling of suspicion. My Uncle Tony wouldn’t be coming home tonight. This was the third time he’d text in the last week saying he’d been held up at the meeting he’d gone to. Things weren’t panning out there the way he’d thought, and he was forced to stay to put out fires.
I knew it was his business. He’d built it from the ground up, and from what I figured he was damn good at what he did. I never really asked too many questions about it. That was his thing, and I had enough to worry about. Now I wondered if he was intentionally staying away. Was there a reason other than what he was telling me about as to why he wasn’t coming home?
“Uncle Tony is going to be gone a few more days. It seems there’s a problem with whatever it is he’s doing.”
