AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Dean and I slide into his car and head to Mike’s loft.
“So it’s finally like that, huh?” Dean glances my way as he makes his way through the streets of Kroydon Hills, heading into Philly.
“Like what?” I ask. “Are we teenagers, Dean? You’ve never kissed a woman before?”
The fucker laughs. Hard. “Well, I’ve never kissed Amelia before. And you’ve never kissed her in front of me before. So, I’d say that was new, asshole. Not that we haven’t all known you wanted to be kissing the cookie queen for fucking years.” When I glare at him, he adds, “I mean, come on. You were pretty obvious about it.”
“If you don’t wanna die, you’ll never put you and kissing Amelia in the same fucking sentence again.”
“Calm down, man. I’m the only one who’d ever dare to bust your balls over that woman. Fuck. I’m the only one who’d bust your balls over anything. You need me to keep you grounded. You don’t need another yes-man. You’re the man now. The boss. The Don. The guys are going to be lining up to wipe your ass. But I’ll always be real.”
Dean and I were born six months apart. His mom was my mom’s best friend. She happened to marry Pop’s cousin, making Dean and me family. And the shithead’s right. I need to know he’ll always tell it like it is. Give it to me straight and not just say what I want to hear.
When we pull up in front of Mike’s loft, Dean throws the car in park and grabs the Sweet Temptations box.
“What’s in there?” I ask, eyeing the pink box as I slam the car door behind me.
Dean looks a little embarrassed as he tells me, “Cupcakes for Mike. Not gonna lie. This dude scares me. I feel like he could wipe away my entire existence with a few keystrokes. Hit the delete button, and bam, I don’t exist anymore.”
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as I push the buzzer and look into the security camera, waiting for the door to click open.
When we get to the top of the metal stairs, it’s to see Mike standing in his kitchen, steaming coffee mug in hand. “Pass the box this way, Dean, and I won’t erase you.”
I laugh. But Dean doesn’t look as amused. “Guess you heard that?”
“Don’t piss me off, and you’ve got nothing to worry about, man. I only deconstruct and destroy bad guys and their governments. Think of me as Robin Hood. Now pass me the box. Are there cupcakes in there?”
Dean pushes the box across the counter. “Lyla said these were fresh.”
“Lyla?” Mike asks.
“Snow’s counter girl,” I tell him.
“Oh, right. Hot little blonde Dean wants to nail.” Dean chokes, and Mike laughs, then points to his wall of monitors. One of them is tuned to the front of Sweet Temptations. “I’m worse than Big Brother, Dean.”
Dean glares at Mike. “You know I kill people, right?”
“Yeah, man. But I’m better at it.” Mike stares back.
“You two think you could have your pissing contest later?” I look between the two of them before settling on Mike. “You said you had something for me.”
Mike licks the chocolate fudge off the top of his cupcake and moves over to his keyboard to bring up a screen with some type of report displayed. Then he turns back to us and breaks his cupcake in half. “This is the report that the Transportation Safety Board of Canada wrote up after the issue with the jet last month. It was completed yesterday. It hasn’t been released yet, but... I have my ways.”
He takes a bite of the cupcake, and I want to rip it from his throat. “Get to the fucking point, Mike.”
“The problem is they can’t pinpoint when the engine was tampered with. Was it done in Philly and not done properly, so the jet didn’t crash on the way over? Or was it done while you were in Canada?”
Dean looks from Mike to me, adding, “You were only supposed to be there for a few hours, and the pilot never left the plane. They’d have really had to have had their shit together to have done that while you were in your meeting.”
“It’s possible though?” I ask Mike.
“Not just possible, Sam. That’s what happened.” He hits a few more keys, bringing up a new image. “The pilot told your father there was no way he missed it in Philly. That it couldn’t have happened here. Your dad thought he was covering his tracks. Thought your pilot missed it.”
“Yeah. Pops had this guy on his payroll for years. He always took good care of him because it’s not easy to find a pilot willing and capable of going over everything himself. Fewer hands in the mix mean less chance of missing something. Pops put all three of this guy’s kids through UPenn, and we really don’t use the jet that often.”
“Well, your guy deserves a bonus. He caught it as soon as he could have.” Mike pulls up another image, then points at the screen. “See that?”
When I stare blankly at him, he starts explaining what I’m looking at, but he might as well be speaking another language. “Mike.” When he finally takes a breath, I add, “Dumb it down for those of us who have no clue what you’re saying.”
