Because I was pretty sure she hadn’t eaten at a restaurant owned by the mob before…
CHAPTER TEN
Miranda
“No way,” I said, shaking my head as I swirled the wine that the owner himself had come over to bring to us. “That sweet gentleman?” I asked, thinking of his great suit and his attractive face with his salt and pepper hair.
“That sweet gentleman runs the most prominent mafia family in the state,” he told me, nodding. “Him and his sons,” he clarified.
“And people just… know this?”
“I’m not sure how many normal, average people know that,” he admitted, looking around. “The Grassi Family works hard not to have their names end up in the papers or on the news, so it’s entirely possible that more than two-thirds of the people in here have no idea.”
“But that means a third of them do? And they keep coming here to eat?”
“You’ve seen the place,” he said, waving out toward the balcony over the water. I’d bet, weather permitting, it was amazing to sit out there and eat. Especially at night. “And the food is the best you are going to find in the area. Navesink Bank is a… curious town.”
There was just something about the way he’d said ‘curious’ that hadmycuriosity immediately piqued.
“Curious how?”
“So, you know how the mob used to really pretty much run the city?”
“Yeah, of course,” I agreed, nodding. They’d had their hand in literally everything.
“Well, it’s like that here. Except it isn’t just the mob.”
“Who else is it?”
“There’s the outlaw bikers, the family of loan sharks, the paramilitary camp, then at least a dozen other people working independently, with deep enough pockets to grease the palms of the local police force.”
“You have to be exaggerating. Why would people live here if the crime was that rampant?”
“That’s the thing, though. Most of the organizations here have a code. They don’t let their crimes put the locals at risk. In a way, it is almost safer here for the normal families because of them. And the cops, with their hands tied with the organizations around here, focus more on the petty crime shit, so that is kept to a minimum as well.”
“It’s still a little hard to believe,” I said, taking another sip of my wine as the owner of the place came from the back with another bottle of wine, walking over toward a table and greeting them like old friends.
“See that table Antony just went to?” Brock asked, jerking his chin toward it.
“Yes,” I said, nodding, as I glanced at the lovely dark-haired woman and her distinguished-looking man with some graying hair and bright blue eyes.
“That is Charlie and Helen Mallick. The heads of the loan shark family I was telling you about. They and their sons lend out money and break kneecaps if you don’t pay.”
“You’ve got to be pulling my leg,” I said, seeing nothing nefarious about the couple.
“Charlie is partially retired from the actual enforcing now. They run the local bar in town. But make no mistake, that is a fearsome man. And that woman is even more so if you cross her or the ones she loves.”
“Why would the mob and the loan sharks be so friendly?” I asked, ever the skeptic.
“A lot of the organizations around here are allies. They band together when common enemies show up in town. And since their business isn’t in direct opposition to each other, they can do it without any issues. You still don’t believe me,” Brock said, smiling. “Tell you what, the next time you have contact with Sawyer or Tig, ask them.”
“I think I might need to,” I said, unconvinced. Though it was a good story, and it made what could have been an awkward date-like moment feel comfortable and easy.
After he’d held my hand in his room and I’d opened up to him, I wasn’t sure that we could go back to casual and carefree.
Clearly, I’d underestimated Brock.
He could go from intense to laid-back in a blink.