Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 106953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106953 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 535(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
I take out my phone and double-check to make sure the green dot on my maps app hasn’t moved. It hasn’t. It’s sitting solidly in the upper right corner of her dorm building, which is good since it’s after ten and she should be in bed. I rub my finger over the screen.
It’s been a while since I’ve heard from her. I’m not a good communicator. I hate texting and I hate talking on the phone even more. I try for Bitsy’s sake, but each time I talk to her, it gets harder to stay away.
But that’s what I need to do to protect her.
She hasn’t been back here since Cesaro took over, and in those four years, she’s pretty much faded from everyone’s memory. Most of the crew I oversee is new or didn’t have much contact with her before I shipped her off to school. Only Mary and Beefer make mention of her from time to time and mostly in passing, as if they’re recalling a memory of someone who died. That’s how I want it. I’ve taken great pains to erase her presence around here.
And while I go home every night to eat my dinner with only the hum of the refrigerator to keep me company, I survive knowing that my girl is far from harm. I do it for everyone else’s good, too, because I’d have to kill anyone who looks at her wrong. We already have too much turnover on the crew as it is.
“You don’t sound good. You worried because your money isn’t here anymore?” Beefer reaches into the metal safe bolted to the concrete, grabs a wad of cash and shuts the door. It’s payday for the boys. “Where’d you put all of it anyway?”
I hesitate, because talking about where your dirty loot is stashed with other crooks isn’t a good idea, but this is Beefer. He practically raised me.
On the flip side, Beefer’s been taking a small slice off the top for a while now. He’d probably argue it was a service fee. Bankers take the same kind of cut, but only guys down at the financial sector are a little more upfront about it than Beefer.
“It’s somewhere safe,” I say vaguely. Bitsy isn’t the only thing I’ve moved out of reach of Cesaro.
“In your apartment? Doesn’t sound very safe to me. You best bring it back here. No one’s taking money from this safe. Not when they know it’s your money. Who’s gonna mess with you?” He pats the top of the box, using it for balance as he pushes himself upright. Beefer’s put on a lot of weight in the last few years since he’s been promoted. He’s been eating well. No deal gets through the northeast without Beefer getting a cut. The price he had to pay for it—no, the price his daughter paid—seems to have been forgotten.
“Lots of people probably.” I slide a finger over the metal butt of my gun. It doesn’t get the workout it used to, but there are new dumbshits every day that want to test themselves. It never goes well for them. Greed and arrogance end up being the downfall for a lot of these wannabe gang leaders. Give someone a taste of the green and they’ll lap at any dirty pool, no matter how deadly, to have another taste. And guns give them a spine that they were never born with.
“Banks? Is that where you’re keeping it?” he guesses. “The Feds watch those accounts. You’re going to end up wearing orange for the rest of your life if you ain’t careful.” Beefer lumbers over to the old metal desk that Stinky Steve lifted from some office warehouse we robbed over fifteen years ago. The guy who owned the office supply place racked up some bad debts at the horse track. He didn’t have much in assets, so Steve had Beefer slice off the dude’s dick as payment. Beefer used this desk as the surgery table.
“I’m careful.” The banker I use to move my money around told me all about this in the beginning, in between sniffing the lines of coke I’d brought.
“You don’t think I was careful with your money? Shit, boy, I kept your wad a secret from even Arturo.” Beefer spits out some tobacco juice toward a cup, but half of it spatters on the desk. Clumsily, he wipes his hand across the top and then smears the mess across his patterned shirt. A deep crease cuts into his forehead. “No one you can trust more than me.”
He’s wrong. There’s only one person I trust and she’s several hundred miles away from here, tucked away in an expensive all-girls school. But I don’t think Beefer’s upset about a lack of fidelity here. I think it’s money.
“You running short?” I ask bluntly.