Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 76550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76550 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“No, hon, I’m looking to have a talk with my brother,” Luca said, and I watched as realization and what looked like a hint of dread slipped into Josie’s eyes.
“Oh. I, ah, right.”
“I’ll see you at our next meeting, Josie,” I said, getting her head to whip over to me.
“Right. Yeah. Okay,” she said, chin going up a little higher, remembering that she had the upper hand here, that I didn’t want my brother to know about what had gone down between the two of us. “Next week,” she said, nodding.
She offered Luca what I could only call a customer-service-smile as she passed, then she was gone.
Luca’s gaze followed her out before slowly coming back to me, his brows raised.
“What?” I asked, sitting down.
“It’s a bad idea, Matteo,” he said, moving forward to sit down in one of the chairs on the other side of my desk.
“What is a bad idea?”
“Fucking someone who works for you.”
“I’m not fucking her,” I insisted.
“I know you. If she’s pretty and she’s close by, you want to take her to bed.”
“It’s not like that.”
“So you weren’t eye-banging her when her gaze was focused on me.”
“No.”
“Alright. Whatever you say,” he said, shaking his head at me. “I just stopped by to talk about the current situation,” he said, gaze moving around my office. “When’s the last time there was a sweep in here?”
“Two weeks ago. As per orders,” I added. The sweep for bugs was an annoyance at best, but something I understood since there were a lot of people in and out of my office.
“Let’s take a walk, given the situation,” Luca said, getting to his feet. “I am going to have someone in here to do sweeps for listening devices, cameras, and trackers more often. The trackers will be at your house, of course,” he said. “Preferably when your car is in the garage so neighbors don’t see.”
“So something is going down,” I said, following Luca out of my office.
He waited until we were outside, walking around the manicured grounds that weren’t quite as pretty in the fall as they were in the spring and summer, to answer.
“We aren’t sure yet,” Luca admitted, and I knew him well enough to know that his calm demeanor was masking the fact that he was itching to get answers, that he was pissed to be in the dark. “Things have been relatively calm for a long time. Maybe too long, if I’m being honest. We would be due for someone to test us. I’m hoping I’m wrong, but I can’t shake the feeling that the whole Boyle thing makes no fucking sense otherwise.”
“Yeah, Massimo had the same feeling.”
“He usually has good instincts about this shit. Spends more time in the field than the rest of us,” Luca added. “If something feels off to Mass, it probably is. We just haven’t been able to pinpoint anything yet.”
“Could it be related to New York?” I asked.
The New York City Five Families had seen more action in the past year or so than we’d seen in the last decade. But that was what you could expect when there was a transition of power, and new alliances being formed, as well as new enemies made.
On the flip side, things had been relatively stable in Jersey. Our father had all but handed Luca a thriving and stable operation with a reputation of having zero tolerance for any threats to our peace.
So no one got brave enough to step to us.
Until, of course, someone did.
Because someone always would.
That was how organized crime worked.
When you had more than everyone else did, you had to expect for them to come for it, to want to take it for themselves.
“Anything is possible. I will call Costa later to see if they think one of their problems is spilling over here. I doubt it, though. It’s more likely we have our own problem brewing. And if that is the case…”
“Massimo already filled me in on having a bodyguard.”
“Yeah, that. But Matteo…” Luca said, rolling his neck as his gaze looked over the grounds.
“What?”
“If this is something, I am going to need all hands on deck. Including yours. I know you like to stay at an arm’s length from Family business. And, normally, I am okay with it. But when shit hits the fan, I expect you to be there.”
“You know you can count on me in a pinch, Luca,” I said, a little hurt that he didn’t know that, even if, admittedly, I hadn’t given him a lot of reason to be sure of that fact. “I was actually just thinking that I needed to be more of a part of the Family,” I admitted. “Both work-wise and just as a member of the family.”
“You know we are always happy to have you around. But I’m curious about the change of heart.”