“How long until you know?”
“He asked if I was staying in the city, so I’m guessing late tonight or tomorrow.” The Marinos always have a family dinner once a week, and that was today.
Sloane lets out a long sigh. “Are you sure you want to do this? You could sell it all and make it someone else’s problem.”
“You’d be okay with that and what the fallout would be?”
“Just sell it to War, and then your conscience will be free.” Not sure that is true.
“No,” I tell her. It’s not only about getting Naomi; it’s also about getting revenge on a few powerful men who let my father get away with murder, and I mean that literally. When I’m done with them, they will no longer have any power or likely be breathing. “You know it’s not that simple for me.”
“You already won. He’s dead.” Her voice drops. “We made sure of that.” We did. The old man had a heart attack. The drugs and whores finally did him in. At least that’s the story we’re selling, and everyone is buying it.
“How are you doing?” I change the subject. It’s a moot point. The only thing to stop me from moving forward with this plan would be death.
Naomi will be mine one way or another. She’ll have to kill me herself, which might be an option she takes, but I think curiosity has gotten to her. That’s what I wanted. I could see a little flash of curiosity in her eyes when I winked at her today. I got her attention, and I plan on keeping it on me.
“I have a couple hours until my shift is over, but I’ll be crashing in one of the rooms at the hospital. They need me back at it early.” Sloane sounds exhausted, but she actually loves what she does.
“Don’t go and—” I’m cut off by a loud beeping. “I’ll talk to you later.” I know that sound means she is needed now.
“Later, I love you.” She hangs up before I can respond. I’m damn proud of her. Sloane was what my father called a bastard child. A mistake.
I don’t think he would have thought that if she’d been a boy, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t making plans for her to be useful one day. Everyone was property to him. He was waiting for an opportunity to use her for some sort of gain.
He kept her existence quiet until he was ready to use her, and that day had been quickly approaching. The fucker didn’t give a shit about her but expected her to hand her life over to him in a marriage trade. Every time he’d talk about how much a virgin bride would go for, I had to fight the urge to slit his throat.
Sloane is brilliant. I’m not sure where she gets it from. Her mother was useless, always latching on to one man after another. I’d talked my father into sending Sloane away to a private school. That would protect his asset, as he said it.
He didn’t give a shit that Sloane excelled in school, graduating at thirteen and going on to college. She became a fucking doctor before she was old enough to have a sip ofalcohol. That meant nothing to him. In fact, he would say it was wasteful for her to spend her time even engaging in higher education.
I go back to clicking through the pictures. I can tell Naomi already knows about my proposal. I’ve studied her long enough. Her brows are furrowed together in the few clips we could catch. With the warehouses they’ve converted, they can pull their cars right inside, so I don’t get any clear pictures.
I’d kill to know what she’s thinking right now. If she’s made a decision. There is no way I’ll be able to sleep. I should work, but I need to burn off some aggression. I fire off a message to Arturo, my head of security and my right hand for most things, to see if he wants to use the gym or the stairs in the hotel we’re staying in.
My phone goes off in my hand. “She’s on the move.”
“Really?” I check the time.
“She just took off through the gates. I was calling you as I got your text.” We have alerts when anyone enters or leaves those gates.
It’s as close as we can get without being detected. The Marinos aren’tallold-school. They are progressive in every way and staying up on technology while many let themselves get left behind is one of those ways.
It can be difficult to get old-timers to change; but if you don’t move with everyone else, you’ll not only get left behind, in their world, you could get killed or have your territory slowly taken over. There is no manpower out there that can match the information you can collect from tech.
Arturo sent me over the images of Naomi pulling out of the gates.Where are you going?I grab my wallet and keys to be ready to leave if need be.
I expect her to go to Eros or the warehouse they all share; she’d been there earlier today.
“I’m tailing her but pretty sure she’s headed to the warehouse.” When Eros left the family dinner early, he went in the opposite direction and had Bonte with him. There is only one person that is always at that warehouse: Mac.
If this was work-related, at least work that put them in the field, Eros would be in on it too. She’s going there to see Mac. It’s not her normal pattern. Yes, she often goes there, but there is often a pattern to the things people do even when they don’t realize it.
I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand this and applying it to almost everything. You get as much information as you can on a person or business and then dig deep into it all and find those patterns. It’s very much how I believe I have gotten so far in life.
It’s almost a way of knowing the answers before you ask them. Not always do you have enough to be able to do this, but I track as much as possible when it comes to Naomi, and this on a Sunday is not her normal. That means today’s events are likely the cause. I could be way off, but often when it comes to this, I’m not.
I hope the wink didn’t set her off… Or maybe I hope it did.
