“Wide awake doesn’t meanavailable.” Not when I could be upstairs, exploring every gorgeous inch of Aria’s body. “What do you want, Gio?”
I admit there’s a sliver of guilt weaving its way through me because I know what he’s after.
He asked me to chase a lead and I found a priceless gem. A bounty I don’t plan on handing over to him. Not until he’s made to understand that Aria is now off limits.
He sighs. “I’m hitting dead end after fucking dead end. I’m assuming you’ve had no joy either?”
Oh, I’ve had joy all right.So much fucking joy.
Still, “Hmm,” I respond noncommittally.
I hear faint rasping and I know he’s dragging a hand down his face.
I crack a small smile because I know a non-clean-shaven Gio is a grumpy Gio. The man takes self-grooming to a whole new level, with a regime that would make most Hollywood makeup artists cream themselves.
“Well, I tried another angle.”
“Se?” I respond in Sicilian, the familiarity of our father tongue gliding easily into our speech.
“Yeah. I just paid her mother a visit. To see if I could shake loose some info on the daughter.”
I jerk upright, my indolence evaporating. “Yeah? And what did she say?” I enquire as casually as I can despite my soaring heartbeat.
“She wasted my time whining about the challenges of motherhood, as if anyone forced her to have a kid. Swear to God, some broads need to get their tubes tied at birth.”
My grip tightens on the phone until pain spikes through my fingers.
If Aria’s mother hadn’t given birth to her, I wouldn’t have met my angel. For that alone, the woman deserved to be left breathing.
“You didn’t do anything stupid like hurt her, did you?” I grind out.
“Damn,frati, what the hell do you take me for? Since when do I go around beating up on old ladies?”
I roll my eyes and move on, choosing not to remind him he’s the hothead in the family. The one who pulls the trigger first and asks questions later.
It’s why it’s taken so long for him to rise to this rank in thefamigghia. A rank he immediately put to risk by not doing his due diligence at a meet.
“So? Did she have anything useful to say?” I press.
“Only that her daughter is obsessed with singing. Dreams of making it in Vegas. She thinks that might be how she’s getting by. But I doubt she’d be brazen enough to head to Vegas. Too many eyes there, you know? So we need to keep checking out more out of the way bars or casinos for girls that fit her description.”
“That could be a million different bars in a million locations.”
“Would you quit busting my balls? I haven’t told you the good news yet.”
My gut twists into knots.
But I didn’t rise to kingpin status in the New York-Sicilian mafia by pissing my pants every time something unpleasant drops into my lap. “Get to it then. I don’t have all night.”
“Miedda, fine. The girl hasn’t used her own phone since she made the mistake of turning it on in Florida, or we’d have found her by now, obviously. She probably dumped it back then anyway. And she’s made sure to stay out of the way of any CCTV cameras since we spotted her in San Diego last week. But…she did do something not so clever.”
I bite back the growl clamoring in my throat. “What?”
“She paid the neighbor’s teenage kid sixty bucks to buy his shitty old phone before she took off.”
“And you know this how?” I push, my jaw aching with the effort to keep my mounting volatile emotions contained.
“Because the little shit sold the info to one of my men for four hundred large a few hours ago.”