Before he can ask me anything else, I turn quickly and rush for my car, the thud of my boots against the pavement beating in time with my racing heart.
Caleb just stands there as I go, a solid figure in my periphery. Amazed, maybe even a little confused. Already getting lost to the city, to the chaos, to my own panicked retreat. I refuse to look back at him. If I do, I might crumble. I might risk it all and let him in.
I wrench the car door open, climbing inside and jamming the key into the ignition with shaking hands. The engine roars to life, and I grip the steering wheel, my knuckles white as bone. In my rearview mirror, I see the SUV. Following. One block. Two blocks. Three.
Then, finally, it turns.
I exhale a shaky breath. I made the right decision. I have to keep Caleb out of this. I can’t let a kind man like him get dragged into my world. He doesn’t deserve that.
No one does.
Chapter Three
Tank
Bianca drives away, and I don’t like it. Not one bit. It isn’t just that she’s leaving, her slim silhouette tense behind the wheel of her car, and that there’s a part of me that objects to that very fact, wishing I could reel her back before she gets too damn far. No. It’s more than that. I can’t forget who it is I’m dealing with: a Moretti. Everything about her screams suspicious; the way she shut down, and the way she faked that too-bright smile when I gave her back those damn rosary. Hell, the way she seemed like she was about to open up to a damn moment of honesty and then, like a Moretti, she bolted like she was escaping something—or someone. It was almost like I was watching desperation drive her away.
Victor Moretti’s sister, acting all sweet and innocent? Yeah, right.
There’s no way in hell she’s not involved in his shit.
No one related to a monster like Victor Moretti is clean, not with a reputation like his. Not with what he’s done to me and what he’s done to my brothers. I can’t separate the two of them in my mind, no matter how different she appears.
I clench my jaw, watching her taillights get smaller and smaller, disappear down the road, and I know, deep in that place in my gut where nothing but the truth lives, that she’s up to something. And whatever it is, it might just be the ticket I need to get to her brother. She’s the best lead I’ve got.
Decision made.
I turn and stalk back into Sticky Buns, and glare at the customers still lingering in my bakery. All four of them. “Out.” Some guy with a latte and a hat that still has the sticker on it — what kind of grown-ass man wears a fucking sticker — blinks at me. “Excuse me?”
“I said get out.”
A woman with a laptop and a half-eaten scone raises her eyebrows. “Really?” she says, like she can’t believe I’m not her personal damn barista.
I rip my apron off, toss it on the counter, which sends up a cloud of cake flour, and cross my arms. “You heard me. Get the fuck out.”
“But—”
I slam my palm on the counter. “Out! Out! This ain’t a damn Starbucks, so take your fucking latte and your fucking croissant and get the fuck out of here, because I got shit to do!”
They scatter. Like pigeons. Like I just threw a stick of dynamite at their feet. I don’t even watch them go. Just lock up, grab my keys, and get in my car. Time to see what Bianca Moretti is really up to.
She doesn’t make it hard to follow her.
Drives steady, doesn’t look in the rearview. Either she doesn’t know she’s being tailed, or she’s too wrapped up in whatever she’s doing to care. Even though the Twisted Devils dealt a blow to Victor Moretti’s organization, that rat bastard still owns this entire fucking town, and Bianca Moretti has no reason not to be overconfident on her family’s home turf. But, whatever her reason, following takes me to a part of Boise that makes me grimace—which says a lot, because as far as I’m concerned, all of Boise is a damn dump.
Even parts of the city that aren’t supposed to be shitholes have a way of reeking like ones. Maybe it’s knowing it’s all tainted with Moretti blood money. Maybe it’s just because I know exactly how filthy the hands are that run this place. The thought of that snake Victor pulling the strings, everyone dancing like puppets, makes my skin crawl. It’s like the whole town is rotten to the core. I don’t fucking like it, and I don’t trust it.
Bianca finally stops in a neighborhood that’s nothing but sagging porches and cracked pavement. A place where you’re more likely to find a needle in the gutter than a car in the damn driveway. It’s just run-down enough to be perfect for Victor’s under-the-radar shit. I hang back, watch her park in front of a house that looks about one strong wind away from collapsing — peeling paint, busted porch steps, a couple of cracked windows. The kind of place that has seen its fair share of bad nights.
I turn down a side street, kill the engine, and watch from a distance while Bianca gets out of her car and walks toward a woman waiting on the crumbling sidewalk. She moves quick, like she knows where she’s going and who she’s meeting, and it’s more confirmation of what I already suspect. Whatever she’s doing at a place like this, it is not something she does not want to get caught doing.
I squint to get a better look at their dodgy little meetup. I know that woman standing there — Vanessa, a dancer at Club Sin, a shaky little thing, all hair and legs and trouble. I’ve seen her coming and going on some nights that I’ve surveilled Moretti’s club — seen her name on the billboard, too.
Bianca’s head tilts as she approaches, like she’s checking for danger, even though they have the whole damn neighborhood to themselves. Vanessa seems just as on edge, her spindly arms crossed tight over her chest, looking both directions like she’s got spies on her ass. She’s even thinner than the last time I saw her, more strung out than she ever was, with haunted eyes that scream her soul is hanging by a fucking thread, perilously close to snapping at any moment.
They start talking, and I slump down in the driver’s seat, letting the scene play out.
Bianca gestures, Vanessa shakes her head, like they’re having a disagreement. This has to be Moretti business. Maybe Vanessa’s trying to get out, and Bianca’s been sent to haul her back in. Wouldn’t surprise me. Moretti’s got his hooks into everything, but I know damn well that Victor Moretti’s not one for sweet-talking his targets. No, that’s Bianca’s job; that’s how they operate. He breaks people, and she swoops in, whispers lies, picks them up, hugs them tight and holds them together just long enough for him to squeeze every last drop out of them, over and over and over again.
