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“Look, Colter, we don’t give a shit what you do in your spare time. Just cover it the fuck up.” Settimo’s smile is long gone. His eyebrows pinch together in a scowl. “Who leaked it to the press?”
“I don’t know.” The words leave my mouth before I can even consider them.
“It was the hooker,” Lorenzo pipes in, almost sounding like he’s getting bored of this conversation.
I shake my head. “We don’t know that. Danny Bower could have people sniffing around. I’d be shocked if hedidn’t.”
Settimo considers this for a moment. “You think he had someone following you?”
I open my mouth and pause. I think better of telling him Abi was actually in my home, so no need for anyone to follow me to some seedy motel. Discretion. That’s what I was going for and some asshole following me was what I was trying to avoid. I don’t know Settimo will see it that way.
“I think it’s possible,” I settle on.
“It was the fucking hooker,” Lorenzo pipes in again, shaking his head like he can’t believe anyone would consider another possibility. “She probably went straight to Bower as soon as the panties dried. Don’t be an idiot.”
Settimo gives Lorenzo a disapproving look then turns back to me. “Who is she?”
“You make a mess and it’ll only look worse to the press. Let my team handle this.”
“Are you forgetting, cousin? We are on thesameteam. And we happen to be much better at handling this kind of thing than you. Who. Is. She?”
I take a deep breath, regretting it as soon as the stench hits my stomach, and I look off toward my right as I think. “I don’t know her name.”
“Did you pick her up at a fucking gas station?” Settimo sneers sarcastically.
“She’s from an escort service. It’s exclusive, email contact only. I’ll send you the info. She’s got jet black hair, tattoo on her right hip of a butterfly. That’s all I know.”
The lie sounds convincing enough to my own ears, I almost believe it. Why am I lying? Abi’s image flashes through my mind and then she’s here, and it’s her bloody corpse stenching the room.
She doesn’t deserve that. She’s a snake, a liar, probably a thief. But she doesn’t deserve whatever wrath the Gruco family decides to unleash on her for it.
She fucking got me. Evenhandedly.
Settimo stares through me as he thinks. When he blinks, his eyes refocus and his brows knit. “Get the PR figured out. We’ll take care of the rest.”
I nod and open my mouth, not sure of what I’m going to say, but before I have the chance Settimo saves me with a flick of his wrist to dismiss me. He exchanges a look with Lorenzo and then turns his back and begins walking toward the back of the room.
Lorenzo is staring at me with that creepy ass murderous look he’s mastered since we were kids. Part of me wonders if he can tell I’m lying, but I shake it off. He’s trying to intimidate me. Nothing more.
I stare back, making sure I don’t waver from his eyes for a few seconds before I turn and begin to walk from the room. My senses have almost gotten used to the smell, but I can’t fucking wait to breathe fresh air again.
“And Colter?” Settimo’s voice hits my back.
I pause and glance over my shoulder.
“Don’t fuck anymore hookers.”
Heat spreads over my skin at being given a command, but I know better than to challenge him. Or any member of this fucked up clan of mobsters my father called “family”. He’s been dead for fifteen years, but his past will never stop haunting me. Neither will his blood.
I face forward without a reply and push the door to the room open, taking a deep inhale as soon as the metal clangs behind me.
Lorenzo’s expression is burned into my mind as I leave the club. If he doesn’t know now that I lied, he’ll know soon.
I pull out my phone, intent on calling Abi to warn her, but my fingers merely hover over the buttons. I don’t have her number. More than that, I already gave her a fair warning and she chose not to comply.
I toss my phone into the cupholder when I climb into my car and head home.