“Cool. I’ll meet up with you after.”
“Put it in the safe at the club. I’ll be there later.” I grab the bag of cat food and rip off the address.
“I’ve got to ask, man. What’s with the cat food?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“You’re being weird as fuck.”
I scrub a palm over the back of my neck. “There was a girl last night.”
“A girl.”
“In the alley. Mitch. She saw me.”
“And you just let her walk away? Fuck, T. Did she go to the cops?”
“No idea.”
“And you’re just now telling me this? You’re not sloppy. You don’t leave a witness. What did she look like? Young? Old? In between? Did she live in the area or was she with the homeless guy?” He paces the length of my breakfast bar. “Fuck. Why didn’t you send Bruno?”
“This was personal.”
“Because he fucked Cassie?”
“This wasn’t about that bitch. Told you he roughed up Amber.”
“Yeah, but that’s usually a fine or being banned from the club.”
“You got a problem with how I run this family?”
“No. Of course not, but this chick could be a problem.”
“And if she is, I’ll handle it.”
“What if she took a video or something?”
“She didn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Because she was feeding cats.” I smile and tuck the address into my pocket.
“The animal shelter?”
“I’ve got this.” I pat his shoulder and dust imaginary lint from his jacket.
“That’s what worries me.”
I drive down 17th Street looking for the animal shelter. It sits at the end of the block with its own parking lot and a fenced-in lot. I don’t have a plan. But Shaw is right about one thing. If this chick can identify me, she’s a complication, and I don’t do complicated or problems. I create solutions or I terminate any obstacle that stands between me and my money. I’ve got too many people counting on me. Like my little sister. The tuition for her private school is thirty-five grand a semester. While that’s nothing for some people, it’s not nothing to sneeze at either. When our father went to prison, I stepped into his shoes, becoming the head of the Bolero Crime Family. We run this city other than the scraps of territory my father allowed the Medici brothers. I’m done playing nice. Done sharing. Those sleazy pricks have been nothing but trouble.
They don’t care who they hurt.
All they do is fucking take shit they didn’t earn.
Nothing happens on our turf without me knowing about it. My role became permanent two years ago when my father was taken out in a prison riot. Someone paid off a guard, and Pops washistory, and so is the guard. I gutted him slowly. Watched the light fade out of his eyes as he took his dying breath.
My gut tells me they were behind it.
