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19
salvatore
Delphine seemsto put the mysterious letter behind her, but I’m far more suspicious. It could be a harmless family friend that’s happened to pass under the radar for years. Ernest and Leontine Adams were well-known and even better regarded among their social circles. They had acquaintances and friends far and wide, both in Westoria and Northam. Clay could be some friend that’s heard about Leontine’s passing and is reaching out.
Orthere could be nefarious intentions.
I haven’t stopped thinking about the situation since. Delphine’s folded up the letter and stuck it in the drawer where we keep all the pieces of mail we’re not throwing away but aren’t of utmost importance. I’ve read and reread the letter. I’ve had the letter taken into a local lab to be tested for fingerprints and penmanship. The results were inconclusive due to the amount of people that had touched it.
By all appearances, it seems nothing’s going on.
But, being the paranoid, violent psycho that I am, I’ve had to consider a multitude ofotherpossibilities too.
I’ve never been in short supply of enemies. Even as a kid, I had a big one—my own father hated my guts. Lucius routinely made me pay the price for such hatred, leaving me bruised and bleeding more often than not. I made enemies elsewhere. At school. On the playground. On the streets.
It’s been a theme in my life, making enemies wherever I go, as I piss people off.
Throughout my career, I’ve had so many enemies I’ve lost count. I’d need one of those fucking old school rolodexes to keep track of the whos and whys.
I’ve done my best to comb over them all. Consider what I could be missing. If this could be yet another attempt by an enemy of mine to fuck with me.
Renzo came out of the woodwork, a fucking blast from the past, to get revenge. That was almost twenty years after we’d originally started beefing. What other enemies from my past could be waiting for a shot at me?
Is it an enemy from the current gang of criminals running around Northam?
A crime family like the Belinis finally getting revenge for me offing Hector and Giorgio, or some low-level street guys like that bitch LaTessa from my stint in jail.
That’s the thing when you have so many enemies. It could be anyone.
It could be Ernest.
We haven’t heard so much as a peep out of Daddy Adams in the nine months since we invited him over for family dinner.
Delphine seems convinced he’s finally gotten the message. I’m still not so sure. Is he behind this mysterious letter from Clay?
“Whatcha thinking?” Stitches asks. He’s been watching me this whole time.
I’ve turned toward the window of my office—not my office at the club, my office at home. I’m supposed to be watching Dominic later this afternoon while Delphine goes to a nail appointment.
“What’s the latest on Ernest?” I ask. “Have we still been keeping tabs on him?”
Stitches shows up as a reflection in the window glass. He’s nodding his head. “Uh-huh, every single day we’re watching him. He hasn’t been up to much as far as we can tell. Just lots of meetings with city officials about some kind of committee he’s putting together to address the city’s crime.”
I hum. “That’s what it appears like to the untrained eye. But Ernest is capable of anything.”
“You don’t think you’re being a smidge paranoid, Psycho?”
I glare in Stitches’s direction. “When you’ve dealt with him as long as I have, you learn nothing is off limits for this man. We’re talking somebody who implanted amonitoringdevice into his daughter’s necklace to surveil her from the time she was thirteen.”
“Good point. He’s a psycho too.”
“He worked with Damon Thomas on Blue Star to surveil us again. Who’s to say he’s not putting together another scheme? In fact, we should check his accounts.”
Stitches groans. “Why do I feel like this is about to turn into more hacking? I should’ve never let you know I was good at it.”
“Sounds like a past you problem.”
“Jokes on you, Psycho. I don’t have my equipment on me. It’s in your office at Nirvana.”
