“I will take care of it,” I said.
I tried to keep my voice completely steady – completely normal. I didn’t though. The very last syllable dropped as my throat went dry. It was enough for him to notice.
“Getting close to a girl,” Rinaldo said, “can be a good thing. If you were someone else – someone less complicated – the worst that can happen is you don’t work out. You’re a complicated man, Arden, and you are in a complicated position. Bitches make it even more complicated.”
“I’m aware, sir.”
“You’re aware,” he mocked. “Will that change anything when someone finds out you give a shit? What better to hold over your head than a warm cunt, huh? You take better care not to show your affection for her. You’ve done a shit job on that front with that pup of yours.”
His dark eyes darkened further as we stared at each other.
“You know Greco will use what he can to get at me,” Rinaldo reminded me. “You are a good way to get at me. One of the reasons that makes you ideally suited for your job is because you have no attachments that could be used against you to get to me. You were always careful not to show your affection for the dog in public. You aren’t as careful anymore.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said to him, “but that still won’t happen.”
At least my voice stayed steady this time because if I thought about it deep inside, I wouldn’t give Odin up. Not a fucking chance. I’d blow them all away first.
“You like this girl,” he said.
“She’s a whore,” I replied.
“And my wife used to dance on a pole in one of my clubs,” he retorted. “Married twenty-five years now with Luisa in our lives. You think that doesn’t concern me sometimes?”
“I know it does, sir.”
He paused significantly, and I didn’t move.
“Divided thoughts,” Rinaldo said softly. “That will never do for you.”
I continued to look him squarely in the eye.
“I only have one loyalty,” I informed him and then nodded my head towards him.
He returned the nod but gave me a long, increasingly sad look.
“No good can come of what you’re doing, son,” he said. “One of you will get hurt.”
I looked up at my boss and shrugged one shoulder again. The word “son” flowed over my skin and warmed me as I answered him.
“It won’t be me.”
*****
Finding Bridgett was supposed to be fairly straightforward because she was still supposed to be in my apartment where she was when I left. Like a typical woman, she wasn’t going to be that easy, even if she was a whore.
Aside from Odin, the apartment was empty when I got back – no note or anything. She had been there for several days, and though she had gone out before, she usually told me first. I tried her cell, but she didn’t pick up. I took a deep breath, jumped in the Mazda, and cruised around looking for her but to no avail.
When I returned, she was still gone.
She wasn’t back the next day, either. I tried to tell myself that it didn’t matter because there was a lot more I needed to figure out before I talked to her again. If there was even the slightest possibility that someone was framing her, I had to know who it was and quickly.
Who even knew about her?
I spent the next several days wandering around town, trying to catalog all the possibilities in my head. As sleep deprivation mounted, my thinking was a little less clear. The main problem was a lot of people knew about her. Just like Moretti had said, I wasn’t being as careful as I usually was.
I blamed it on the lack of decent shuteye.
I had taken her to all the best spots around the Magnificent Mile on a freaking date, and anyone could have seen us together. Those at the 676 Restaurant and Bar certainly knew about her, as well as the people at the restaurant where we had dinner, and the saleslady at Tiffany’s. Rinaldo knew I had been seeing someone prior to showing me the picture; he just didn’t have a name to put with the face.