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I know that’s not really true. All the things she shared about writing being cathartic and healing. It was her personal draft. It was I who had no right to infringe upon her privacy that way even if the document was unintentionally left open. Still, I had no right to read the article she thought was protected from my view. In my defense, though, perhaps I needed to see the full extent of her feelings after today, regardless of her intent.
My phone disrupts my thoughts as it buzzes in my pocket. “Excuse me for one moment,” I tell Isabella, answering Salvatore’s call.
“Hello?”
“We have a problem. Sergio’s drunk out of his mind. Your little talk earlier didn’t sink in. I wouldn’t ask, but I’m meeting with Arman about the shipments, and Dominic is nowhere to be found.”
I sigh in frustration. “I’ll take care of it,” I tell him, disconnecting without saying goodbye. “I apologize, Isabella. I have to go find Sergio. It shouldn’t take long. Why don’t you order dinner for the both of us? I should be back before they bring it out. Just tell them you’re waiting for me, and they won’t bring it out faster than normal,” I tell her.
Her eyes are wide as she swirls the little camera in that tube. I give her one of my best smiles, because it’s hard to say what will end up in the tabloids tomorrow after a day like today. I pass Candy and a few of the other girls from the lower level as I make my way down to the club. The ladies are probably ready for a night out on the town if they’ve been on shift since earlier today and had to deal with Sergio for most of it.
I make my way back to the lower-level lounge. If he’s drinking, I know that he’s done playing for the day, because that’s rule number one—no drinking or drugs before play—and he pays strict adherence to the rules of the club.
I find him at the bar, talking to the barkeeper. He’s not making a scene, just telling jokes and having a good time. Why Salvatore seems to think that Sergio needs a babysitter every minute of his life is beyond me. Maybe if he’d quit treating him like a kid, he’d grow into the man he should be.
I slide into the seat next to him. “What are you doing here again?”
He turns dark eyes to me. “No disrespect, but I don’t know why you, Sal, and Dom seem to think I need to fix my life when I’m a grown-ass man. I’m sick and tired of being smothered by the lot of you,” he says.
“Can I get a bottle of water?” I ask the barkeep.
Sergio spins on his stool. “Save it. I’m still drinking,” he says, picking up the glass of whiskey that I can smell on him from here.
“The water is for me. I’ve had a couple myself,” I tell him.
He looks at me with glassy eyes. The barkeep hands me a water from behind the bar and heads down to take care of a few more customers at the other end.
Sergio lowers his voice and leans in next to me. I try not to inhale for fear of becoming even more intoxicated on his fumes alone. “If you ask me,” he says, looking around to make sure no one is listening, “today was a fucking shit show. We should have never let Dom go to that fucking thing. He could have been shot. We should have sent Emelia in, and when old man De Rosa spouted off, we should have filled him full of holes.”
I nod, because it’s not that the thought didn’t go through any of our minds. But short-sighted wins aren’t what made this family into what it is today and won’t be what ensures our family is taken care of well into the future. We need sound strategies to ensure that.
And that’s my job.
“Why don’t we meet up for breakfast and talk about it tomorrow? I’ve been meaning to see if working more with the bikers might suit you. With Dom moving into the underboss position, and Matteo and Renzo working to fill the capo roles, I’d like to talk to Salvatore about having you working as a liaison for us. You speak their language, and I think it would be a good fit.”
His eyes go wide, and he nods. “That, I can do. That would even be worth dragging my sorry ass home to bed for and waking up at the crack of fucking dawn,” he says as the barkeeper makes his way back down to our end.
Sergio flips some bills on the counter. “I’ll take a water to go, after all,” he says.
“I have plans for the evening, but I’ll text you in the morning. Sleep it off, and be ready to talk about things tomorrow,” I tell him, parting ways at an intersection of the resort that will take me back to the restaurant as he heads to the private elevator of the Larussio towers.
I arrive at the restaurant to find the table is empty, only Izzy’s lipstick tube remains in her absence. She isn’t going to leave without one more juicy story from the Larussios.
I suck in a deep breath, because that wasn’t warranted. She hasn’t written anything about us since meeting me that I didn’t commission her to write. Save her highly inflammable personal fucking documents that if they got into the wrong hands could be our demise.
The ladies from the club are sitting at the table next to me. Candy smiles and raises her glass. I raise my own before taking another drink. I grab the tube of lipstick and pull it apart so that I can see just how the little camera device is created. Good thing Larry mentioned how she got some of her best close-up shots or I’d probably be smeared all over the paper next.
The lipstick seems real enough, but the cover is intriguing. Inside the tube is filled with little wires, and the end of it just looks like a clear plastic design.
I put it back together and place it in front of her plate, but when she hasn’t returned in another ten minutes, I ask the server if he’s seen her. “No, she was here one minute and gone the next,” he says.
I scowl. It isn’t like someone’s going to walk into the restaurant and snatch her from her chair. Not with the number of guards we have in this place. I lean over toward Candy’s chair. “Did any of you see where the lady sitting here went? She has long red curly hair, piled high and spilling over her shoulders. Bright red dress.”
Candy’s face falls…
Roxy’s eyes widen...
I look between the two of them because there’s something that neither of them is saying. Roxy gets out of her seat and slides into the one next to me. “Boss, we didn’t know the lady at the table before you was a friend of yours. We just sat down, and she was here. You weren’t, so we didn’t realize she was with you.”
