Loretta shrugged. “Cool people.”
I lifted my coffee cup and took a delicious sip of the brew. “Well then I will continue with my uncool self and drink this delicious brew.” The Columbian Roast had a spectacular taste, and I planned to buy a bag to take home.
She stared at me as I drank, her expression judgmental. It was amazing how the woman made me feel both young and alive and also old as fuck.
My phone rang, and I glanced at it with disdain. I’d only turned the thing back on to check my messages that morning. I had nothing worthwhile. I could handle everything when I made it back to the city, but this call came as a stark reminder of why I didn’t take vacations.
“You sure it’s not a wife?” Loretta asked, leaning her chin against her hand with her elbows on the table.
If she was so intent on catching me with this fictional wife, I’d give her the proof she needed and we’d put this question to bed forever. I gave the phone one last glance and then handed it over, making sure I had it unlocked. “Why don’t you find out?”
“Really?” she asked as the phone rang again. “You’ll let me answer your phone?”
“You better hurry before voicemail picks up.”
“But her name is Roxie?” I’d talked about Roxie plenty of times, but if she needed to find out on her own, I was okay with it.
“Seriously, you better be quick.”
Loretta swiped her thumb across the screen and held the phone to her ear. “Hello? Who is this?” She got right to business. I chuckled to myself.
I liked a woman who didn’t waste time or mince her words.
Her head nodded as if she thought the other person on the line could see her. “Whoa, who is Roxie?” she asked obviously wanting clarification in case I’d lied.
I sat smugly in my seat sipping my old man coffee and knowing that the tables just turned in my favor again.
“Oh,” Loretta said and then tried to hand the phone to me.
I pushed her hand away. “Ask her if I’m married,” I mouthed.
Loretta asked using the same words and a boisterous laugh came down the line so loudly I heard it from across the table. Me being married wasn’t that funny of a concept. Eventually I planned to find someone I’d settle with and start a family. Just because it hadn’t happened yet didn’t mean I was not husband material. I bristled as Loretta smiled at whatever Roxie said on the call.
Maybe giving her my phone wasn’t such a great idea.
“Mr. Pitero called,” Loretta said pulling the phone away from her ear just long enough to tell me.
The seventeen missed phone calls I saw should have been a clue, but apparently the man didn’t like being ignored—another reason we were definitely not going to work with him.
“Tell Roxie to tell him no.” We needed to stop wasting our time. I would never let the Kensington family get in bed with the mob, well besides one line of the Zanetti family who based themselves in Pelican Bay. We had no concrete evidence Frankie was part of the mob, but it was close enough for me. The Zanettis were always trying to make themselves appear as if they were legitimate, but they lived in Pelican Bay long enough the truth seeped out here and there.
“Roxie says he wants a meeting next week,” Loretta returned, once again trying to give me the phone back, but I had no interest in talking to Roxie.
I shook my head. “No, tell Roxie we have no plans of working with him.” If she couldn’t make the man understand he would not get a contract to the Kensingtons, I would handle it myself once in New York. I couldn’t do much in Colorado.
Loretta relayed my message and hung up the call. “Who is Mr. Pitero?”
“That depends on who you’re asking.”
“Well, I’m asking you,” she shot back in true Loretta fashion.
I smirked. I like having information I knew she didn’t. It didn’t happen often.
“His business card says he the contract facilitator for the Pitero family, but if you ask anyone at the FBI, the Pitero family is part of New York’s underground mafia. He wants to get in on a new building the Kensington family is purchasing, but we don’t want to mix anything with the mob.” No one knew for sure if Tony Pitero, the man who’d begun harassing me, was the active leader of the mob or only a spokesperson, but I didn’t intend to find out by working with him.
She studied me for a second as if digesting what I said. “I thought the mob was dead?”
“That’s what they want you to believe. They get more done if no one believes they’re still a problem.”
