Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154525 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 773(@200wpm)___ 618(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“What is it?” Carina asked.
Salvatore had switched back to the first attachment—the phone records. He recognized the area code, but he couldn’t answer his wife when a name lit up the screen with an incoming call.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Carina muttered at the caller ID.
Salvatore inhaled deeply before answering the call. “Afternoon, boss.”
“I want to see Nico today.”
“Today’s not great, Giorgio. Maybe—”
“Salvatore, I intend to sit down and speak with my son. I won’t lie and say you haven’t given him opportunities and put him on a better path than he’s been, but he is still my son. When should I expect him?”
He scrambled to come up with something. A lie. Anything.
“Or should I come find him?” Giorgio asked the longer Salvatore remained quiet.
“Can we at least give him the weekend to calm down?” Sal requested, hoping the man would find sense in doing so. “Marco is never far from your side, and as we saw, those two can’t be within breathing distance of one another without shit popping off. Do you think it’s a good idea to shove them right back together after last night?”
“I’ll deal with Marco.”
Yes, like you always have. Salvatore forced himself to say instead, “Then, take a couple of days to do that. I will do the same with Nico.”
“Fine.”
“How about Tuesday for lunch at—”
“Monday, dinner. My home. I only want to see my son.”
“All right, Monday it is,” Salvatore replied.
“The situation,” Giorgio said before the call could end.
“What situation?”
“Between our children. Apparently, there’s a situation. Correct?”
“Right, that one,” Sal muttered. “What about it?”
“Did Nico cross a line for you?”
Yes. Yes, he did. In a way.
Sal couldn’t do that to Nico. He would handle him. “He’s doing what any nineteen-year-old does when a beautiful girl shows him attention, isn’t he?”
“Except that beautiful girl is your daughter.”
“Lucky him,” Salvatore said dryly.
Shortly after, the boss hung up.
Carina waited, tapping her foot to the floor, as Salvatore stared at his phone. “Well?”
“They’re in Chicago.”
“What—how did Giorgio know that?”
“He doesn’t. The information Larkin got overnight tells me so. Giorgio just gave me a timeline to get them back, is all.”
Carina didn’t look surprised. “Nico spent summers in Chicago, didn’t he?”
“He has cousins there, and it’s always been Giorgio’s version of Vegas, I suppose. Anything goes, and everything stays.”
“Mmhmm.”
He could see the way she stared at him from the side, waiting.
“Sometimes, not everything,” she said softly.
His gut twisted, and he slammed the phone and his hand against the bed. “Fuck.”
“Are you going to make some calls?”
“Well, I fucking have to now, don’t I?”
“I’m sorry.”
He tried so hard not to glare at her. They’d gone over this, though.
“It doesn’t matter. None of that matters anymore, right?”
She nodded. “That’s what you said.”
“No, that’s what I promised. I promised you it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t.”
Mostly.
“I could call—”
“No,” he snapped harshly.
Carina nodded quickly. “Okay, I won’t.”
The silence grew in the room, strangling him.
She spoke first. “He didn’t know it was me.”
“He did after.”
“You can’t even say his name, how are you going to call him, Sal?” she asked.
He didn’t know, but he also didn’t have a choice.
17. — ODs and ironies...
Chicago, Illinois
Frankie, Sybaris Hotel
A soft snore to Frankie’s left hammered straight through whatever dream she couldn’t remember as she woke up. Her eyelashes fluttered, and flashes of a bright pink sign against gray metal blinked back at her.
Neon Rage.
The more she blinked, the farther that sign moved. Until her vision cleared to distinguish the pillow smooshed against her face. That snoring, strange and not familiar, continued beside her. She tried to move, but her limbs felt heavy.
Somewhere, a bang echoed.
“Room Service!” someone shouted.
Now when she blinked more, she fully remembered the sign at an underground club in Lower Lower Wacker. She stepped off the plane in Chicago with Nico, and a world she hadn’t known existed just fell into her hands. A city made up of old buildings and modern life. It didn’t stink like New York. A grungy undercurrent existed here that she had not found at home.
He asked what she wanted to do. She said anything.
The sound of trickling water filled the room, reminding her of the private pool attached to the suite Nico had brought her to some time...she couldn’t remember. The sun had come up, peeking between towering buildings, and exposing the city to her for the first time in the light.
The hotel was—
The banging started again.
Frankie’s head snapped that way, over the body beside her in bed.
“Room Service!”
Hadn’t Nico told her that the hotel staff wouldn’t bother them unless they called down for something? His cousin made the reservation, and it wasn’t even under their name.
She hadn’t called down.
“Just open the fucking door,” demanded another voice.
Darker. Male.
That made Frankie panic.
“Nico!” she hissed, grabbing his arm and shaking it.
With his head turned away from her on the bed, he continued snoring. He never snored.