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He doesn’t sayyet. Other men would. They’d need to assert some kind of warped dominance, but Antonio isn’t like that. I know a truly dangerous man when I see one.
“I need a video of her talking to her daughter.”
“You’re the boss now, then?”
“I’ve got what you need—”
“No, you said Simone spent it. You laundered it for her. I’m not slow.” He gets an edge to his voice. “Do I seem slow to you?”
“You said this wasn’t about money. Do I seem slow to you?”
He grins. “Notjustabout money, my friend.”
I’d love to punch this asshole across the face, but I have to play his game. “I only laundered a small portion of it. I’ll make up the difference and return to you with the hard drive.”
His eyesgleamat this. As far as jobs go, this is on the surreal end of the spectrum. It’s the religious zeal. “I could work with a deal like that.” His hand twitches for a glass object on the porch sill. Ah, his pipe, already dirty with its previous uses. “I will call my friend. Wait here. You can speak to her. Maybe record a little video, eh? But not a porno, eh?”
He chuckles, lighting the pipe, inhaling and blowing out nasty-smelling smoke.
CHAPTERNINE
Lena
When the front door opens, I lie on the couch and close my eyes. I don’t want him to know I’ve spent several hours going through the laptop. There wasn’t a massive amount on there, butloadsof photos of Jamie when he was a kid, those bright eyes a complete giveaway. He was fishing with a man called Jack, his name on one of the rods, with a bald head and a stringy silver beard.
There was more, too, but it was confusing. A special type of internet browser that opened directly onto a website calledThe Answer. There was a short tagline.Are you brave enough to fight?When I clickedcreate an account, it asked me to deposit ten thousand dollars into some Bitcoin wallet or something.
Obviously, I couldn’t do that, so I went through the photos slowly. I found myself thinking about if Jamie and I had kids and if they’d look like him, a big grin on his face as he hefted a large fish. A few photos show a young woman, maybe his mother. They were the ones I stared at the most. She looked at him with so much love in her eyes. Hours went by like that. How sad, but it was better than wondering and stressing.
Demon walks over to greet Jamie. I sit up as if it’s just woke me. Then I quickly spring to my feet. I just wanted him to think I’dbeensleeping, to explain what I did with all this time. “Where’s Mom? What’s happened?”
He sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “It’s complicated. I need to feed—”
“I fed him. I gave him the amount on the label.”
“Oh good, thank you.” He walks into the living room, sitting on the chair, massaging his forehead. “It’s complicated.”
I sit on the edge of the couch. The spacing of his furniture tells me he rarely has guests. We’re sitting very far apart. The space is so open that I have to raise my voice. It would be better if he were sitting over here, and that’s not for selfish, steamy reasons.
“Complicatedhow?”
He sighs. “Antonio thinks your mother has a hard drive with a cryptocurrency account on it.”
“What? Why thehellwould he think that?”
Jamie leans forward. His shoulders are tense, like round boulders pressing through his T-shirt. He stares at me with those sharp, biting blue eyes. “Because she told him in Vegas. She got drunk, stumbled over, and told him the whole damn tale, all because she found his facial tattoos amusing.”
I shake my head. “Whattale?”
“Your dad’s friend stole it. Then your dad stole it but didn’t want to use it. So they just hid it for years. Later…” He shakes his head. “She figured out how to use it.”
“Youhelpedher use it, you mean,” I say.
He laughs grimly. “You think you’ve got it all figured out?” His gaze moves to the TV unit and then to the drawer. He looks at it for a moment, then at me, then back at the drawer. I try not to show any fear. I don’t have to be afraid of this man. His gaze returns to me. “In any case, it’s gone. I’m currently having a new one made. It should be a decent replica. In the meantime…”
He takes out his phone, swipes a few times, and then hands it to me. “I managed to get you this.”
I eagerly take the phone, ignoring the strange shimmer that travels up my arm when our fingers touch. Mom is standing in a kitchen in front of the sink. Her clothes look dirty, and her hair is pulled back and greasy, but I don’t see any injuries.
