“Love you too, Izzy.”
* * * *
When Izzy parked his car in front of the Abbot house, Lettie and her dogs were in the side yard, doing some obedience thing or another.
She gave him a jaunty wave without taking her eyes off the dogs. Fuck, Izzy would miss her.
A cop car rolled into the yard, and Izzy felt a bit faint. He didn’t have the best experiences with cops. Then again, most people who looked like him and/or had his history didn’t.
A red Mercedes got there last, Mrs. Rossi parking next to Izzy.
The door to the house opened and Justin walked to the porch, looking at everyone with hard eyes. It was the same as the first time Izzy had stepped foot on this property, yet somehow completely different.
“Justin,” Mrs. Rossi said as she walked past Izzy, patting Izzy’s shoulder.
“Wanda, it’s good to see you.” Although the circumstances and all that, Izzy guessed. The unsaid words hung in the air between them all.
The two officers sauntered up to the porch, too.
“Mr. Abbot, Mrs. Rossi.” One of them said.
The other looked at Izzy and nodded to him. “Mr. Kostas, I presume.”
“Yeah. Officer Moore?” Izzy shook the offered hand.
“Why don’t we all get inside and get to why Mr. Kostas has gathered us here,” Officer Moore said, and they filed in, Mrs. Rossi first, then all the men after her.
* * * *
Justin took them to the dining room, saying that there wasn’t enough space in his study. The living room was probably too nice for this sort of thing now, Izzy thought.
Del joined them in the dining room, taking a seat next to Justin who sat at the end of the table while Mrs. Rossi took the other end. The cops took one side and Izzy sat next to Mrs. Rossi. It looked like the weirdest dinner party ever.
“So Izzy, would you fill everyone in on why you called us here?” Mrs. Rossi asked in her kind, but no-bullshit tone.
Izzy’s voice was scratchy when he spoke. “Well, Mr. Abbot, Del, came to give me Officer Moore’s card this morning and gave me a choice to try to make things right.”
Justin’s gaze whipped to Del, who lifted his hands unapologetically.
“Hey, give him a chance to talk.”
Justin gritted his teeth and gave his husband a clear“we’ll talk about this later”look.
“So I called Officer Moore and asked him and his partner to come here so we could settle this thing, before I leave.”
“Yes, Vincent Chase and Matias Morales said that you told them there was no security system here,” Moore said, and his partner dug out a notepad from his pocket, ready to write down anything needed. “You want to tell me how that came about?”
“Okay, so this is what happened,” Izzy started. He took in a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, and began to talk. “The day I moved out of the halfway house I lived in with Vinny Chase and several others, I crossed paths with Vinny and Morales. Morales is…he’s a mean guy, super homophobic. He kept talking shit when he came here to fix my car one night before I moved to the property.”
Mrs. Rossi suddenly reached out her hand to put it on Izzy’s wrist. It was only then he realized he was breathing funny, like an anxiety attack was on the horizon. He gave her a wavering smile.
Moore leveled him with a stare. “Chase says you owed him money?”
“Yeah, for the car, but I didn’t sell the Abbots out to them!” He reined his temper in with difficulty, because getting angry with cops was never a smart move. He also didn’t dare look down the table at Justin or Del, because he knew how bad it looked.
Officer Moore watched him.
“Those guys knew I was protective of the Abbots,” Izzy continued, only to have Justin snort loudly at the end of the table. “It’s true. And they used it against me. I thought they were just talking shit, not that they were planning anything. I…I’m stupid, everyone knows I’m stupid. I’ve been told that all my life. But this time being stupid and reacting to their taunts cost me”—Izzy took in a bit gulp of breath—”everything.”
