AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think you deserve a bonus after I made you shut down early tonight.”
Her eyes dart back to the money. Most people act all righteous until a dollar offer is on the table, so I peel off five hundred-dollar bills, check her expression, and add five more.
“All I want to know is how long he’s worked there,” I say softly. “That’s hardly a state secret.” She reaches out for the money and I pull it back a little. “Well?”
She’s not a natural rat, that much is clear, but times are hard at the moment. She needs the money. “He’s not really working there,” she says at last, a nervous tongue lick punctuating her words.
“What do you mean?”
“He…he only ever sees you.” She glances around as though Leo might suddenly appear out of the shadows.
“Me?”
“Yeah. I don’t know, I figured he had a thing for you or something. He asked about you a couple of times before he started Romeo’s Room, and he always watched you in The Cellar when you were there. I assumed he, you know. Had a kink of some kind.”
Two men from opposing Mafia Families, and she assumed he had a kink? I wonder if Mistress Raven really is that naive. Somehow I doubt it. “How much did he offer to pay you?”
“Not a grand, that’s for sure,” she says, eyes on the money again. “Look, I know what you’re thinking—“
I very much doubt that. She wouldn’t like the thoughts running through my head right now, and she certainly wouldn’t stand here hoping to get paid if she could read them. She’d run as fast as her pretty stiletto-heeled boots could carry her.
But I promised Sandro: kill no civilians.
“—but Leo is cool, you know?” she’s saying. “I knew he wouldn’t make trouble. He’s a decent guy.”
So she assumed he wouldn’t gut me on the premises. Perhaps she really is that naive—or, alternatively, Leo is.
I give her the cash and she shoves it hastily into her bra. “We done?”
I’m still leaning against the door, preventing her from opening it. “Were you following me tonight?”
She blinks a few times. “Following you?”
“Out here. On the streets.”
“Why the hell would I be following you?”
I lower my brows a little, give her a smile that I’ve been informed looks sinister. “Come on, now. Be honest with me and I’ll forgive you.”
Wariness finally makes an appearance on her face. All these little rabbits running around Los Angeles, never even glancing behind to see that the hounds have caught their scent until the last, fatal moment.
“I wasn’t following you.”
I believe her. But someone was.
I move away from the car and let her get into it. “Goodnight,” I say, and then, just before she slams the car door shut, I catch it and lean down to speak to her. “By the way, I think you should know: you’re wrong about me.”
“Wrong?”
“Leo might be a good man. But you can’t—and shouldn’t—trust me.”
She has a last bout of bravery. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she snaps, yanking the door out of my hand. I hear the central locking engage, and stand back as she guns the engine.
Then I slide into a nearby doorway and let my senses focus. The screeching sound of a cat echoes up from a few streets over, followed by the low hum of traffic on the nearby freeway. But I hear no cautious footsteps.
Whoever was following me has left off.
I keep walking, heading back up toward a main road, my thoughts going back to Leo, to the way he blew up at me tonight. But what the hell do I care if he thinks badly of me? If he’d shut up and agreed to do what I tell him, we’d all be happy—Leo, his father, Roxy and Gino, and me—and everything would be fine.
