Instead, all they’ve done is make sure I’m coming for them.
“Start talking,” I say.
Maverick doesn’t waste time. He knows better.
He tosses a file onto the table and flips it open—photos, financial trails, and call logs spread out like a crime scene. “The woman checked into a hotel two days before the party. Paid cash. No ID. But the clerk remembers her.”
“Before anyone started locking their doors and checking faces twice,” he adds.
I lean over the table, eyes narrowing on a grainy still pulled from security footage.
Curly brown hair. Sharp eyes. Leather jacket. Head angled just enough to avoid cameras.
But it’s not her face that holds my attention.
It’s the man behind her, caught in the reflection of the glass door.
I tap the image. Hard. “Who the fuck is that?”
Maverick exhales. “That’s where it gets interesting. He’s one of Rinaldi’s. Facial recognition matched him—Angelo Costa. Low-level enforcer. Cleanup work, mostly.”
He pauses. “He wasn’t watching her. He was escorting her. Making sure she got in and out clean.”
“Tell me something useful,” I growl.
I rake a hand over my jaw, forcing the anger back under control. “They didn’t just want her at that party. They wanted her seen. They wanted her tied to us.”
“Exactly,” Maverick says. “Word’s already spreading. People are asking questions. Cops are sniffing around. They’re trying to make it look like we’re slipping.”
“So are the cops,” he adds. “Unofficially.”
I straighten slowly. “They’re circling.”
“They are,” Maverick confirms. “But they’re late. And they’re loud.”
I flip another page. “Where’s Costa now?”
“Gone to ground. Last sighting was a club in Queens three nights ago. No cards. No addresses. Someone’s hiding him. Theres too much attention on the streets for him to move clean, someone’s keeping him buried.”
I don’t hesitate. “Find him.”
“Already moving,” Maverick says. “We’ll have him.”
I lean back, dragging a hand through my hair.
Rinaldi thinks he can plant a woman in my territory, pin a murder on my doorstep, and walk away untouched. He’s dead wrong.
My phone buzzes against the table and I glance down.
Violet:Are you coming home tonight?
Something in my chest tightens.
Home.
She’s never called it that before. Not once. It’s always beenthe penthouse.Your place. Detached. Careful. And now she just drops it like it’s nothing. Like she belongs there. Like she’s settled.
And I like it. More than I should.
