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“Sorry,” he sighed. “But anyway, the reason it’s a big deal, apparently a Dudley Do-Right got wind of it and our guy says that’s a dangerous game.”
I shrugged. “Again,” I said, warningly, “tell him if he wants to get paid that he’ll do whatever he needs to do to keep it under wraps there.”
Enzo nodded.
I smiled and patted his cheek condescendingly. “Atta boy.”
His eyes narrowed into slits and his face reddened with anger. He slapped my hand away, fueled.
“Don’t fucking do that!”
I smiled even wider. “There you are, you fucking douchebag!” I laughed, throwing my arm around his neck and pulling him into a half hug, careful not to spill my drink. “Pour yourself a drink and stop being an uptight little bitch. You’re my friend, not my employee.”
* * *
“Hey?”I called out to Enzo as he staggered out into the chill of the night.
We’d all been drinking for hours now, planning the doom we were going to bring on Dominic Betrami, but something was eating at me that I needed to ask him about.
“Yeah?” Enzo turned to face me, his brow raised.
“You think your guy can look into someone with just a first name and a phone number?” I didn’t pay attention when I left her house that morning. I wanted to keep the mystery. But now, with cop contacts telling me to lay low and a mob boss breathing down my fucking neck, I knew I had to be careful.
I couldn’t afford any missteps.
He nodded. “He can track them down,” he said. “Why?”
I handed him the paper. “I need discretion on this one,” I said quietly, leaning forward. “But I need this chick checked in on.”
He nodded again. “Quiet as a mouse, Boss.”
I trusted Enzo with my life.
I trusted him as much as I trusted Dimitri.
He was just as much of a brother as Dimitri.
But still, there was unease as soon as I handed the paper to him. I wasn’t sure if it was because I was worried about what he would find, or if it was the fact that I felt targeted on all fronts.
Something was going down, and I needed to figure it out before we all got screwed.
Information was power, and I needed to be well-informed to get my bearings on all this. I needed to know anything and everything.
18
ANNABELLE
Sitting back at my desk,clutching the cup of coffee for comfort, I felt a nagging sense of unease. I still hadn’t heard from my dad. The collector's shop had left me with more questions than answers, and I couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. My instinct as a cop urged me to dig deeper, to follow the trail of information and find the truth about my mystery man.
As a woman who knew she needed to keep her job, I urged myself to do a little less digging on Luca, and a little more digging into the murder investigation I’d been assigned. There was a tie there with the mafia. Francis Lasiter was into a little of everything. The drug scene — for money, and for recreation. He was into illegal gambling. He was into extortion. He had his fingers dipped in every financial scam this side of New York.
He was dirty.
I just needed to find outhowdirty — and who he’d pissed off because of it.
“Hey!” Davis called out from down the hall. “Betrami!”
I swiveled my chair to face him.
