This is about what happened in Chicago?Santino let his head tilt to the side. He’d talked to a handful of the men, the ones whowere already back to work, about that side adventure. He had a sense of the events that had gone down. He’d certainly heard about the show the Dragon himself had made.
The De Salvos had a strong sense of family. That was one of the things Santino respected about them.
Joey took a breath. “Iget it,” he repeated, “and I know I’m not the only one. But the thing is, some of the guys took it a different way. I was kinda fucked up while we were in the air, and most of the next day or so, so I thought these flashes were some wild dream I’d had.” He gave his head a hard shake. “’til I heard about Nico yesterday.”
Santino let himself scowl. “You overheard something, maybe saw something, but you convinced yourself it was a hallucination from the pain meds?”
“Worse, Boss.” Joey raked a hand across his short-cut hair before dropping it like a heavy weight back into his lap. “A couple o’ the guys—the guys not so banged up they couldn’t get back to work—they were talkin’ to me while I was doped up. I don’t remember every word, and I couldn’t say if anyone was close enough to hear ‘em, but what Idoremember, it’s fuckin’ stupid-crazy.”
Santino waited with faux-patience while Joey rubbed nervously at his neck and steadied himself for a third time. But he did not at all like the sound of what was being said.
“At first, there was a lot o’ grumbling, you know? Most of us weren’t super excited about flyin’ out to Chicago to play backup for some bratva baby. But there were definitely a few voices that were madder than the rest of us. Most of us got our heads on right real quick. It’s pretty clear who’s on which team when the bullets start flyin’, and even if it meant takin’ orders from some strangers outta New Jersey, or fightin’ side-by-side with a crew from Indy, none of us wanted to get dead.” Joey paused andswallowed hard. He’d watched two brothers-in-arms fall in that fight, and taken a bullet that side-lined him in process.
Santino wished he could afford to be more sympathetic. Instead, he sat back and crossed one leg over his other knee. “So, the lot of you were out there, whining about your jobs?”
Joey shook his head hard. “No, Boss.” His jaw tightened. “Not me, anyway. Not all of us. But … yeah. Some of the guys were bitchin’ about it pretty good. Enough to be annoying. And then, when it was all over an’ I was ridin’ high on pain meds, IthoughtI had this wild-ass dream about those same guys tryin’ to flip me.”
Santino frowned. “Flip you.” He didn’t phrase it like a question, leaving the provocation implied rather than articulated.
Joey finally locked onto his stare, muddy brown eyes pleading and raw. “They kept sayin’ how they thought you made us look weak, by partnering up with Indy and Jersey and whoever else. Like you neededhelp. And how it was an insult, or offended them somehow, and it ought to offend me, too. That Old Man Guerra made a mistake with you.” He flexed his hands into white-knuckled fists in his lap but didn’t shy away. “And Tito got real up in my face, so he could talk quiet, and said ‘thank God we got the Segretis, am I right?’”
Santino locked his jaw, anger and disappointment curling through him and churning like nausea.
“That part,” Joey whispered, the conviction leaving his voice as his gaze dropped, “that part kept playin’ on loop in my brain. But I thought it was some fucked up nightmare. Thought all their complainin’ had mixed bad with my pain meds or some shit.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a long second. “Then I heard about Nico. And you know … you know Nico and Tito are buddies, right? Way tighter’n Nico and his brother were.”
No, actually. Santino had not known that. But it did explain why Joey might take what he’d tried to write off as a drug-induced nightmare more seriously. Santino drummed his fingers over his knee. “So, Tito has information on this infestation that’s trying to ruin my house.”
Joey nodded. “Yeah. Tito for sure.”
“Do you know which Segreti in particular they’re touting as their savior?”
Joey lifted his head, confusing flitting across his face. “I … assumed it was Danilo.”
Santino supposed that was the only answer he could have hoped for, really. He dipped his chin. “You did the right thing, reporting this to me, Joey. If that’s all, then Armando will help you back up to your car and your weapons will be returned. But in the future, make a phone call first.”
Joey blanched and coughed self-consciously. “Ah, yeah, ‘course!” He pushed upright, tipped almost too far to one side, and rocked himself bodily back to center. “Thank you for hearin’ me out, Boss. Sorry again for droppin’ in.” He bent his head. “And, uh, congratulations.”
Santino’s lips twitched and he cut his eyes to Armando, signaling the man to have their guest removed. Gently, of course. Joey hadn’t earned the violence. But hewassuddenly in the mood to dole some out. “Luca.”
“Boss?”
Santino turned his head enough to meet the man’s watchful stare. “What do you know about Tito?”
Luca’s brow furrowed. “Not much. Never done a job with him. But I know a couple guys who know him better, I could ask around.”
Reiko finally broke her silence. “Wouldn’t that risk tipping him off?”
Santino smiled and pulled her nearest hand back into his. “It could.” The better question was, did he care? Word was getting around about the incident Nico had caused. The best thing to do would be to strike before the enemy got his feet under him. Santino raised Reiko’s hand to his lips, brushing a kiss to her knuckles, and offered her a flash of a smile before shifting his attention back to the stoic man just feet away. “Make your calls. I want to know everything you can dig up about Tito by the time we’ve finished moving Reiko out of that apartment. And make sure you find me where the dumb fuck thinks he’s laying his head tonight.”
Luca nodded sharply. “You got it, Boss.”
Reiko tugged on Santino’s hand even as Luca reached for his phone. She barely waited for Santino’s gaze to slide back to her before her softly spoken, insistent words pushed into the air. “You don’t have to waste your time helping me move. I can see clearly you have more important things going on that are kind of time-sensitive, and I know how to put stuff in boxes. The last thing I want to be is an inconvenience.”
Santino scowled. “You’ve got that all wrong, beautiful.” He stood abruptly and tugged Reiko to her feet, letting her stumble into his chest from the sharp movement so he could more easily lock his arms around her. Then he lifted one hand, twisted it in her hair, and pulled until her warm brown eyes were blinking up at him once more. “Not a single moment spent with you is aninconvenience, let alone a waste of my time.” He bent down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “You’ll accept that eventually.”
She wasn’t wrong that he had things going on pulling him in other directions—things which needed dealing with swiftly. Though he disliked it, he was going to have to leave her side again before introducing her to the family properly. But that, at least, could be put off long enough to keep a promise.
It took them nearly twenty more minutes to make it out to what was, technically, still Reiko’s apartment. They were behind schedule thanks to Joey’s drop-in, so Marco’s crew had managed to box up just about everything they’d been permitted to touch unsupervised. Boxes lined the interior living room wall, rested on the kitchen counter and framed the vase of chrysanthemums on the dining table. The chairs had been stacked and pushed to one side. Furniture had been moved around for better maneuverability. A faintly bulging laptop bag rested on its own on the forward-most portion of the table.
