The Woman from the Past (Grassi Framily)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Massimo

I’d been trying to find a way to contact her for a goddamn week.

That was how locked down that fuck had her.

I’d been able to locate Colin’s place pretty easily. He made no attempts to hide his home from anyone. He didn’t drive around to throw off a tail. He just got in his car and drove back to his house.

I don’t know what I’d been expecting when Cammie told me that she lived in an apartment over Colin’s garage.

I guess I’d pictured a situation similar to Cody’s. An outwardly shitty house in a bad area that was completely renovated inside.

Colin wasn’t trying to hide the fact that he made bank, though, which made me think I’d missed something when I’d been looking into him. He had to have some sort of legitimate business going to hide his dirty money.

Because his house was in a decent area that was bad area adjacent. Close enough to be there in a few minutes if shit went down, but far enough that the crime didn’t quite spill out into the neighborhood full of carefully manicured lawns whose sprinklers all seemed to go off between eleven and eleven-thirty at night. Despite the fact that it had been rainy enough that the grass didn’t need it.

Colin’s place was a nice, but not excessive, off-white colonial with a partial brick front and a wrought iron gate that closed in the property.

I was supposed to be making notes of the moves of the security guards, the cameras, and the ins and outs of the home.

Instead, all I could seem to do was focus my gaze on the apartment above the three-car garage.

There was no outside exit, and it seemed that when Cammie was summoned by Colin, there was a stairwell inside the garage that led inside, because I never got a full view of her for that entire week.

I caught glimpses of her through the window of the dining room that was conveniently located at the front of the house, but that was it.

Still, though, I watched.

Like some creepy fucking stalker.

I watched her moving around in her apartment during the day, seeming to go through the motions of a normal day. Then I watched at night when she would turn off her lights only to climb back out of bed, turn on the light, and pace.

Likely trying to find another way out of her situation since I hadn’t been able to get in touch with her.

I picked out her brothers from the guards that were always around. There was no mistaking the family resemblance.

Even they, it seemed, rarely got a chance to interact with their sister, though, since I only once saw someone other than Cammie inside her apartment.

What a lonely fucking life she led.

I was rarely alone for a full day, let alone a week. If my family wasn’t dropping in on me, I was dropping in on them.

The only person she seemed to interact with was Colin, a man she hated.

“At what point do we decide to just… put the focus on Colin?” August asked, staring at me from the passenger side of my car as we drove back to the hotel in the better area of town because it was the place Colin had the least reach.

“We need to make sure she is safe and has a plan before we try to move in. It’s three of us. You’ve seen his crew now. He’s got at least thirty guys at this point. Not including scouts and any of the businesses that might be in his pocket.”

“It’s been a week.”

“The fuck are you complaining about? I’m paying for your luxury hotel room and your never-ending room service charges.”

“Yeah, but I could be back home, making moves, making money,” August said, shrugging.

He was hungry.

Hungrier, even, than I had ever been, to be honest.