CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: WINTER
Thebombwasnew, I thought as I worked, wiping down the bar. One of the customers spilled his drink and the bartenders are too busy to get to it.
A whole fucking bomb.
I think I’m almost used to being shot at now after the last shootout at the restaurant. In broad fucking daylight.
But the bomb… I hadn’t been expecting that. And it was the sole reason why I never got an answer from Lucia about whether Giovanni killed my mother.
She hadn’t returned to the house after the bomb went off.
That was two days ago but I’ve been holding out hope that she’ll return and I’ll get another opportunity. Something tells me that she won’t so easily pick the conversation back up though. It was different when she was already approaching me with her own questions, but now that moment is over and I don’t think it’ll return.
I told Amarie’s secrets for nothing.
But it isn’t nothing.
Lucia had confirmed that I was here because of my mother and frankly, how many circumstances could be revolving around my dead mother to get me here, except for the one Diamond already told me.
Dox was my mother’s brother and Giovanni killed her for it.
All isn’t fair in love and war.
I watch from across the room as one of the waiters approach Amadeo and I cringe as she taps a finger to his chest. The man is as cold as an iceberg. But because he’s devastatingly handsome this isn’t the first time that someone had tried to flirt with him while he’s been on duty in the club.
The other day, I watched him nearly drop a woman on her ass when the woman had tried to hug him from behind in some sort of seduction. He’d spun, shoving her off before he could even see who it was. His hand had gone to his gun before he realized the lady wasn’t a real threat. He’d spat Italian at her. I hadn’t understood a single word and neither had the lady but the warning was clear.
Get the fuck away and don’t come back.
“Funny how some women will throw themselves at a person who clearly doesn’t want them, eh?” Amarie asks as she slides up next to me, her eyes on Amadeo and the woman as well. She has a shot glass in her hand and I think its for a customer until she tosses it back.
We’re not supposed to drink on the job, the drinks that customers buy us being nothing but apple juice.
Amadeo slaps the lady’s hand, the smack so loud that it can be heard even over the music. She pulls her hand away, clutching it to her chest, her mouth agape.
Amarie snorts out a laugh. “Consent goes both ways,” she mutters before raising her voice slightly. “Winter, come help me get napkins out of the stock room.” I frown at her, trying to figure out what she’s up to, but when I see Amadeo watching us, I realize she’s trying to give me an excuse to leave out for a few moments without a tail.
“Oh sure," I nod before following her into the back.
Amadeo doesn’t follow, his glare back on the woman who’s crying now as she makes her way out of the building.
We slide into the back hall, but Amarie doesn’t say anything until we’ve made it into the stock room.
“What-”
“No,” she cuts me off, shooting me a look as she holds up a finger. I shut my lips, watching as she moves around the room, lifting and moving boxes. After a moment, she finally lets out a sigh. “Okay, no bugs, we can talk.” She moves closer to me. “The papers checked out.”
Diamond wasn’t lying.
"Which one?”
“All of them. The coroner’s report was real, it was written up before being tossed out after the police told the coroner to rule the death as a suicide instead of a murder.”
My head throbs. “If it was deleted then how did you find out the truth?”
“I located the coroner.” Her lips pinch. “And I made him tell me what happened. He wanted to be tight lipped at first, but I changed his mind.”
I note the threat in her voice. “He remembered the case.”