“Uhh...so, maybe be worried?” Will asked with wide eyes.
I snorted. God, it was easy to forget he was the son of one of the biggest ‘bosses’ in The Family. “We’ll worry when we need to worry. For now, we need to gather more information and make sure we stay on top of things. Just focus on the part you were given and let others deal with the rest.”
I would need more people on this than just Will, even though he was good at running a lot of business on the side, so long as he wasn’t front and center. He could work through the network in this part of the Family territory better than I could, but I wasn’t useless. Considering I had been dealing with large chunks of the operations from Seattle, dealing with people and resources all along the West Coast, I had people of my own. I would need to consult with some of them, but I would also need to talk to Eliza to see if she or her people had heard anything relevant to my current predicament.
Pulling out my phone, I sighed at the texts waiting for me.
Wow, you went right for bombs? That’s kinda messed up.
Alright, what are you doing? Anything fun?
Actually, don’t answer that, probably shouldn’t just in case.
God, please tell me it’s nothing bad.
Don’t actually tell me, I really shouldn’t know...kinda want to know though.
At least tell me you’re alive.
“Excuse me,” I muttered to Will. I stepped away to grab the earpieces from the inside pocket of my jacket and slide them into my ears, waiting for the beep and the soft voice confirming they had synced with my phone. With that done, I flipped open the texts again and hit the phone button. Dom was clearly not going to give me a moment’s peace unless I responded, so I would have to give him some attention to satiate his undying need while I tried to get some other business done. And if the two assholes in the warehouse wanted me to come back before then? Well, they would just have to wait to pull off their trick of pretending like they were going to cooperate.
“Oh, hey,” Dom said in a surprised voice that made me roll my eyes.
“Did you think I wouldn’t respond?” I asked dryly as I pulled up the contacts list on my phone. “It’s not as if you haven’t been blowing up my phone. Don’t you have a hobby, a family, anything?”
“Actually,” he said, and I realized I could hear him breathing heavily. “I have a few things to keep me busy, why? Don’t like the attention?”
“Not when I’m trying to do something important,” I said with a snort as I considered the list of contacts, thinking where to start. “Why do you sound like you’ve run ten miles?”
“Close enough, actually,” he said with a chuckle. “I had a lot of pent-up energy I had to get out.”
“The half a dozen texts you sent me in the span of twenty minutes were enough for me to figure that out on my own,” I said with a shake of my head. “Clearly you haven’t been taken out on enough walks.”
“If you’re that worried about me getting enough exercise, all you have to do is say...and do something about it.”
“I have enough on my own plate without making sure you’re getting enough exercise.”
“Yeahhhhh, I won’t lie, I’m a little worried when you say that.”
“And why would that be?”
There was a pause, and I could imagine the wheels in his head spinning frantically. When he spoke, he chose his words carefully. “Well...because I know you’re back in the city for a reason, probably a damn good reason by your standards.”
“By my standards,” I repeated with a snort. “I like that careful phrasing.”
“Yeah, well, you know what I mean. You and me aren’t going to have the same standards for what’s a big deal, especially with...you know, what you do.”
“Uh uh,” I said as I sent a message to Eliza first. There was no way I was going to have her send me any information over the phone, of course, but it was a good place to start, especially because getting information out of her was going to require effort.
I could order my other contacts to get me what I was looking for with an injection of cash. Perhaps if Eliza and I were truly equals, I might be able to tell her what I needed and rely on the bond of working for the Family, but that wasn’t the case. Oh, I wastechnicallyher equal, at least while I held this position, but technicalities were only important in strategy meetings.
Eliza was the living embodiment of criminal royalty. She held court like a queen, working under the emperor, Augustine, and refusing to accept anything less. I could theoretically pull rank, but that would just shoot myself in the foot. No, I needed to be polite and respectful. She had, after all, been in her position for a decade, not only because she knew how to bring rivals to theirknees, but also because she was exceptionally good at what she did.
It was a good thing we’d already had a working relationship, and a good one. She knew enough about me to understand I was reliable, trustworthy, and had no aspirations for her throne. For my part, I knew how to be a decent courtier when it was called for, and I appreciated that she had a similar attitude toward Augustine when it came to merit. She had never once brought up the blood relationship between him and me, always referring to him by name rather than as my father. That alone was worth at least half the money I had squirreled away over the years. It was irritatingly difficult to find people who treated me as just another member of The Family and judged me on my success rather than on Augustine.
“But now, with you being so busy all the time, I’m starting to worry that you’re here for a huge reason,” he said softly as I finished constructing the message to Eliza to arrange a meeting.
“I can see how you’d come to that conclusion,” I said. “That said, you’ve only been texting me for about a week; that’s hardly enough time to come up with a proper context.”
