Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
He could easily be some sort of plant, or spy, or enemy of the Grassi Family.
And I’d hired him.
I’d invited him in.
“Don’t move,” Ant said, voice stretched taut, a sound I’d never heard before.
I felt myself stiffen.
Don’t move?
Like hell.
I was going to run for my goddamn life. Again.
Or so I thought.
Until I felt a figure move in behind me.
Until I felt something cold and sharp press into the delicate skin of my neck.
Unwanted, my mind flashed back to just the night before, to Dante’s lips just there, to the way the touch brought butterflies.
It was a sick sinking in my stomach then as I recognized the knife, how close it was to being able to end me. It wouldn’t even need much pressure.
“Don’t move,” Ant said, his gaze holding mine.
There was something fierce in his eyes then, something mature beyond his years.
My own eyes felt like saucers as my heartbeat flickered, as sweat pricked my neck and slid down my spine.
“Let her go,” Ant said, his gaze on me but speaking to the man standing behind my shoulder.
“Don’t think I will,” the man said, his arm slipping around my middle, tightening, yanking me back against him. The movement made the knife nip into my skin. The burn told me he’d broken the skin. But it was impossible for me to tell if the warm trickle I felt was blood or sweat. “You got bad timing,” he added. “Now you gotta die.”
“That’s fine,” Ant said, his gaze flicking away from mine to look at my attacker. “Take me. Leave her.”
I wanted to object.
He was just a kid, for God’s sake.
But my tongue was fat and useless in my mouth.
“Can’t do that. I need her. I don’t need you.”
“Whatever you need her for, you can use me for.”
“Afraid I can’t. You’re not fucking the boss man.”
My brows pinched at that.
The boss man?
I mean, yes, Dante was technically the boss around here. But no one else would consider him that. The other employees referred to him as ‘the owner’ if they spoke of him at all. Domenico was the closest to being called the ‘boss man.’
There was just something about the inflection, though. In the phrasing.
He didn’t mean the boss of the garden center.
He meant the boss.
As in his boss.
His capo.
This was one of Dante’s men. One of the men he trusted with his own life. And, perhaps even more importantly to him, the lives of his mom, sister, cousins, and nieces and nephews.
Anger, hot and unexpected, burned through me, boiled in my blood.
I might not have known a lot about the Family business, but I did know that the thing that mattered most was loyalty. And this man betrayed that, betrayed Dante.
I wasn’t aware a growling sound escaped me until Ant’s gaze cut back to mine. I swear I saw a silent warning there.
I had to do something, say something.
Like he was reading my mind, Ant gave me a tiny head shake.
“I’m not… we’re not…”
“You think the whole fucking neighborhood didn’t hear you this morning?” he asked.
My blood went cold.
Not from being overheard, but from having my private business spread around. But from how deep the betrayal went.
Dante told me that he’d switched up the guards, making sure his most trusted soldiers were taking care of his family and his home.
Whoever this was, Dante trusted him implicitly. This news was going to cut deep. Provided I lived to tell him.
“I don’t even know who you are,” I told him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Information,” he said.
Information? What the heck could I possibly know that he wanted?
“I don’t know anything about the organization.”
To that, I got a snort.
“I know that. Tight-lipped fucks. But you do know the account number.”
The account number.
I did.
I did know that.
Once Domenico decided he trusted me, he started letting me do the drop at the bank. He’d empty out the register and safe, count it out, then put it in a bag for me to bring to the bank, where I’d grab a deposit slip, write out the account number and amount of money, then leave it with the people with the big safe and lots of security cameras and alarms.
I never really realized how valuable that information was. To anyone. But especially to someone who might be close enough to know how the business ran.
“Stupid hacker fuck made it all harder, going rogue.”
The guy who’d found me.
Who had, like me, been decked out like he was about to commit a crime.
He was.
Breaking into the business.
Getting into the shop, into the computer, figuring out the bank account information.
“What… what about Ed?” I asked, noticing Ant’s hand slipping into his front pocket.
“Ed. Ed and his fucking second thoughts.”
Right.
So they’d both made a move against the Family. Only to have Big Ed get cold feet and want to back out. But there was no backing out of a situation like this.