He shot his brother a smile. “I’m starving. I hope Chef has made a lot of food.”
“Appetizers now. We’ll work before dinner.”
The brothers entered the kitchen. “Yo, Chef, how’s it hangin’, baby?”
Chef Louis laughed. “I’m good, Teddy. How’s by you?”
“Can’t complain.” Teddy set the computer bag on the kitchen island, paused to check out the array of small plates Louis was prepping.
“I love you, Chef,” Teddy said. “I gotta get me a chef, like, for real.”
“I have several friends I can recommend,” Louis replied.
Luciano poured them each a glass of sparkling water.
Teddy guzzled his, refilled the glass.
Louis set a large plate in front of Teddy and an appetizer-sized plate in front of Luciano. Teddy set four sliders on his, along with a large portion of shoestring fries, two mozzarella sticks, and a handful of fried pickles. Silence while Teddy inhaled the food.
Luciano had eaten a late lunch, so he chose a slider, a Caprese skewer, and a sampling of the vegetable crudités with onion dip.
After Teddy had wolfed down half the plate, he leaned back and smiled. “I didn’t eat all day.”
“What time would you like dinner, sir?” Louis asked.
“Teddy, seven?” Luciano asked.
“That’ll work.”
When they finished eating, Luciano topped their glasses, and the brothers took off toward his home office. When Luciano moved in, he had the dark paneled walls replaced with white paint. A large piece of abstract art occupied most of one wall, several small prints hung behind his desk. The French doors faced the back of the property. Those were open. He’d screened in the patio, allowing the afternoon breeze to flow through.
At the conference table, Teddy pulled out his laptop, logged in while Luciano stared outside at the spacious backyard and the Olympic-sized swimming pool. The home had been his sanctuary, but lately, it felt more like a prison.
“Good news or bad news first?” Teddy asked.
Luciano smiled. Teddy always started his debriefings the same, and Luciano always responded in kind.
Luciano joined him at the table. “You decide.”
“I’ll start with the bad,” Teddy began. “I reached out to everyone I know. There’s chatter in the Haqazzii cell that The Bomb Maker’s back, but when I talked to a reliable source, he said he hadn’t heard anything.”
Luciano knew his way around the dark web, but Teddy was a master at knowing which chat groups were in-the-know, how to hunt for coded messages. He was an asset to Luciano and to his clandestine—and very illegal—organization.
Most of their hits were because Teddy had gotten the intel he needed and tracked the thug down.
“The good news—although it’s not good, but more like informative—” Teddy continued.
“Theodore,” Luciano said.
“What? I’m telling you what I found out.”
Teddy had a long-winded way of providing data.
“The ALPHA hit was definitely him, so as I see it, he either had surveillance on the house, and he got out in time?—”
“It was an ambush,” Luciano interrupted. “He staged blowup dolls in the basement and in the beds.”
“Gotcha.” Teddy started typing, then got busy reading, his eyes sliding back and forth at a rapid rate.
