AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“It’s the Massimos,” I told the girls clearly. “It’s got to be. There’s too much proof. Anthony following Penny, not once but twice. The fact that the Carusos suddenly have all this money to throw around. And the fact that no one’s seen a fucking Massimo since this whole thing started. They’ve up and disappeared. They might be ghosts, but this is...”
“Weird,” Sloane agreed. Her gray eyes met mine, somber and worried, and I could almost read her mind. Someone was making war on our families. Taking out our soldiers on the streets and getting spies into our warehouses. They’d been following Penny and had probably been behind the bullets that riddled Michael’s body when he was trying to hide her.
They were dangerous, and the guys were evidently incapable of putting two and two together and getting this war started.
In short, they were all talk and no action.
Typical.
“So they’re up to something,” I continued. “And as far as I can see, we need to get in there and figure out what the fuck it is. I’m tired of sitting around waiting.”
Suddenly Penny, my smaller, blonder, and altogether more innocent friend leaned forward, her face looking surprisingly crafty. “In that case,” she said, sounding more conspiratorial than I’d ever heard her. “I might have exactly what you’re looking for.”
Sloane and I stared at her for several moments, both of us shocked at this sudden turn of events. Penny was a lot of things, but a schemer wasn’t one of them. The last time she’d tried to scheme, muscling her way into Michael Rossi’s office as a spy for a reporter, it had ended up with her falling in love with Michael and then nearly getting herself and Michael killed.
The thing was, she never should have tried it on her own. If she’d told us what she was doing, we would have made sure she was smarter about it.
So if she had a plan, I guessed she was at least telling us about it this time.
“You do?” I asked, unable to come up with anything more than that.
She shrugged, her curls bouncing a bit with the movement. “Sure. You want the Massimos? Well, I have a way in.”
“You have a way in?” Sloane asked, looking horrified. “Who are you and what have you done with our friend Penny?”
Penny’s mouth stretched into a cocky grin. “Oh, it’s still me. I’ve just gotten better at this kind of stuff.”
“That’s it,” I told her. “I’m not letting Michael have you back. He’s ruining you.”
Penny’s smile dropped off her face and she cocked one eyebrow. “Are you going to tell him that? Because I think he might have a problem with it. Now, do you want to hear what I know or do you just want to sit here and talk shit about the guys all night?”
I snapped my mouth shut. I didn’t know where this version of Penny had come from or what she’d done with the angelic girl we’d known since we were in high school.
But I kind of liked this turn of events.
2
BROOKS
I parked my motorcycle in the alley, secured it, and walked quickly around the corner, replaying Penny’s story in my head as I went. According to my small blond friend, Anthony Massimo was in some sort of secret band he didn’t tell anyone about. Playing weekends in the bars and trying to pretend he was going to be a rock star when he grew up. Taking advantage of groupies and any girl who wanted to go home with the tall, well-built, dark-haired and equally dark-souled guitar player.
Dark soul. I snorted at that.
I’d seen inside the man and I knew exactly how dark his soul ran. But I also wasn’t surprised he was hiding in plain sight this way. Anthony was a nephew to the biggest Massimo there was, and had never liked the idea of being part of the family. He’d wanted out of the mob from the time we were old enough to know what the mob was.
At least that was what he’d always told me.
That was what he’d whispered when he had me pinned against the wall in the back of a bar, his hands busy with my belt and his mouth hot on my neck. It was what he’d told me again when he got me home to his apartment. Though for all I knew, he’d just been saying that to get me into bed. It wouldn’t have been the first time someone had lied with that goal in mind. It wouldn’t have been the last, either.
I hadn’t seen Anthony in years, now, and I was betting a lot of things had changed. When we were younger—young enough to risk sleeping with people we definitely shouldn’t have been talking to—he’d wanted a life outside of New York. Something that didn’t require shooting other people on the regular. But I’d watched the surveillance tapes of the night Michael and Penny were chased out of the city, and I’d recognized the man doing the chasing. I hadn’t told anyone except Sloane who it was, mostly because I didn’t want them asking me questions about why I knew a Massimo well enough to be able to identify him on a grainy, nearly unwatchable piece of tape.
I’d known exactly who he was, though.
And I’d thought in that moment that he’d obviously changed his stripes and signed on to Dear Old Uncle’s agenda. Sure, he could have been working for someone else, but the Massimos had more money than God. Not even a forgotten nephew would ever have to work for anyone if he didn’t want to.
So when I got to the door of the bar and pulled it open, I had only one thought in my brain: Find Anthony. Find out what the hell his family was doing and why they were making war against the Rossis and Brennans. And then get back to Rossi HQ and force Joseph and Michael to listen to me, before anyone else got hurt.
***
