Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72325 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 362(@200wpm)___ 289(@250wpm)___ 241(@300wpm)
I spotted Roselli and his weaselly face on the pier fifty yards ahead of me. My boys were there already. Rocco and Julian were on his either flank, their gazes on me. The Don himself was staring at the bandage around Rocco’s neck.
Asshole that he was, he reached out to poke at it, but Rock grumbled and slapped his hand away. Only Rock could get away with crap like that around Roselli.
“Morning, boss,” I spoke, my heavy footsteps drawing his attention.
“Nice of you to join us. Fucking finally,” Roselli complained. “Now, I want to hear what you idiots thought you were up to last night.”
“Sure.” I said the word easily, but then I paused. Conversations with Roselli never went well when I took the lead.
When no one spoke, Roselli pursued his thin lips. “This is the part where you explain to me what the hell you were doing in North Haven last night.”
I glanced at Rock, who was being uncharacteristically quiet. Maybe his neck still hurt. He caught my eye and nodded.
Shit. They wanted me to do this? Then again, it had been my idea. “We were staking out Palmer’s Savings and Loan there. It’s easy pickings, and we thought you might want to hit it. We thought—”
“You thought?” Don Roselli’s face turned red. “No one pays you to think.”
The way he stressed the word you pissed me off, but I kept my cool. Mostly. “We weren’t going to do anything without your permission, Don Roselli. We just did some recon. I think you’ll find…”
“Recon?” His annoying voice rose up another octave. “What the fuck? Are you in the Army or something?”
“No,” I said. Very early on, I’d ruled out that line of work. Too many orders to follow.
“In our line of work, we don’t do recon,” Roselli continued. This from an asshole who did lines of cocaine off stripper’s bodies in Miami while the three of us collected loan shark debts.
“Don Roselli…” Julian cut in respectfully. “What Slater’s trying to say is that we were checking out the area for possible escape routes. Of course, we were going to report this to you today, but my car was in such bad shape that we barely got back last night.”
“It’s amazing that piece of crap lasted as long as it did,” Roselli snapped. Then he actually asked a relevant question. “So who blew up the fucking van?”
“Sean Baxter,” Julian said immediately.
“Baxter? How can you be so sure?” Roselli asked, furrowing his brow.
“I’d recognize Baxter’s freaky white hair anywhere.”
“We were about to go out looking for him when you rang, sir,” Rocco chimed in. “Meaning, Baxter’s part of Gambini’s crew, but he made a direct strike at us.”
“You’d kill him without asking for my permission?” Roselli asked, anger creeping into his tone.
“We wouldn’t kill him,” Rocco saved us the trouble of tackling that one. “But we’d rough him up pretty bad and bring him to you.”
The Don brought his gaze back to Julian. “Why the fuck didn’t you nab him last night?”
“Because Rocco was hurt,” he explained. “I wouldn’t let him bleed out just to hunt down that little prick.”
“Did you take him to the hospital?” Roselli’s question was a dangerous one.
“No, they patched me up with a first aid kit,” Rock said, and I was glad that he hadn’t mentioned Maggie and the nurse. Not that I’d thought he would have.
Luckily, Roselli moved on, turning back to Julian. “Baxter had to have been on your tail since New York. How come you didn’t spot him?”
“He wasn’t.” Julian’s steady, confident tone once again not leaving much room for doubt. “I checked my mirrors all the time. We had no tail. I only saw that van right before it pulled up behind us.”
Roselli nodded, his little pea-brain lost in thought. Finally, he shook his head in wonder. “Knocking over a bank. It’s been a while since we’ve done something like that.” He thought for a minute longer, something that was probably hard for him. “Some friends of mine have cased North Haven before. Those rich bastards have got a lot of valuable items in bank safe deposit boxes. But how you three fuckups think you’ll get into those boxes, let alone the vault, is beyond me. You don’t have the skills—or the balls.”
Anger filled me. We definitely had the balls—far more than he did. As for skills, if there was something we didn’t know how to do, we’d find someone who did. Or learn it ourselves.
“Forget about the bank,” Roselli said, and my heart sank. “It’s an unnecessary risk. You got me?”
“Sir, think about the revenue if we could just—” Julian began, but Roselli cut him off with a wave of his pudgy little fist.
“Don’t make me say it again,” Roselli snarled. Just because he was a total fuck-up didn’t mean he couldn’t make our lives miserable—or end them. “If I hear about a bank robbery in North Haven, you’re going to be in deep shit.”