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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 high school.
But I kind of liked this turn of events.
2
BROOKS
Iparked my motorcycle in the alley, secured it, and walked quickly around the corner, replaying Penny’s story in my head. 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 shouldn’t even 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 who it was, mostly because I didn’t want them asking me questions about why I knew a Massimo well enough to identify him on a grainy, nearly unwatchable piece of video.
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.
* * *
Islid into the bar with my back to the wall and my eyes darting from left to right, taking in the entire place within seconds and coming to several fairly ungenerous conclusions. This bar was a fucking dive. One of those trashy places you somehow find in the middle of Manhattan, where the owners have either run out of money or decided that their paying customers like to look like they’re slumming it every so often.
It was nothing like the bars where we usually hung out.
Not that that was going to stop me.
The place was crowded and every single person in here seemed to be enraptured with what was happening on the stage. They were all facing in the same direction like zombies, their eyes fixed on the same thing.
I turned that way to see what the hell they were all staring at... and my mouth dropped open.
Anthony Massimo was up there on the stage by himself, his fingers tickling their way across the keys of a broken-down piano as he sang, his eyes closed and the single spotlight highlighting those cheekbones—sharp enough to cut—and the scruff covering his jaw. He’d cut his hair shorter and it did him all sorts of favors, making it easier to appreciate how beautiful his face was. Broad shoulders shifted under a torn-up leather jacket and his jeans fit him perfectly in every way.
I groaned. I couldn’t help it.
I hadn’t seen the man in years, and though he’d been good-looking when I knew him before, that boyish figure didn’t hold a candle to the man on that stage. He’d gone from charming and sort of cute to...
Sex on a stick.
I licked my lips, reminded myself sternly that I wasn’t here to fall into that particular trap, and then turned my back on him and walked to the bar.
I needed three fingers of the strongest whiskey they sold in this hellhole. And I was going to keep drinking it until I figured out how to handle the new version of Anthony Massimo. Because the man might have become scorching hot. He might be up there playing a sexy, slow song and making out with the microphone as he sang.
