Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“Got the container coming in tomorrow,” I told him. “Meeting the crew at the docks to take our cut. Then it’ll be done.”
We didn’t usually deal in actual physical products when it came to the docks and the illegal shit that came in through them. We just wanted the cash to look the other way.
But this crew made me an offer that I felt duty-bound to bring to Luca himself. And after mulling over the pros and cons of it, we’d decided to move forward.
Besides, it wasn’t like we would be sitting on a pile of clean guns. There was an arms-dealing biker club right in Navesink Bank who would be happy to take it off of our hands, and distribute the goods to their customers.
It was an easy deal that would leave the Family with little to no work on our part, and would give us a quarter of a million dollars when all was said and done.
A good chunk of that went right into my pocket after the twenty-percent kick-up to Luca.
Did I need the money?
No.
But at this point of my life, I was working as much as I could to squirrel away as much as I could. So when the day did come when I did find the right woman, I could take the time to devote to her and our kids.
“Who’re you bringing?” he asked.
“Dante and Santo,” I told him. “And some of my soldiers. They aren’t a big crew.”
Lucky nodded at that.
Then, he exhaled hard.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re showing me the fuck up, huh?”
“In my defense, I got nothing else to do with my time,” I said.
Even if we weren’t talking about Lucky’s wife and kids, he also had a chain of legit pizza places that the Family washed our money in to oversee.
My legit business was a non-chain convenience store that I bought and let the previous owner, who’d been losing it because he’d been drowning in medical debt, continue to run it. It didn’t take much attention from me aside from occasionally dropping in to make sure the books were cooked the way the Family needed them to be.
“Fair enough,” he agreed as Milo rushed out of the back door, just barely avoiding closing one of Lucky’s kids in it in the process.
“Christ,” he hissed, looking frazzled, with a flour handprint on his black pant leg. “That’s some serious birth control you got going on in there. My ears are still ringing.”
“Don’t let Ma hear you talking like that,” Lucky said. “She’s counting on you having at least five of them.”
“I’m double-wrapping from here on out,” Milo said, getting a laugh out of both of us.
“Did Smush get here yet?” I asked.
“What?” Lucky asked when a strange look overtook Milo’s face. Something a mix of amused and dark.
“Her buttons were done up wrong,” he told us.
It was almost seven at night. No way had she just gotten dressed. Which could only mean one thing.
She was late because she was with a man.
That was a new development.
I didn’t remember the last time any of us saw Sofia with a man. She was too busy with her work.
Though, now that I thought about it, when I’d gone to grab a new blade head for my razor this morning, there hadn’t been any backups.
That was the kind of shit the guys in the Family paid Sofia to handle. Keeping our houses stocked. Knowing what we needed before we did. A house manager, of sorts.
I’d never gone for something and not found extras waiting for me.
But now that I thought about it, I’d run out of coffee earlier in the week too. And the lawn guy had sent me a text saying the cash wasn’t in the box like usual.
That was another thing Smush handled.
Was she slacking on work because she was spending more time with a man?
On the one hand, as someone who wanted to find someone as well, I was happy for her.
As her brother, though, I wanted to know who the fuck was. And why he thought he deserved to be anywhere near her.
“Did Ma notice?” Lucky asked.
“Nah. The girls were too quick. Via distracted Mom with one of your crotch goblins. And Elisa told her, so she could go and straighten herself out.”
“No one has mentioned Smush with someone?” Lucky asked.
“Even Elisa seemed surprised,” Milo said.
We all stood there for a moment. Silent. Lost in our thoughts.
Back when our sisters were young, this shit was easy. We tracked down anyone who thought they could put their hands on Sofia or Elisa, and we let them know that we’d chop those fucking hands off if they hurt them.
But we weren’t all teenagers anymore.
We couldn’t go around threatening to chop body parts off of random men.
Or could we? Milo’s gaze seemed to ask.
“We gotta at least figure out who he is,” Lucky reasoned. “From a respectable distance,” he added as Smush glared at us from out the window.