Page 241 of Don’t Say Mafia

I barked out a laugh as I thought of Jace’s most recent Halloween costume, where he and his two best friends, Parker and Matty, had indeed been dressed like sexy nurses.

I could never unsee their hairy legs again.

“My apologies for being lax in my duties, Thatcher.” Cruz grinned. “But while you’ve been pining and planning petty murder . . . I’ve been handling the fallout from those weapons disappearing. Lucian was not happy.”

“Okay, so you don’t have to pay me back for that scotch,” I said with a wince. Lucian Rossi was head of the Cosa Nostra in New York, and he and his two brothers could be a pain to deal with. His psychotic brother, Raphael, had stabilized a little once they’d gotten their girl, Dahlia . . . but stable for him meant he’d only killed one person last week with the barbed-wire bat he kept with him.

The Rossi family was a fun time.

Not.

“It’s fine,” Cruz sighed. “I’m more worried about finding the weapons than the Rossis. Did you see Gage’s text?”

“Yes, I did,” I said irritatedly, thinking of the three men that had been found dead in an alleyway behind one of the bars we owned. The three men that Lawson had figured out were responsible for picking up the weapons from that shipment.

The Irish were mocking us.

“If they wanted our attention, they have it,” said Cruz. “I just can’t figure out what their end goal is. Little things to annoy us? What’s next?”

I scowled at my phone as I watched the video feed of Ryan’s hospital room that Lawson had hacked into for me. There Eden was, sitting dutifully by his side. I watched as she smiled at him and adjusted his blanket while he stared up at her like a lovestruck puppy.

I wanted to throw up. Or shoot someone.

Either of those seemed like an option right then.

“Did you hear anything I just said?” Cruz asked.

“No,” I said distractedly. “But since you don’t have to pay for that scotch anymore, it’s probably okay.”

“You’re literally never going to let that go, are you?” Cruz said exasperatedly.

“Probably not,” I replied. “I stole that from a pope. It’s not something I can just replace.”

“You stole it from a pope? Which one? And when?” he asked, sounding confused.

“Does it matter?” I said, feeling like my eyes were about to start bleeding as I watched Ryan reach up and stroke Eden’s cheek. “It was very difficult to get in and out of the papal office, and I didn’t even get to taste it first.”

“I’m going to start watching you even closer,” said Cruz as he came up and stared down at my phone.

“Mm-hmm,” I answered, not very worried about it.

“So how long are you going to wait until you kill him?”

“That, my friend, is the million-dollar question,” I murmured.

“You’ll figure it out,” Cruz said, patting me on the shoulder.

I watched as Ryan said something that made her laugh again, and I resisted the urge to throw my phone. I was having to do that a lot nowadays . . . resist my urges.

And I was ready to be done.

“Don’t do anything reckless,” Cruz reminded me, although he didn’t sound too serious about that little piece of advice.

I didn’t answer.

On the screen, her smile faltered for a fraction of a second. Just long enough to remind me she wasn’t as blind as she pretended to be.

“Million dollars?” Cruz prompted.