“Who?”
I shake my head immediately. “No idea.”
He narrows his eyes. “Who would you guess?”
I shrug. “No idea.”
“Landlord said you’re just out of prison.”
I should say, yes, sir, but I’m suddenly done with the fucking conversation. I want everybody the hell out. I need to talk to Marco and Leo. So I stare the asshole down. It wasn’t technically a question, so I’m not going to deign to answer.
I clear my throat. “Can I look around?”
The cop narrows his eyes at me again. “You have anything worth stealing here?”
“No.” I drop the sir. Like I said, I’m done.
He tucks his notebook and pencil back in his pocket. “Yeah. Look around, let me know if anything’s missing.”
I head into the bedroom. It looks just as bad as the living room. Bullet holes in the doors, the headboard. Feathers from the pillows strewn about the room. They probably started here. When they realized I wasn’t home, they shot the place up anyway.
It’s a message. They’re coming for me.
This feels more like The Hermanos than the hit on Friday did.
I did stash some of that start-up cash the don gave me in the apartment, but I don’t want to check with the cops here. I don’t need to explain where I got seven large—what’s left of the money after helping my ma and Hannah out. Marco wouldn’t take any money for the deposit and rent he paid on this place nor for the furnishings he bought to fill it.
We stand around with our thumbs up our asses for another forty minutes before the boys in blue finally pack it up and leave. The landlord is still standing outside, waiting to confront me. Marco walks over to stand by my side.
“Listen,” he says, spreading his hands in a conciliatory fashion. “I just can’t have your type around here. My residents need to feel safe, and what happened tonight is going to kill my business.”
There’s a time I would’ve given shit back to him. I’m pretty fucking alpha dog, and I don’t let anyone push me around. But at this moment, I just can’t bring myself to give two fucks. I don’t care if I stay in this apartment building or go. It’s not like I’ve spent any time here to begin with since meeting Hannah.
I’m not even angry about what happened. There’s no sense of vengeance ringing through me. No desire for retribution.
I’m just fucking dead again.
And that’s really the only thing I find disturbing.
But then again, who gives a fuck? Because it’s sort of an out-of-body experience.
But Marco, he gives all the fucks right now. He steps into the landlord’s personal space, not touching, but getting right in his grill. “No, what would kill your business, friend, would be getting on the wrong side of the Pachino family. My cousin stays. I stay. My brother stays. And if you hassle any one of us again, I will fucking take this business down, along with you and everyone you care about.” Marco steps back. “Believe it, old man.”
The landlord believes it. He believes it so bad, his face turns white, and his goddamn teeth start chattering. And Leo, with impeccable timing, picks that moment to show up, his bulky mass adding to the threat.
“Now get out of our faces.”
The landlord bolts.
Marco and Leo wait until he’s gone before they push into my apartment. Marco’s in his white undershirt and a pair of slacks, like he yanked them on when it happened. Leo looks like he took more time to get dressed. “Definitely the Hermanos,” Marco says. “I saw the fuckers running to a car on the street. They wore ski masks and carried semis. I heard a cop say they shot out the cameras out front and the glass door. Then they just rode the fucking elevator up here and shot up your place. Did you tell Don G?”
“Not yet.” I side-eye Leo because while he’s also like a brother to me, the fewer people who know my shit, the better.
He produces a gun from his back waistband and ammo from his pocket. “I know you’re not allowed to keep a gun but seems like you’d be safer with a piece on you at all times right now.”
Maybe my soul hasn’t completely shriveled because a thread of gratitude twirls through me. My family takes care of me. Through thick and thin.
I take the pistol and tuck it in the back waistband of my pants. “Yeah, thanks.”
