“Yes, we are. Put the damn coat on and relax. You wouldn’t have let me this far in if it weren’t beneficial to you.” He holds his hand out at the door, the ruckus of noise from the office filtering back in to me. “Try a little trust. See where it gets you.”
I bet that damn smile of his has every goddamn woman on the floor begging for a taste. I snarl at it, unfazed by its charm.
“We might even be friends if you employed some of that rather than your usual paranoia.”
My teeth chew the inside of my cheek, eyes flipping between him and Nathan outside. I’m not paranoid, but I am suspicious. Of everything. Him included. It was enough reason for me to bring my gun out today for the first time in months. I don't know why, but I don't like change, and all this shit is change. Friends? Unlikely, but he is the closest I’ve got to someone at my level on the east coast now. Has been for years since he increased his spread. Something inside me calms enough to hear the sense in what he’s saying. He’s right. They could have taken a lot already, could have stolen information to use against me, but not even he would be so brazen as to waltz in here while it’s being done.
I eventually nod and round my desk, hand snatching my own coat from the hook as I walk out the room and head for the exit.
“Trust, huh?”
“Gotta try it sometimes, Vico.”
No, I don’t.
I glance at Danelo as we enter the elevator, hard eyes nodding towards Nathan. He knows what that means. Sit. Stay. And don’t let him out of the fucking building until I get back. I want everything he’s done in front of me when I return—facts, documents, all of it. He’s not leaving this place until I’m secure again. He nods in return. That’s it. It’s enough for me.
If there’s one person, other than Hope, that I do trust, it’s my second in command. Tony Danelo is everywhere in my business, has been since we were kids running street errands for my father. I smile a little as I look at the doors closing around us, remembering snippets of a youth long before all this. Times were amusing then, if not brutal under Father’s hands.
“Thinking of that woman of yours?” Quinn asks from beside me. I frown at the door, remembering them at the bar together, and then let my smile broaden at her cunning. Wet lips. Hungry eyes. My slice of equal in this unequal world of mine.
“No,” I reply, cricking my neck. “Youth.”
That’s it for conversation as far as I’m concerned. We’re not buddies, nor are we anywhere near friendly. We’re forming an alliance, as he says, one I will be on top of by the time this is over. Screw both of them and their attitudes.
The car pulls up the moment we exit the building, Luca already rounding it to get to the door to open it for me. I don’t care for it, but that’s what is expected of people in my position these days. Everyone in this town has them, drivers who open doors and fawn over their employers. I smirk at him as we get in, knowing that none of that shit applies here. It’s his weapons I care about, the ones he uses on the rare occasion some dick thinks stupidly. He’s another one who’s come with me through the time I’ve been at the head of this business, his father employed by my father years ago.
“Where to, boss?” he asks.
I look at Quinn, brows raised.
“Just drive south.”
South takes us through midtown and down through lower Manhattan, the car finally passing over the Brooklyn Bridge into the heights. I gaze at the towering brownstones as we pass places I remember so well—the grocery store, the cafés and bars. Mama Angelo’s Bakery. The alleys down to the river where Danelo, Angelo, and I used to pretend we might get out of this shit one day and be astronauts. The naivety amuses me. This was a part of my childhood. We lived here before Mother died and Father up scaled into central Manhattan. This was the place I learned what my life would be. I ran these streets with coke in my pockets and a knife in my boot.
“Never on your own, boy,”he’d say to me back then.“You keep Sergio and Tony with you. Stay tight to each other.”
We did. Still do.
Apart from Sergio.
I chuckle a little at the thought of staying tight, remembering Hope after her outing with the Cane women. She seemed tight, wound up by something. Snappy. She was interesting to play with last night, reminding her about manners in the same fuck session. My tongue licks over my lips. I don’t know if it’s the thought of her or the smell down here. Sweet.
“Stop the car,” I say, rolling the window down to get a lungful of it.
“Boss?”
“Pull over on Sackett.”
“It’s not far to the …” Quinn starts.
“Good. We’ll walk then.” Not that we’re going to whatever meeting he’s organised, not at his location of choice anyway.
The car pulls over on the corner of Sackett and Henry, and I look along the street at the familiar buildings. A smile tugs my lips again, one laced with memories of dirt and grime. It’s wasn’t like this back then. It’s cleaner now, fewer mobsters and gangland shit running the neighborhoods. It helps that I sold a lot of it off to developers, let them upscale the old brownstones and remove the past to some degree. Not all of it, though. This is still as rough as I need it to be if called on.
“Why?” Why what? I look at Quinn as he steps into line beside me, his eyes all over the damn place, searching for potential threats. I chuckle and keep moving, knowing nothing will happen to either of us here. There’s more chance of that happening midtown. This is true home turf to me, real old school, regardless of the money now occupying most of these houses. What’s left of my old life still knows me well, still respects the name and face. “Walking?”
“You like sweet things?” I ask, crossing us to Union and heading for Mama Angelo’s. We’re walking because this place is safe for me, especially Mama’s. “Call the contacts. Have them meet us at Mama Angelo’s Bakery on Clinton.”
