Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“He is. It’s not about that.”
“No?” I asked, picking up on something in my brother’s tone.
“He’s got a job for you,” he said.
I ignored the concern in his voice and tried to tamp down any eagerness in my own.
“What time does he want to see me?” I asked.
“In an hour.”
“Alright. Let me go then. I need to get dressed,” I said, ending the call before I could get any sort of lecture about what I should or shouldn’t say during my meeting.
I hoped he was busy with Avery and wouldn’t show up.
I hemmed and hawed my suit selection as anticipation sizzled across my nerve endings, hoping that this might actually be it.
Maybe Miko had put in a good word for me.
I tried not to chafe at the idea that someone who was less senior than I was in the organization might have more sway than I did. What did it matter if it meant the boss was finally going to give me something of my own to take care of?
I chose the dark gray suit with a matte black shirt and tie and then, all thoughts of breakfast abandoned, made my way toward Lorenzo’s place.
He and my brother each had expensive-ass Brownstones just a few doors down from each other. With that nowhere near my income bracket, I had a small apartment just a block away, wanting to be nearby in case anyone needed me.
As I expected, Nero was already standing at the top of the steps to Lorenzo’s brownstone, looking comfortable as fuck in the cool fall air. While my ass had sweated through a particularly hot and humid summer in that same position, sweating through my suit, and cringing at the way the city smells were amplified by the hot weather.
Nero looked a lot like his older brother. Tall, black-haired, brown-eyed. But Nero still had a bit of that thinness that came with youth, all long limbs and not enough meat on them yet.
While everything about Miko screamed ‘mobster’ when you met him, from his slicked-back hair to the way he spoke, Nero was a little less obvious about it. At least for now. I had no doubt that the more time he spent with the Family, the more he would try to emulate his brother, who was quickly working up the ranks and gaining a lot of respect.
“Nero,” I said, nodding my chin at him.
“What happened to your forehead?” he asked, zeroing in on the butterfly bandages.
It was no secret in the Family that I was, well, unlucky as fuck when it came to getting hurt. Shot, stabbed, shot again, sliced by the barber, in a wicked car crash. You name it, it had happened to me.
It used to be an endless source of amusement to everyone, but these days I think it was bordering on concerning how trouble—and pain, we can’t forget the damn pain—always had a way of finding me.
“I was on a job with Miko last night,” I said, shrugging it off. Choosing not to mention my stubbed toe and fucked up nail. Sometimes, you just had to keep some shit to yourself to save face.
“Miko’s inside,” he said, reaching for the door to let me in.
Yeah, I figured that was the way of it.
I was two steps inside of the entryway when Miko walked out of Lorenzo’s dining room, a place we all seemed to have our meetings, especially now that Lorenzo’s kids were all over the rest of the house.
“There you are,” Miko greeted me, taking my hand with his, then grabbing my shoulder with the other. “Appreciate the help last night,” he said, his accent just a little more Staten Island than Manhattan. “Especially with the short notice.”
With that, and nothing else—least of all a comment on my head—he was moving outside to talk to his brother.
“Ant,” Lorenzo called from the dining room, sitting there amongst a pile of what looked like blueprints.
“You renovating again?” I asked, thinking of how much he’d already sunk into fixing up the place when he’d inherited it from his old man.
“Giana wants to add one more floor,” he said, waving up at the brownstone that already had an impressive four. And something like thirty-five-hundred square feet. A mansion in New York City terms. “The people down the street added it. And, honestly, we could use somewhere to stick all the kids toys,” he said, waving over toward where a full-on miniature scale grocery store was set up against the wall, complete with shelves of fake foods and a check-out line with a working belt and register. “Hate having people in the house, though,” he said, grimacing.
The perk to using his personal home for business was knowing there was next to no way anyone could bug it, unless it was an inside job.
“Need to open our own construction business,” I said. “Good way to wash money,” I added, thinking of all the extra ‘supplies’ that could be ordered and such.