Now, I liked me the rough and tough kinda guys, the frayed edges and tattoos and beards. I liked guys who wore their street cred on their sleeves. But if that wasn't my type, I'd be brought to my knees by the Grassi men.
Antony was the had of the family, a man past middle age with gray streaking his black hair but with a strong face, deep, smart eyes, and the perfect skin tone that Italian men seemed to possess even in the depths of winter.
His oldest son, Luca, was well over six feet with a swimmer's type of body clad in an expensive gray suit, his black hair pushed back, his dark eyes framed with lashes that any woman would die for.
Matteo looked a lot like his brother, the same chiseled face, straight nose, dark eyes and slim but strong build. Matteo wore dark wash jeans with a thick-knit camel-colored sweater. He kept his hair long, curling down almost to his shoulders.
"I don't remember the last time we had the pleasure of a visit from someone at Hailstorm," Antony said, waving away the security guard as they all stood. Luca actually buttoned his coat then moved around the table to pull out a chair for me.
"I wish I could say this is a social call," I said, giving Luca what I could only call an awkward smile, unaccustomed to old-fashioned manners like pulling out chairs. He moved around the table, unbuttoned his coat, then sat back down.
"My doorman did say something about the Abruzzos being in town," Antony went on, going for casual, but I could hear a sharpness in his tone.
"Long story short, my man is locked up..."
"For a crime he didn't commit?" Matteo asked, mocking smile in place.
"Oh he committed it alright, but that is besides the point. You guys know just as well as I do that that never usually has any bearing. The only reason he is locked up right now is because Collings has himself a new partner."
"Marco," Luca agreed, nodding his head like they had already looked into it.
"I see you guys dug about as deep as the rest of us did initially. Last night, I dug deeper. His last name before he changed it? Abruzzo. And, sure, while it is possible he left the family behind and started a new life..."
"It's unlikely," Antony said with authority. You were in the family, you were in for life. Case closed.
"Exactly."
"And you're sharing this because..." Luca asked, trying to find my angle.
Hell, I wasn't even sure what my angle was.
"Just thought you should know. Maybe you want to have a talk with him. If you do," I said, standing, and I'll be damned if all three men didn't stand as well, "you can find him in room one-fourteen at Navesink General."
To that, I got three very similar white-toothed smiles.
"Let me understand this, Janie darling," Antony said, not ready to dismiss me. "You blame Marco for Wolf's arrest. You have had him beat. And now you come to us to involve us in your situation. What is your game plan here?"
"Honestly?" I said, feeling my shoulders shrug and my voice take on a hint of desperation. "I don't know. At this point, I'm scrambling to do anything I can. That news story last night about the rape kits? That was me. I uncovered them and dropped them on Collings' desk with a warning. I outsourced to kick Marcus' ass. I looked into his family. I'm doing whatever idea pops into my head. I have no real plan. At this point, I'm just creating chaos. And I... I have no fucking idea if anything I am doing is even making any kind of difference and I'm just so..." I trailed off on a hopeless little hand gesture, shaking my head.
"Matteo, I think it is time to offer this lady a drink," Antony supplied. "Luca and I have an appointment with a man in the hospital," Antony winked at me, touching my shoulder as he passed.
"What's your poison? Usually it's only right to give a beautiful woman a nice glass of wine, but it sounds like you're having a stiff two fingers of whiskey kind of day."
I snorted, shaking my head. "Or a whole bottle. Sure, whiskey is fine," I said, following him toward the bar.
Matteo ordered us each a drink and took a seat next to me, turning on the stool to face me. "I understand what you're trying to do here, Janie. But you are going to lose it if you don't slow down."
"What other choice is there? Let him sit in jail endlessly while I twiddle my thumbs?"
"You've done more in twenty-four hours than anyone, even Wolf, could expect from you. Have you even slept?"
I got an hour, if that counted. "I don't sleep. So I might as well work on this. Reign is on the lawyer angle, but I am still counting on this blowing over before it goes that far."
"You realize the repercussions of leaking those rape kits, right? IA will be all over NBPD. No one will get away with anything."
"Honestly, Matteo," I said, putting down my empty glass and standing. He did as well, of course. The freak. "I don't give a fuck what happens to anyone else if I can get Wolf out of this. Thanks for the drink."
"You love him," his voice called after me, making me stop dead.
Love.
I loved him?
Even as I tried to deny it to myself, I knew there was no way to push it away once it was unearthed. Somehow, someway, sometime along the way, he had done something to my cold, shriveled little heart. That was why I was working so hard, keeping myself too occupied to think about why I needed to sleep in something that smelled like him, why it made my blood boil to be around the club whores, why I was willing to threaten an honest cop to get him to do something he had avoided all his career- erase evidence.