Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74035 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
I’ll wait to ask them until we’re safely inside.
I blow out a breath as I find the side alley entrance to Orlando’s restaurant. The lot’s empty, which is both good and bad. Bad, because it means our car will stand out like a sore thumb. Good, because it means we won't have an audience. But my sixth sense is triggered, and something tells me shit’s gonna go down soon.
I take him out first, drag him by the arm, and don’t give a shit his head whacks the door on his way out. That’s for being an asshole. He curses but follows. I shove him up against the car and reach for her.
I’m more careful with her. I ease her out of the car and make sure she doesn’t bang her head or knees on the way out. Her douchebag friend notices.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Gonna have a tough time interrogating her if it fucks with your sensibilities to manhandle her.”
I’ve had enough of his bullshit. I turn and deliver a hard, quick blow to his gut, a warning.
“You shut the fuck up and stay out of this.”
He comes up wheezing but still grinning. “She’s a fuckin’ Montavio. I wouldn’t use kid gloves touching her if I were you.”
I deck him again, a swift right hook to the jaw that makes Vivia cry out and recoil, but the motherfucker’s only amused, bloodied lips pulled against white teeth in a sickening smile like a fucking sociopath. Maybe he is one.
When I look back at her, her eyes shine as if filled with unshed tears. Does she feel hopeless? Hate that I hit him? Or did she have something going on with this asshole? I note everything then get my ass to work. I’ve got a job to do.
We enter the back door after I put in the code, and I lead them both to the back of the kitchen near the meat locker. I don’t even wanna know what—or who—Orlando’s put in that damn thing. There’s a reason it was the first place he told me to go.
I think of steaks and sides of bacon and pork tenderloin and try not to let my imagination get the best of me. Hell, if we’re lucky, we’ll end up not even having to use that thing. The douchebag will cry like a baby when he knows what he’s up against, and Vivia will totally cave.
So I tell myself.
I sit them both on stools in front of me and check my phone. Orlando’s got surveillance cameras up on the walls near his office. Parking lot’s still empty. No calls from my brothers.
I pull up a stool across from them, lean forward so my arms are on my knees, and begin. “So,” I say, nodding slowly at one then the other. “Who wants to go first?”
The man snorts. “I had nothing to do with it. Vivia’s the one who set everything up. For Christ’s sake, I’m a dead man walking if you guys thought I had anything to do with it. I never would’ve touched a hair on anyone’s head!” In the bright overhead light, I can see his eyes are bloodshot and his voice ragged. He’s a damn user is what he is, and it ain’t just drugs he’s used. The hurt expression on Vivia’s face says it all.
I shake my head and grab one of Orlando’s butcher knives. Grab a lemon from a bowl on the counter and demonstrate just how sharp this knife is by cutting a slice of lemon so thin you could see right through it.
“It would be really awesome if you two cooperate,” I suggest. “So let’s start from the beginning,” I say, shrugging out of my suit coat and draping it across a chair. I lean over the back of one of the chairs and meet Vivia’s eyes first. “You’re Vivia Montavio. You a natural redhead, lovely?”
She has a shit poker face and looks like she’s gonna wet her pants.
“No,” she whispers.
“Ahh. What’s your natural hair color?”
She swallows and doesn’t answer. She doesn’t trust me. Good, that’s a start.
I push away from the chair and stalk over to her. Here, in the bright light, I can see that her eyes are a light gray, like the morning sky over the water after an early rain. I could float away deep into the recesses of eyes like that and not touch ground.
I drag my eyes to her neck, and note when she swallows, how she’s nearly panting. When I reach her, I put my hand at her hairline, a gentle tracing of my finger to her scalp, and look to her partner. He’s watching us with interest but doesn’t look like he wants to murder me. If that were me in that chair and some asshole mobster touched my woman, I’d burst a motherfuckin’ blood vessel trying to get at him.