CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: WINTER
“Whatdoyouknow about that Costa chick?” Amarie asks as she slides up next to me.
The club is having a surprisingly slow night and we’ve had more downtime than usual to talk. All night Amarie has been looking at me, her lips opening before slamming shut as if she isn’t sure if she wants to answer her question.
I guess I know why now.
I peer over at her, noting the way she’s leaned against the bar, her elbows propped behind her and pushing her breasts forward. She has on a glittery red dress tonight and that tail is peaking out from beneath it again. Her heels are black, the red on the bottom a shade brighter than her dress. Her hair is down around her shoulders. She’s trying to give the façade of calmness, but I see right through her.
My lips twitch. “Lucia?”
“Lucia,” she repeats, her words tinged with curiosity and disgust. I don’t know how she manages it.
I bite down on the inside of my jaw, not saying anything until she turns and raises a perfectly arched brow at me.
“She’s Giovanni and Maximo’s cousin.”
“Yes, I already know that,” she says, waving a hand to hurry me along.
“Well, then what is it in particular that you’re looking for me to tell you? You’re going to have to help me out.”
She lets out a disgruntled sound before waving her hand around again.
“That’s definitely helpful.”
She levels a glare on me, her lips pinched together. “You think you’re funny, don’t you?”
I shrug. “I just don’t know what to make of all those little noises.”
She blows out a long breath. “Just tell me what you know about her, it’s that simple.”
Except it isn’t. Almost everything I know about Lucia, I’m sure is supposed to be a secret, her job, what she does for Giovanni and Maximo. Her little assignments.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Amarie says as a customer passes by us. When he looks at her, she shoots him the finger and he moves along. Amarie leans closer to me, keeping her voice low. “You’re out here asking me to help you assassinate Giovanni Costa and yet you won’t tell me what it is you know about Lucia.”
It’s true. I’m asking something big of her when I won’t even give her a little information. But it isn’t about betraying the Costas as a whole, but Lucia as an individual.
Sure, Lucia isn’t innocent and at the end of the day, she has Costa blood, which is enough of a sign, but she’s my friend. I don’t want to give any information that could lead to her getting in trouble, even if this is just Amarie.
“Why do you want to know?”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing. “Winter,” she bites out, “I’m just curious, okay. I can promise you that I’m not about to go running to the police with whatever information you give me.”
And would that actually be a bad thing?
Yeah, I guess it would, considering the Costas have informants in both the police and FBI. It’d get back to them that Amarie ratted and that’d lead them right back to me.
“I’m not a snitch,” Amarie says gruffly. I look up at her, the pinched expression on her face, the annoyance in her eyes.
She’s into shady shit too, which means she doesn’t believe in the law.
“She… does things for Giovanni,” I tell her finally.
“Sex things?” she asks, her voice raising a pitch.
I shake my head, “No.” I look around but there’s no one near us so I lower my voice. “Killing things,” I tell her.
Her face doesn’t change in the slightest. She was more surprised by the idea of sex work than murder.