I frowned. “How do you know about that?”
A sly smile spread across his face. “Well, itismy job to track rumors about all the shenanigans going on in the underworld. And Clyde hasn’t exactly been shy about his desire to get your shipping yard, one way or another.”
“No, he hasn’t,” I muttered. “Although I still don’t knowwhyhe wants it so badly. His own shipping yard is almost twice the size of mine.”
Silvio shrugged. “He probably wants it to expand his business. Word on the street is that Clyde has made some bad investments lately and is hurting for cash.”
I’d heard those rumors too, although I hadn’t paid much attention to them. Lately, my focus had been on Mallory and Mosley’s wedding, along with Gin’s recent heist at the Bellum Bank and then our final battle against Mason Mitchell.
But if you didn’t have enough money to pay your crew and bribe the cops, then even the most ruthless crime boss could quickly go belly up in Ashland. Clyde O’Neal was a pain to deal with when things were going well. A desperate Clyde would be a much bolder and far more dangerous enemy.
I started to take another sip of my blackberry lemonade, only to find that the glass was empty. I sighed and pushed it away. “Maybe I should have gone on vacation with Gin and the others. Because right now, I definitely need a break from blood and bodies.”
Silvio chuckled, and then his face turned serious again. “Maybe Clyde sent that guy to your house last night in hopes of intimidating you into selling the shipping yard.”
“Maybe,” I murmured. “Although Clyde usually prefers to make examples out of people himself.”
The crime boss had a not-so-secret habit of beating people to death with his combination of giant and dwarven strength, then dumping their bodies in the Aneirin River right outside his shipping yard.
“I don’t know if Clyde sent the mystery man to my house, but he’s going to have to do a whole lot better than some random tough guy with a gun if he wants to scare me. I’ve dealt with far worse than that.”
Silvio gave me a sympathetic look. “Of course you have.”
I ground my teeth to keep from snarling at him. Silvio was a dear friend, but I always hated it whenever anyone gave methatlook. The one that said how sorry they were that my father and my brother had been such horrible monsters, how much they sympathized with me, and especially how much they bloodypitiedme. Sometimes I thought that look was even worse than how I’d always had to tiptoe around my father and my brother, never knowing what small, innocent, random thing might set them off.
Okay, okay, so that look wasn’t that bad, but it still rubbed me the wrong way. I wasn’t a victim anymore, I was asurvivor.
Then again, when one of my friends was Gin Blanco, it was hard for folks to remember that I was a badass in my own right. Just like Silvio, Sophia, and the rest of our friends were smart, tough, strong, and capable in their own ways. But the legend of the Spider tended to eclipse us all.
Silvio must have sensed my simmering ire, because he cleared his throat, focused on his tablet again, and started swiping through screens. “I’ll email these photos to Xavier right now. Maybe I can have some info to you in a couple of days.”
“Anything you and Xavier can dig up would be great,” I replied, forcing my voice to remain calm and even. “Maybe this guy was creeping around on Clyde’s orders, or maybe he was just looking for a mansion to rob. Either way, I’d like to know who he was and especially who might have moved his body.”
“I’m on it.” Silvio glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “By the way, how are your interviews going? Have you hired a new number two yet?”
The image of all those manila folders waiting on my desk flashed through my mind, and once again, I had to grind my teeth to keep from snarling. It took me a few seconds to unlock my jaw and answer Silvio.
“I have some more interviews set up with potential replacements today.” A thought occurred to me, and I leaned forward and gave the vampire my warmest, friendliest, and most enticing smile. “Although I will cancel them all immediately ifyoucome work for me, Silvio. I’ll double your salary, give you a company car, anything you want.”
I wasn’t joking. I would double, triple, quadruple Silvio’s salary if I thought I could steal him away from Gin. He was an excellent assistant, and he would make my work life so much easier.
He laughed and shook his head. “As tempting as your offer is, I’m happy here.”
I let out a loud, overly dramatic sigh. “I know you are. Darn it.”
Silvio grinned back at me, then returned to his tablet.
By this point, it was almost one o’clock and way past time for me to go to work. I paid my bill and was waiting for Sophia to fix me a to-go lemonade when the bell over the front door chimed. I didn’t pay any attention to it, but Silvio glanced over his shoulder. His gray eyes narrowed, and his lips puckered, as though he had just bitten into something sour.
“Remember what I said about no bad guys coming into the restaurant while Gin’s been gone?” he muttered. “Well, I was wrong about that.”
Sophia turned away from the stoves to see who he was talking about. I also looked over at the door and froze, just like I had in Underwood’s last night.
Because for the second time in two days, Hugh Tucker had just strolled into the restaurant where I was eating.
Tucker steppedinto the Pork Pit like he was just another hungry customer in search of a hearty barbecue lunch. He shrugged out of his long black overcoat and hung it on the rack by the front door. Mesmerized, I watched his smooth, fluid movements, along with how his dark gray suit hugged his body, hinting at the hard, lean muscles underneath. Tucker was far from the first man I’d seen in a suit, but somehow he transformed standard business attire into a work of art.
Tucker’s eyes met mine. The corner of his mouth quirked up, as though he realized I’d been checking him out. He prowled in this direction, and I resisted the urge to look away. The second you looked away was usually the moment when the predator in front of you chose to strike, and Hugh Tucker was most definitely a predator.
