The woman across from me was more fascinating than anyone else in the bar. “She’s not my type.”
Loretta scoffed and picked up her burger, half the condiments falling out onto her plate, just as I expected. “So tall and gorgeous isn’t your type?”
The woman sang, but I tuned her out, more interested in our conversation. I’d been ready to tell Loretta the traits I’d suddenly found attractive when the phone in my pocket buzzed. I answered quickly. “Roxie? Is everything okay?”
It was a Friday night and Roxie clocked out at 5 p.m. unless the world was ending. She said it was the only way to stay sane when you worked for the Kensington family. She had a point.
“I’m just leaving work now, but I wanted to let you know that you have seventeen messages from Mr. Pitero.” Ugh. The mob never slept.
“Did you tell him I’m out for the weekend?” I gave her simple instructions. Roxie was a competent assistant who should have been able to follow them.
“Yes, I did. But men are arrogant, pigheaded, and don’t listen,” she repeated making me consider that she was talking about more than the just the member of the mob.
“We’ll he’ll have to wait until I return to the city and even then, we’re not going to work with his company.” I used the term company lightly. It was common knowledge that Mr. Pitero held a position high in the New York mob. No way did I plan to allow the Kensington family to get into a contract with the crime family.
People may have thought the mob no longer existed, but they’d only gotten smarter. They now had corporations, big and small, to help them move money. They used legitimate fronts to become respected members of society. But pull back that first layer and the truth was revealed.
“He said he would cut you a deal on the cost of labor.”
We hadn’t even finalized the contract for buying the new building and already Cyrus and Corbin Kensington were getting bids on the renovations. They had a mess on their hands.
More of Loretta’s ketchup slid off her burger and plopped onto the plate, making a mess. “I’ll handle it when I get back, Roxie.”
Fucking A.
I hung up the call before she continued and set it on the table upside down.
“I hope you pay her a lot,” Loretta said, wiping her mouth after a huge bite of her burger.
“Of course I do, but why?” Working for the Kensington family and my office was a position of respect in the city. We only hired the best.
“Because you’re a real asshole sometimes,” she said and then took another ridiculously large bite.
I lifted my knife from the table and cut mine in half. “You throw around hundreds of insults for a woman with blue hair and piercings,” I shot back.
It wasn’t in my foray to insult a woman, but Loretta just pulled them out of me.
Rather than get offended, she laughed and used her napkin to cover up her mouth, which was still full of food.
“I like you,” she said before regaining her composure.
The woman was absolutely crazy.
“You enjoy the fact that I insulted you?” Maybe she was one of those people who wanted an abusive boyfriend.
She shook her head. “No, I like how you keep proving me right about the asshole thing.”
Maybe she’d been dropped on her head as a child.
My phone vibrated against the table and Loretta’s eyebrow popped up as she waited for me to answer and tell Roxie off again. She wanted more ammunition for her asshole claim. Except Roxie’s number wasn’t highlighted.
Pitero’s name flash across the screen. Thankfully, I’d programmed in his number after he contacted Roxie the first time. I never liked to be surprised when someone called. Except that didn’t answer how he found my personal number in the first place?
I turned the phone off, completely irritated with the interruptions of our evening, and went back to my burger. Loretta finished half of hers and by the time I reached a quarter left, she’d been drumming her fingers on the table for five minutes. Chewing wasn’t high on her priority list.
“What is your problem?” I asked, finally letting the irritation get the better of me.
She jerked her head up and furrowed her brow. “How can you eat so slow? We got things to do.”
