The more accurate I was with my shots, the quicker a job could get done, the quicker I could get paid.
It also helped my decision to know that Henny stayed close by. He had a room available to him at Pharrell's house, but he also kept a place in one of the casinos, which meant that he would be in and out of the home that I would be calling mine temporarily.
More face time with Henny? Yeah, I could get used to it.
Question is, would he?
CHAPTER 3
Henri
The phonein my hand buzzed again.
I rolled my eyes, clicking out of the messaging app as I focused on searching for the email Pharrell had instructed me to find as he got up to use the restroom.
My boss was struggling. The betrayal from his wife and the disruption to business had him off beat.
Which meant that I had to pick up the slack. It was fucking exhausting.
Not only was there dissent among the men, but there was also the mess that Stasia had left behind.
I liked order. I wanted things to be where they were supposed to be and for it all to have a neat and tidy organization to it all.
That wasn't the case with Stasia. Her files were practically thrown in the drawer. There was no order, only chaos. And as far as any of it making sense, well, that was a joke.
It took me hours to sort through each piece of it to put together the puzzle that she had ripped apart, doused in gasoline, and lit on fire. If it were anyone else doing this, they'dhave given up. But my resiliency was high. Life had thrown me enough atomic bombs that I knew I could get through this too.
My only true concern was how to get my boss back. Because his entire demeanor had changed. He was still menacing to an extent. But there was a dark cloud hovering over him.
With each day that passed, his face dropped more and more. His eyes turned hollow, his body nearly curling in on itself.
He wasn't eating well, and I had no doubt he wasn't sleeping either.
I had taken to working from the hotel because I needed to be readily available for anything that came up in the casino portion downstairs. And on days like today when I met him at his home office, I wondered if it was a good idea being away from him so much.
The man needed someone to look over him. Someone to remind him that it was worth getting up every day and giving everything his best shot.
I didn't know if I would be the person for that. And though Pip was living here, it wasn't enough to rouse him from this catatonic state.
Part of me wondered if the messages that kept coming insistently each day were from the one person who could make that change.
Ricardo, who I knew to be Dante Romano’s right-hand man, was relentless in his efforts to reach Pharrell. I only knew because the boss had given me full control of everything, including his phone.
Anytime I needed to look at something, all I had to do was stick my hand out and he would place it there. He had the utmost trust in me, which was wonderful given that Tommaso, who we thought was on our side, had also been a supporter of Stasia and her foolishness.
Jean was the only other person after me, aside from Pip, that Pharrell still believed in wholeheartedly. I didn't take the honor lightly. In fact, I was very much in favor of being in charge and helping him through this.
His personal life wasn't mine, but the business I could handle.
Ricardo's messages had varied from "How are you?" to "Do you need any help?" Lately, as more time had passed, they'd shifted into demands that Pharrell answer him.
I'd made the mistake of opening a few messages, and it appeared that Pharrell had also done the same. That meant Ricardo was seeing that his messages were going read and unanswered.
It wasn't my place to intervene. Pharrell would respond if he wanted any help. Surely, he would.
Besides, if Ricardo was the right hand to Dante, him being here wasn't going to help us much. His loyalty would be somewhere else.
I shook my head as I went back to pulling up the email I needed for the business reports I was running. I'd been in contact with Pierre, Pharrell's assistant on the more legal side of the business. While he didn't dabble in the illegal ways that connected us to the family, he understood it existed and respected it.
