“Makes sense,” Ashton said, looking over the note. “Wait. Carmine is her go-to?” He looked up at me. “Why not Cherri or Bennett?”
It was nice to have that confusion confirmed in someone else. “Yeah, I thought that was weird too. I’m not sure. Part of me wanted to think it was maybe an age thing since Carmine’s the oldest kid that she keeps around, but Cherri’s not much younger than him. Plus, Carmine’s…” I paused, thinking. “He’s not a people person. I would expect that, with the amount of conning Illiana is into, she’d use someone more like Cherri who’s key skill is stealth. Cherri has learned conning from Illiana, as well, but I don’t know. I don’t get it.”
“There’s something about that,” Ashton said. “Keep an eye on that.”
“Yeah.”
“Not much else going on, then? No talks of anything against my dad?”
I shook my head. “No. She sent Sid Ghiardo Jr. back to his family in Texas, but she didn’t say why.”
“Most likely because she knows the Ghiardos are gonna make a play for the freshly abandoned market that the Varassos left behind.”
“Maybe.” Most of what I had learned in my time with the Costas so far had been left out of the note. I was playing a very intricate, very complicated game and needed to know how to use my knowledge wisely, but Ashton was smart. If I wasn’t careful about how I played, he’d figure me out and drop me sooner than he was planning. “Anyway,” I continued. “I’m hoping to work myself into a better position tonight. I’m going out with Cherri and Bennett.”
“Keep me posted,” Ashton responded, “and be careful.”
A snort left my nose before I could stop it. “I’ll be fine, dear.”
“Keep making all those jokes, and you’re gonna make me think something else,” Ashton hissed back quickly.
It was a few seconds, and only once he smiled back, that I realized I was smiling at him. Ashton wouldn’t be a bad choice for a partner, but I’d be stupid to think that it could go anywhere, given the circumstances. My days were likely numbered, anyway. One small move, and I’d join his shit list along with everyone else.
“Are you still planning on coming here on Saturday?” I asked to try and change the subject.
The grin on his face got a little larger. “I mean, I was kind of thinking we were ticking that box now, but…”
“That’s fine with me.”
“No,” he replied. “Let’s still meet on Saturday. It’s like I said.” His gaze flashed a little more intensely. “I like the quiet here.”
I shrugged. “Whatever you say, boss.”
His smile grew into an excited one, complete with the flash of teeth. I was headed down a bad path, so I stood up off the couch and walked over to the door. “I gotta go before anyone gets suspicious of why I’ve been gone for so long. See you Saturday?”
Ashton nodded. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
As I carried on with my day, I started to understand what Carmine was talking about when he said I had a glow. In every reflection I caught of myself throughout the day, I had a stupid grin on my face like I’d just gotten to spend the day with my elementary school crush. All the logic in my brain was trying to remind me that Ashton was just a temporary thing, that he was into it now because it was still safe to be so, but as soon as I became a liability, he’d be gone like the rest. Yet there was a small part of me, a piece that dreamed of that beach in California, that wanted to dive all in and hope for the best.
I refused to be that naive.
I forced Ashton away from my mind and brought myself back down to ground level. There was work to be done, and I wasn’t going to be good at it if I was fluttering around like a lovesick child. The sun was already setting when I was pulling back up to the Costa estate to collect Cherri and Bennett, which was good because our covert mission was going to require the cover of night.
Not long after I sent Cherri a text to let her know that I’d arrived, she came bounding through the front door and down the stairs with Bennett not far behind her, though he was much more subdued.
Cherri hopped over to the driver’s side of the car and leaned in through the open window. “May I?”
“It’s yours.” I undid my seatbelt and climbed out of the driver’s side door, and Cherri climbed in. Bennett was already climbing into the passenger’s side, so I opened the back door and slid in behind Cherri. “Wow, it’s spacious back here.”
“Yeah, that was a big deal for me. Never know when you have to transport a body,” she sang with a smile on her face even though I was about ninety-percent certain she wasn’t kidding.
After about a day of being stuck at the house with no car to get around, Cherri loaned me her car, a dark gray PT Cruiser. It wasn’t what I would consider a mafia heiress’s car, but she explained that it was good for blending in, and there was no doubt about it. It was the kind of car only middle-aged soccer moms drove, so it looked unsuspicious on the street. This was a particularly good thing because that seemed to be par for the course in the neighborhood that Bennett directed us to.
Cherri parked along the sidewalk of a well-manicured boulevard about six houses down from a pale blue family home with a chain-link fence surrounding it and a white gabled roof. A squad car was parked next to a black SUV, and the curtains of the front picture window were open, giving us a clear view of the family inside.
“That’s Alcina,” Bennett said, pointing out a man with brown but graying hair swooped across the top of his head. He was fairly fit, even if he had a slight belly poking out that gave him that dad-bod that was all the rage nowadays. He fluttered between a woman with long blond hair and a younger-looking girl about Bennett’s age with light brown hair down her back. “His wife, the blond, is Tessa, and his daughter is Rayna.”
“She’s pretty,” Cherri said. “Is she really popular?”
