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I begin to unpack in silence. Bricker stands there watching me like I’m about to pull out a bomb. But his cologne lingers in the air behind me, and I keep thinking about the way his muscles flexed under his shirt as he showed me around his home, pointing here and there.
Get it together, Pedretti. He’s Fabi’s kid and he’s half your age and—
“Need any help?” Bricker’s voice breaks through my thoughts. I’ve been standing still, staring unseeing at the contents of my bag.
“I’m good.” He’s standing closer than I realized, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his body as I turn to face him.
Our eyes lock for a moment, and something flickers in his gaze. He moves, and I move, trying to get out of each other’s way, but all we do is bump straight into each other.
“Maybe you don’t need to keep quite such acloseeye on me,” I suggest. “You want to check my guns, my case is over there.” I nod at the carbon-molded gun case that I set down on the chair in the corner.
“Yeah. Let’s see what you’re carrying.”
Bricker steps away, giving me space to breathe, and I cross the floor to open it up for him, then return to unpacking. He stands there looking down at my pieces without comment. Nothing much to comment on, anyway, but the distance between us feels necessary, somehow.
“Well,” he continues, clearing his throat, “I’ll leave you to finish unpacking.” Bricker turns to leave the room, pausing for a moment in the doorway. “Get settled, take five, then meet me downstairs. We’ll go meet the crew. I’m sure you want to make a good impression—right, Pedretti?”
I take a deep breath once he’s gone and mentally go over the security cameras discreetly positioned throughout the house. Not an inch of this place is unwatched. And I bet that means this room, too. With a subtle glance around, I locate the camera—top corner, staring at me as I stare at it.
For now, I’ll behave. Keep my head down and find a way to earn Bricker Soldano’s trust. Make friends, like Sandro wants me to do.
What would it be like to truly get close to Bricker? Not physically, but to understand what drives him, what makes him tick, what lies beneath that charismatic exterior. Because there’s charisma there, that’s for sure.
I bet his crew would drink his fucking bathwater.
With the last of my clothes neatly folded and tucked into the drawers, I close the suitcase and store it in the closet. Then I make my way downstairs.
“Remember, Pedretti,” Bricker tells me as I reach the bottom step, “we might have to share this house, but it doesn’t mean we’re going to be buddies. And my crew likes questions about as much as I do, so you might wanna keep a lid on it.”
“I get it. I’m not invited to your reindeer games,” I tell him. “Reminding me about it every five seconds will get old fast.”
He studies me for a long moment, and I wonder what he’s thinking. “Let’s go meet the crew,” is all he says. “You carrying?”
“Always, unless my new Capo tells me otherwise.”
It’s the right thing to say, showing deference to him, reminding him who’s on top. I can tell it’s hit home by the way his shoulders relax. “Good to hear,” he says. “And your new Capo approves. Come on.”
On the drive to what he keeps calling “the Lair”—I wonder if that’s a call-back to the supervillain crack from before—my thoughts keep drifting back to the security measures around his house. The cameras are first rate, covering every possible angle. But like everything else, there must be a weakness. Something I can exploit once Bricker lets his guard down.
I’m not even sure why I’m so determined to find it. Maybe if I can crack the house security, it’ll prove to me that I can find a way to crack the man.
Why is that important? Because I want to know the kid is okay, really okay. I owe it to his father.
I owe his father a hell of a lot more than that, but this is one thing Icando.
For today, though, I need to focus on making connections with the crew. Maybe they can provide me with a few leads to learn more about Bricker and the Esposito Family, intel I can bring back to Sandro when this is over.
“Pedretti,” Bricker’s voice cuts through my thoughts, “word to the wise: play nice. My crew doesn’t take kindly to outsiders.”
“I’m here to make friends.” I repeat my mantra steadily. Maybe eventually I’ll believe it myself.
“Right,” Bricker says skeptically. “We’ll see how that goes.”
We’re coming into a neighborhood a lot less pleasant than the one Bricker lives in, and he pulls up in front of a house that looks like it demands the adjective “crack” before it. “Here it is,” he says. “Center of operations.”
As we walk up the broken concrete path to the front door, I sense we’re being watched. Correction:I’mbeing watched. Bricker puts his hand on the doorknob and pauses. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
And he pushes open the door, gesturing for me to go in first.
