Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
We moved into a, well, doctor’s office. Complete with a front desk, waiting area, and a whole snack and coffee station.
“Coffee,” I whimpered.
“I will get you a coffee once you’re being looked at. Who the hell are you?” Christopher barked when someone who was decidedly not Salvatore came in from the back.
“This is Venezio,” I explained.
“I know you?” Venezio asked, looking at me, instantly suspicious. Which tracked. He wasn’t Family. Not by blood. He was a former street kid who just so happened to get on the right side of the mafia.
I understood Christopher’s confusion too.
Nothing about Venezio screamed ‘mob associate.’ He didn’t even dress the part. He was in a tee, jeans, and Timbs.
He was tall and scrappy with chiseled bone structure, dark hair, one fully brown eye, and one partly brown and partly green eye.
He was gorgeous, though on the young side still. He would be almost intolerably hot once he hit his thirties.
“Who?” Christopher asked.
“Venezio. He worked under Cosimo for a while. Brought in by Miko. But has worked his way up ever since. Has been sort of interning under Salvatore.”
“You keeping a file on me?” Venezio asked in that gargled glass voice of his.
“Stalker board,” Christopher corrected, making Venezio’s brows pinch. “Where’s Salvatore?”
“He’s on his way. He was over with the Morellis on Staten Island. But I can get started.”
Christopher looked down at me. “Up to you.”
“Okay, listen, even if you figure out exactly what’s wrong with me, can I have Salvatore examine me too?”
Venezio snorted at that.
“You sound like a groupie.”
“She is,” Brio said, coming in behind us.
“How about I take your vitals and shit while you wait?” Venezio suggested.
“Works for me.”
We made our way into the exam room where Christopher put me down so gently, I might as well have been spun glass.
Venezio moved around, grabbing a thermometer and blood pressure cuff.
“Alara, you mind filling us in on what happened?” Brio asked once the velcro on the sleeve ripped as Venezio removed it.
I exhaled hard through my nose.
“Robin Moody.”
“Who?” Brio asked.
“The chick who just got murdered?” Venezio asked, looking up from jotting down my blood pressure.
“Yeah. Really close to the pawnshop. I literally almost stumbled into the crime scene.”
“Did you get attacked at the murder scene?” Brio asked.
“No. Okay. I need to rewind. Robin was in my pawnshop a little while back. She needed to pawn a music box. But was asking that I, you know, not sell it right away.”
“That ain’t how it works,” Venezio said.
“It is at my pawnshop. I just… didn’t think about it after that. But when I saw the news of her murder, I realized that the break-in was likely linked to that.”
“The what?” Brio snapped, biting off the words.
“Someone had broken in. Likely those two guys who were in the shop the day you came for the bag,” I said, looking at Christopher.
“Why didn’t I get a call?” Brio’s voice had an edge. But I knew him well enough to know it was hurt, not anger.
“At the time, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.”
“You pay us for protection,” Christopher said.
“For more serious stuff.”
“For all stuff,” Christopher shot back. “I get you can handle yourself. But the whole point of paying the mob you supposedly are so interested in is to have us handle all this shit.”
“It felt little at the time. But then Robin died. And I remembered how weird her request was.”
“Weird why?” Brio asked.
“The box was maybe worth forty bucks. And she was very anxious about it. Then really relieved when I had possession of it.”
“Something was in the box,” Venezio said.
“Exactly what I had just figured out,” I agreed. “Right before you showed up with Charlotte,” I added.
Christopher’s eyes slid closed.
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“You had your own problems.”
“I never have so many problems that I can’t be there if you need me.”
I hated the way my heart flipped at those words, at the sincerity in his voice and on his face.
Fine.
I loved it.
But I was going to pretend otherwise.
“Anyway, I wanted to find the box. It wasn’t where I thought I’d left it. It was in the back. I finally found it.”
“Was it a notebook or a flash drive?” Venezio asked.
“Flash.”
“Did he get it?”
“No. It flew out of my hand and… went somewhere. But it was somewhere behind me and there was no way he could have grabbed it during the fight. Or when he ran out.”
“Lorenzo is sending Nero and Leo over there. No one is getting back in,” Christopher assured me. “We’ll figure out what they were after.”
“What Robin died for.”
“Yeah,” he said, wincing.
“You’re coming home with me,” Brio said.
“What? No.”
“This guy knows where you work. It’s not a stretch to think he might know where you live.”
“And not to point out the obvious,” Christopher said, gesturing to my foot that felt like it was twice the size it usually was—an uncomfortable tight, throbbing sensation. “You can’t do those steps with a bum leg. I’m not sure how you do them when it’s raining.”