Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 375(@200wpm)___ 300(@250wpm)___ 250(@300wpm)
Whatever kind of wine this was, though, had a nice kick to it. One glass and I could feel some of the anxiety lessening. A second glass, I hoped, would give me a little bit of a buzz so I could get through the next part of the story.
“Be my guest,” Massimo said, lifting the bottle to pour it for me, but he didn’t refill his own glass. Why would he? It was still mostly full. I was the only heathen gulping down what had to be expensive wine. “Do you want to sit?” he asked, waving toward a small table for two.
“I, ah, yeah,” I said, walking over toward it on wobbly legs. Not from the wine, mind you, just my nerves.
Because, quite frankly, he had to say yes. I had to get him to agree to helping me. I had no chance otherwise.
“Okay. So, what do you need help with?” Massimo asked, standing beside his seat as he unbuttoned his suit jacket.
Did I find myself oddly fascinated by that move? Yes, yes, I did.
I was pretty sure the only time I’d seen one do the whole unbutton to sit down thing was in movies or TV.
It was kind of hot, I had to admit.
“That’s a… long story,” I admitted when he sat down across from me, setting his wine aside, and clasping his fingers on the table. While I clutched my wine like it was a life preserver meant to keep my head above water.
That sounded dramatic. But I’d spent the last few years with my head being held underwater, so I knew what I was talking about.
“Okay, so find a place to start.”
“Okay. Cody,” I said, watching his face for a change of expression. There was none. I guess it had been naive to think I’d see it. I mean, he couldn’t get emotional about his kills, or he’d make a pretty crappy hitman, right?
“Is that the boyfriend?” he asked, playing it cool.
“He was, yes,” I said, barely resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “He was leading a… I don’t want to call it a gang, because it was more organized than that,” I told him.
The look on his face said he was dubious about that.
I couldn’t blame him. Even Cody’s guys thought it was just a step up from a street gang. Because he’d been keeping his moves quiet. But he had been making them. Big moves. And making connections with some scary dudes.
I imagined that was what led the mafia to put a hit out on him.
He was getting in over his head.
“Okay. And?”
“And he was making a lot of moves, making changes. I imagine that is why your bosses decided something needed to happen to him.”
“I don’t have bosses.”
“Are we really going to do this all day?” I asked, sighing. “I know you’re in the mafia. You know you’re in the mafia. It’s kind of silly to pretend there is anything else going on here.”
“Back to your boyfriend,” he said, clearly too stubborn to give in on the matter. But at least he wasn’t outwardly denying there was a mafia anymore.
“Well, you see. You set off a chain of events when you killed him.”
“I never said I killed him.”
“And I imagine you never would. But I know it was you. It took me years to figure it all out, but I know it was you. That’s not even why I’m here, so we don’t need to harp on it.”
“You don’t want to harp on your dead boyfriend?”
“No.”
“What do you want then?”
“After Cody died, there was a period where everyone was sort of mourning and things were all up in the air. No one even asked me to move out of the apartment at that point.”
“You stayed in that apartment? Where you’d found him dead?”
“I had nowhere else to go,” I admitted.
What I chose not to tell him was that I spent a few months there, but almost all the time I did, I spent in the bedroom, far away from the living room and all the terrible memories I had of finding my boyfriend dead.
I even used some spare cash I had lying around to buy a mini-fridge, plugging it in next to the bed, so I didn’t even have to go out there to get food.
“Something forced you out eventually?” Massimo asked.
“Someone. Cody’s brother. He was Cody’s third-hand-man, if you will. His second-hand-man was his best friend. Who mysteriously went missing a week after Cody’s death. Which is so screwed up. Mike was a good guy.”
“And Cody’s brother isn’t?”
“Colin… huh,” I said, exhaling hard. “You know how there is that age-old argument about how people turn out? Is it nature or nurture?”
“Yeah.”
“Colin came out wrong,” I said, shaking my head. “Have you ever met someone like that? Like you knew the moment you met them that they just… weren’t right. There are critical screws missing. In Colin’s case, those screws would have held his conscience in. So, yeah, he had none.”