AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Belemonte laughed. “It would be so much easier if we could choose our relations, wouldn’t it?” he mused while he held up his hand for another round. “But I’m afraid I didn’t know either of the deceased, so I’m not sure what information I can give you.”
“You’re a man with plenty of ears to the ground, Belemonte. I was hoping you’d caught wind of any chatter about the person responsible.”
I would never trust any information that came from him. All I was looking to do was ascertain what role he’d played—if any. If he did anything to hint in the direction of the Lucas, that would put him at the top of my list.
“No chatter, I’m afraid. And I can’t think of anyone who would go to the trouble of murdering an old woman in her own home,” he said with a shake of his head and a frown that I would’ve loved to punch off his face.
You would, you son of a bitch. Everyone knew it. Belemonte would have his own mother murdered in her bed if it served his purposes. But nothing about his demeanor said he was lying when it came to Aunt Isabella. Too bad, really. Just looking at the guy made me want to bury a knife hilt-deep in his gut. Worse than a useless waste of space, Belemonte wreaked havoc everywhere he went. I was looking forward to an excuse to put him in the ground.
I nodded, flipped some bills on the bar for the drinks, and stood up.
“There is one thing I can do for you, Nico. Just a small show of how useful a relationship between us could be,” he said, snapping his fingers.
One of his goons appeared at his side and handed me an envelope.
“You’ll have to come back and visit me,” Belemonte said, climbing to his feet. “I never got to know your father as well as I would have liked. With him getting on in years, I wouldn’t want to make that same mistake with his son.”
I tried to hide my grimace as I shook his hand and left the Mirage, the envelope shoved inside my coat pocket.
It took the entire drive across town, to a club that wasn’t filled with ten-dollar hookers, to shake off Belemonte’s stink. I exhaled loudly, the stench filling my nose. Save for crossing Belemonte off my list of suspects, I was no further ahead than before I’d walked in the Mirage.
Inside the club, the music blared while throngs of bodies gyrated beneath strobe lights to the techno-beat. The tables scattered around the edges of the floor were littered with more bodies, some of them watching with drinks in hand, others engaged in intimate conversation. Most of the girls who worked out of the club weren’t on the floor, which meant they’d already found their Johns for the night. Our girls, unlike Belemonte’s, were well-cared for and paid well. In return, they offered their patrons top-notch service. We had girls to cater to every whim, from the mundane to the extreme, and seldom had there been an unsatisfied customer.
As I glanced around, Caio shot his hand in the air from a table across the floor, flagging me down. All three of my brothers sat around the table with empty shot glasses in front of them. Sandro and Caio were laughing, but the look on Gabe’s face was grim. Whatever had my two younger brothers in good spirits, Gabe was not sharing in their mirth.
The urge to leave Gabe to his misery was potent, but I ignored the fresh pounding in my head that had picked up the beat of the music and strode across the floor to their table.
“Sit down, Nico. We’ve got news,” Caio said before I could open my mouth while he rubbed his hands together in anticipation.
Gabe rolled his eyes and signaled to Tommaso to bring a fresh round.
It only took Tommaso one look to know what right drink to serve. The outdated suits and slicked-back hair made him look like an accountant, but he was a mind reader if I ever saw one.
“So, what’s the news?” I asked, taking a seat in one of the hard-backed chairs.
Sandro’s eyes lit up like he’d found the Holy Grail. Maybe I’d misjudged him. He wasn’t a blob of modeling clay; he was more like an excitable Chihuahua.
“We’ve got news on the Lucas,” Caio said, dropping a thin file folder down on the table. “They got approval for a casino a couple months ago.”
It was a little late in the game to be moving into the casino business. The Costas already had three casinos in full operation, but it was still a smart move for the Lucas. I cocked an eyebrow, waiting for either Caio or the Chihuahua to go on.
They both looked at me with wide, expectant eyes. Caio was starting to look like a beagle.
Gabe sighed. “They’ve gotten approval for the casino, but with Maria Luca’s death, they’ve just started moving on getting the building underway,” he explained in a tone that said he wasn’t any more impressed by the find than me.
“So, that means we can block them,” Sandro said. “Dad’s got dirt on every government official within a three-hundred-mile radius. He calls in a favor, and the Lucas are neck-deep in sorting out paperwork for the next three months.”
“And?” I crossed my arms over my chest.
“And… what?” Caio said, exchanging confused glances with Sandro. “While they’re distracted, we slip in and scoop up whatever they don’t have eyes on.”
“If you try to block them after they’ve already gotten approval, don’t you think they’re going to wonder who was responsible for it?” I sighed, trying to rub out the pounding ache in my temples. “And even if they were too stupid to question that, it would be their lawyers tied up in paperwork for three months. Not Vincent Luca. Not Dominic or his other sons. And not the hundreds of men who might notice when you waltz in and try to lift their product or steal their business.”
Caio’s face fell. “But—”
“’But nothing. It’s a dumbass plan.”
No need to mention I wasn’t taking part in it even if it hadn’t been. I’d yet to find who’d put out the hit on Aunt Isabella, and my gut told me it was not the Lucas.
