Chapter Five
Marco
“What did you do?”
I glanced up from the stack of papers on my desk. “What are you talking about?”
Apollo walked into my office and sat in the chair opposite me. “I happened to walk by the kitchen last night and saw you and Royal having dinner.”
“Yeah.”
“You two looked like you were actually getting along.”
I nodded and looked back down. “We were.”
“And now, this morning, she’s refusing to come out of her room and asked for a tray of breakfast to be left at her door.”
“She’s free to do whatever she wants, Apollo. If she wants to stay in her room, then that’s what she can do.”
The stack of papers in front of me vanished, and my eyes snapped up to look at Apollo. “Knock it off, Marco.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’m in here working.” Last night, I went to bed after Royal told me to go away, and then, I was in my office when the sun rose.
“What did you say to piss off Royal?” he asked.
“Last I checked, it didn’t matter if Royal was pissed off or whatever as long as she was safe and not in a pine box.” She made it pretty clear to me last night that she was fine and didn’t want to be bothered. Though five minutes before that, it seemed like we were getting along pretty well.
“You can catch a whole lot more flies with honey, Marco.” Apollo dropped the stack of papers back on the desk and sat back in his chair while he popped open the button of his coat.
“I don’t understand why the hell you’re telling me that. I need to keep her alive. That’s it.” Apollo was wasting his time worrying about whether or not Royal was happy.
“Because you and I both know if Royal isn’t happy, then we’re going to hear about it from the Knights.” Apollo kicked his feet out in front of him. “Let me rephrase that. We’re gonna hear from the Knight’s ol’ ladies if Royal isn’t happy.”
“I’m not worried about it.” Once I got things squared away with the Meeks, Apollo and I would be back to Chicago along with Princeton and Murphy. The ol’ ladies were going to be far enough away that they won’t be a problem.
“Maybe you should be a little worried about it, Marco. She is about ready to pop a baby out any day.”
I loosened my tie. It wasn’t a good sign when it was barely ten in the morning and I was already loosening my tie. “Hopefully, it won’t be ‘til after I deal with Meeks.”
“You actually getting anywhere with him?”
“If I could fucking find him, I would be.” I leaned back in my chair. “Every fucking contact I have for him suddenly isn’t working or they don’t know where he is.” Last night, I had tried a few numbers I had for Meeks, but I didn’t get anywhere. This morning, things had just gotten worse.
“How the fuck did he just disappear?” Apollo asked.
“Well, the guy had enough balls to kill Grit, but I’m assuming he might be realizing he’s fucked with the wrong person.” If only the idiot could have figured that out without having to kill Grit.
“Or, he’s hiding away just to be able to surprise the fuck out of us,” Apollo suggested.
I had thought about that, too. It was a possibility.
“Either way, we need to fucking find him.” I was not into the idea of Meeks popping up out of nowhere and causing even more trouble.
“You want me to get Princeton and Murphy?”
I nodded. “Yeah. We need to get a move on this right now.” Though I didn’t know exactly what move that was going to be. I had spent the past two hours calling every contact I could, and they had all come up empty.
I was hitting a fucking wall.