“Urgent,” she said, setting it in front of me. “From Mr. Fausti.”
“Ah,” I said, opening it, recognizing Rocco’s stamp right away. Inside was a fake bill for his legal services. I knew the difference between the real ones and the ones they used for show. Anyone who worked for them did. It was a way for him to communicate. This bill? I owed payment to Macchiavello. He’d decided to cash in on that debt owed—killing Cormick Grady.
Rocco added a note on his personalized paper:We need to catch up. I hear Sullivan’s has good roast beef. Dinner. Around 7 o’clock.
He gave me the date, which was around the time of Macchiavello’s wedding in Italy. Then he signed off in his regal fucking handwriting.
Rocco Fausti
A slow smile came to my face, and I stared at the paper a few seconds before I met Raff’s eager eyes.
“What is it?” His knee bounced up and down.
“Roast beef,” I said. I’d give Raff orders to keep his eyes and ears open, but what went on between the Faustis and me stayed between us. No one else knew the details.
Rule number one in this life: never trust anyone one hundred percent.
Back to roast beef.
It wasn’t the word that Rocco used, but what he had conveyed through the message. The Italian families, especially the Faustis, were known to speak in code like no one else. Being fluent in their language, I understood right away. Rocco was giving me a time and place for a reason.
This happening during a time when Mac would be getting married was significant. Because it meant he wouldn’t be in New York.
My gut told me it had something to do with the big shipment, and if I learned what I needed to know, I had my mark. I knew it was going to happen soon, and Rocco came through just in time.
There was no doubt, though, that Mac was giving me this at a price. I’d hit the delivery, but he’d get the goods. I wasn’t familiar with his business, but this time, I would have to let it go. I could do what I wanted with the small loads, set them on fire like usual, but he had the right to do whatever he wanted with this one.
Then my debt was repaid.
All in all, this was a good deal for the both of us, if it turned out to be the big shipment. No matter what the situation was, though, if Rocco sent word, it had to be something good.
I could taste the roast beef in my mouth now.
Raff went to speak again when a loud bang echoed in my office. Harrison was flying past the windows, his fist landing against another glass as he did. I stood before Raff, wondering why the fuck he was banging on my shit. He’d been a testy motherfucker after his girl decided to marry Macchiavello and after I forced his sister to marry me.
“My sister,” he said, after he’d thrown my door open. “She’s just been arrested.”
* * *
I movedthrough the crowd waiting outside of our place as Stone led my wife out of the door, her hands cuffed behind her back.
She wasn’t making it easy on him. She was taunting him, telling him that the only way he could control a woman like her was to cuff her. Her neck was on fire with red splotches, along with parts of her jaw. It was also stained with purple paint.
I narrowed my eyes. It was all in her hair, too.
Never did emotions show on my face, but I had to make sure to check myself so Stone couldn’t see the fucking fury burning a hole through my chest.
Harry Boy stepped up, demanding to know what the charges were.
“Resisting arrest,” Stone said.
“Resisting your pathetic advances,” my wife said as Stone walked her past me, a smug smile on his face. He ducked her head before he set her in a cruiser. He shut the door and then smacked the roof twice to signal the patrolman he was good to go. A second later, she was taken away, lights flashing and sirens blaring.
“The royal treatment,” I said to him as he stopped in front of me, making sure to keep my voice even. One ounce of emotion and he’d sense it on me—the urge to hurt him physically. No amount of physical pain amounted to the despair I saw in his eyes, though, and that was feeding my need for violence.
“No less for a queen of thieves.”
We stared at each other until Raff came to stand next to me, nudging me with his elbow. Stone looked toward the house first, and then I did—police were gathering around, watching us, ready to move if I did.
