“Yeah. Kinda do.”
Hudson frowned. “But—why would you?”
“Oh, my God, Blondie,” Gio murmured. “You make this shit hard, don’t you? Do I need to kiss you again to prove it to you?”
Yes, please, said Hudson’s back-of-head voice. But then Hudson caught sight of the locked door over Gio’s shoulder and remembered where they were. What was at stake.
“No, thank you,” he said politely. “But maybe later.”
“Maybelater?” Gio laughed, unbelievingly. “Wow. You got some nerve.” But he was grinning broadly.
“We still need to figure out what happened here tonight. And—yes, actually, since you asked, the kissdidhelp. I’m not so scared anymore. Even though there’s no sign of snow in here, we should check outside just to make sure.”
“Yeah, we should,” Gio said, holstering his gun again. “But you let me ask Mr. D about that, okay? It’ll just make it look like you’re trying to run.”
Hudson stared at him. “I told you I didn’t do it.”
“Of course you didn’t,” Gio said, starting up the stairs. “I know that.”
Hudson watched him, wondering. “Howdo you know?”
Gio gave a small sigh and looked paused to look back down at him. “Because you’reyou, Blondie. You’re a sweet kid who got mixed up with us Italians because of the choices your sister made, and you’re nowhereneardumb enough to steal from the Morellis.”
“Don’t talk about my sister.”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Don’t talk about her.” Hudson stomped back up the stairs, pushing past Gio on his way up.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Gio could be very convincing,Hudson discovered. Once they got back into the office, waking Finch who had been dozing in the chair, Gio laid it all out simply and plainly.
“…so Hudsoncouldstill be right, but we need to go outside to check. We need to make sure, Mr. D.”
Finch gave them a skeptical look. “I don’t know, guys. If the stairs were dry, like Hudson said?—”
“Our perp coulda had a towel or some shit, wiped it down,” Gio pointed out. “It’ll take five minutes max. We’ll be out and back in no time. And I won’t let Hudson run. You can count on it.” He smirked.
“I don’t need to run,” Hudson said. “Because Ididn’t do anything.”
“Okay, okay,” Finch said wearily. “Fine. Go out, check if there’s, I don’t know, footprints or something leading away from the door, then get back in here. But go check on those guys downstairs before you go out, will you?”
Gio gave a nod. “Sure thing, Mr. D.”
Finch tossed a couple of keys towards Gio—the one for the break room and the deadlock key for the main doors. “Let’s hope they haven’t already taken each other out,” Finch added in a bored tone that made Hudson re-evaluate once again his mental list of Scariest D’Amatos.
But all was quiet when Gio and Hudson approached the break room downstairs. “Yo, you guys okay in there?” Gio shouted through the main door.
“Let us the fuck out,” Brady shouted back.
“No chance. Not till we get this cleared up.”
“That dead dipshit in the toilet was leaking all over the floor,” Art the cleaner shouted. “You want to keep things quiet, you should let me out to clean up the mess. It’ll take a while.”
“We can move the body,” Dino added. “If you let us out.”
