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)
Nico’s stare narrowed. “Are you trying to piss me off?”
“I’m trying to figure you out,” Sal replied.
“Let me know if you find the trick,” Nico said low. “I’d like to have it for future reference.”
That earned him another soft laugh from Salvatore. “You know, I think I could like you, Nico.”
“I’m still undecided,” he replied.
That was a lie.
He’d decided years ago that he liked Sal. The same night he hugged a broken, sad boy, told him it was okay, and tried to apologize. Something no other man in his life had done for him up until that moment. Walking into that same man’s office to see the photographs of his daughter proudly displayed only cemented Nico’s feelings.
Salvatore grinned. “I don’t need you to like me. What I need from you boils down to three things. If you care to hear them.”
Nico considered it. “I’m a taker, Sal. I rarely give, and if I do, I’m gonna take to make up for it.”
“A bargain, then?”
That piqued his interest. “What do you mean?”
Sal put his pointer finger up to his lips and then tipped it like a bullet coming in Nico’s direction. “Give me three reasonable things that you want, and I’ll tell you three equally reasonable things I expect in return for you to earn them.”
“Earn—”
“Are we bargaining or bitching?”
Nico drank the last gulp of coffee from his cup. “Any restrictions?”
It took Salvatore a moment to respond. “If your name doesn’t control access to it, then I’m shit out of luck. Or you are, whatever.”
“I want my vehicles. For obvious reasons. Also, I’d like to see my sister. That one might not be so easy, given my father won’t even speak to me, but I can work up to it.”
“All right. And your last thing?”
Nico didn’t even have to think about it. It was a pipe dream, and he knew it. A carrot that hadn’t even been dangled for him when the chaos of his life dominated what he could have been if things were different.
“The button.”
He wanted his in. He wanted to be made. A made man.
“In that order?” Salvatore asked.
Nico laughed. “Any order.”
A nod answered him back. “Okay, here are mine. These aren’t in any order because they’re all equally important, and there are no exceptions. Are we clear?”
“Like crystal.”
“One—respect.”
“Could have guessed it,” Nico said.
Sal didn’t even smile. “The way you behave reflects on me. Perhaps you don’t care that people see your father through a view of your making, and maybe he’s earned it, but I’m not him. I don’t care if you hate the person looking you straight in the face, you keep that shit to yourself. Understood?”
“Got it. Two?”
“Stop, drop, and roll, kiddo. If I say jump, you ask how high. No questions asked.”
Nico’s jaw clenched. “I’m not a child.”
“Do you think you’re ever gonna get the button if you can’t follow a simple order, hmm?”
He had a point. “And three?” Nico asked, opting to leave number two up to his own discretion.
“Three is the one that matters, personally, to me the most.”
“Okay.”
Sal exhaled slowly. “No lying. Ever. Again, no exceptions. If I ask, you tell. If something’s happened, I need to know. Omission is still lying. Changing a detail for whatever reason is still a lie. I need honesty. I’ve got enough bullshit on my plate coming from every corner of life, be the one thing that I don’t have to worry about catching me up in something I could have done without. Simple.”
“Yeah, simple,” he echoed.
“Good. Let’s test it.”
Nico straightened in the chair, placing the mug to the glass coffee table. “How?”
“Last night,” Sal stated, “what were you doing?”
“Scouting. It took thirty minutes before I got bored, and you didn’t say I couldn’t go outside. You just said I couldn’t leave the walled-in section.”
“Yet, you did jump over the wall.”
Nico shrugged. “I thought I had a good reason to.”
“Yes, my daughter. Remember what I said, omitting is still a lie.”
His chest became tighter. Nico sucked on his teeth before asking, “What, do you want a play by play of what went down, or...?”
“I’m just trying to figure out the details that Larkin couldn’t fill in for me this morning.”
“Who’s omitting now?”
Surprise flitted across Salvatore’s face. “Excuse me?”
“What you’re not saying, and what I already figured out last night while scouting, is that you have a blind spot in your cameras back there.”
At that, Salvatore sat back in the leather chair and wove his fingers together, staying silent.
“Right in the area I chose to be. The two closest cameras weren’t moving like others I saw, and so I figured the gate between the two sections, nearby hose, and the pin cherry tree all happened to be in that blind spot. I wondered how long it would take before someone came looking. They had to know I was outside; I needed to use the fob to open the door leading to the back, after all.”