"It's new. And she is from Venezuela. And these containers are from Venezuela. And they're full of women and girls. Am I supposed to believe that is a coincidence?" he asked, scarred brow raising.
Casual about most things, he was.
Stupid, he was not.
"She's the one who gave us the tip. She wanted it stopped. Obviously, no one likes sex trafficking. We weren't sure if she was being honest, so we held onto her for a while. But it turned out she was right."
"So you hopped her into your bed," he said, smirking. "Fuck, for the monk here to find a woman, she must be something special," he said to Lucky.
"She's stupid pretty," he agreed.
"Pretty is good. Don't mind stupid either. You know, for a night or two. Then it gets annoying as fuck. Alright. So you've done your due diligence on this woman? Everything shakes out? We don't have a nasty surprise waiting for us in a couple days or weeks?"
"She's been put through the wringer," Lucky said.
"That's what we're calling it these days, huh?" Lorenzo asked.
"Watch it," I snapped, realizing my mistake as soon as the words were out. You didn't scold men who were technically higher up in the hierarchy than you were.
"Luca has never been a fan of talking about women like that," Lucky recovered before I did. "And I figure since this one isn't a fleeting one, he's extra protective."
"I get it," Lorenzo agreed, shrugging. "You know me better than to think every disagreement will be seen as an affront. I got too much shit on my plate to worry about creating petty grievances. Sweetheart, can I have another of these to go?" he asked, calling out to the waitress who was hanging around, but far enough back that she was sure not to overhear anything. Her boss had taught her well. "Anything else we need to know for the next sit down?"
"I don't think so. Not right now. But when the next box comes in, and once we know some more, we will be in touch. If nothing else, one of us can come meet you halfway to have a talk about it."
"Alright. Sounds like a plan," he said, getting to his feet as the waitress came out the door. "Thanks for the update. I will talk to my father about the Russians," he told us, handing what looked like a couple hundred bucks to the waitress. "Buy yourself something nice," he offered when she tried to insist it was too much. "I think red might be your color," he added, getting a fierce blush out of her as she stammered out a shocked thank you and scurried away. "Alright, I've got another hour and a half drive ahead of me. I am going to get going."
"It was nice seeing you, Lorenzo," I told him, standing, reaching out my hand.
"Oh, you were shitting yourselves about this meeting, admit it," he teased, smiling. "You should know it's never a big deal when it's me. Alright, I have to go," he said, turning to walk back toward his car, pausing a bit at the trunk as the car jiggled. "Bad gas, what can you do?" he said, shrugging as he rushed into the driver's seat, peeling away.
"Ah, I'm gonna go ahead and say it," Lucky said when we were alone again. "He has somebody in that trunk."
He sure did.
That was why he'd left the car on.
Why we'd been able to hear a slight thump of the radio.
To keep whoever it was cool, to mask any cries there might have been for freedom.
"Poor schmuck. I wouldn't want to be at the mercy of Arturo. He won't last long."
See, I wasn't so sure it was a he.
Not with those comments' he'd made about a woman being a pain in his ass lately.
That sounded more like work to me than a woman he was dating. Much like Matteo and Lucky, Lorenzo was not someone who spent more than a good time with a woman.
But the old rules were supposed to still apply.
No kids.
No women.
If Arturo was going behind everyone's backs, and making his son kidnap a woman, there was about to be a violent shift of loyalties among the families. And when loyalties were tested, bodies piled up. People scrambled for positions of power. New rules came trickling down. New problems became an everyday occurrence.
Fuck.