Page 66 of Dirty Hearts

“You sure you were being followed, boss?” Jude asked.

I eyed him dangerously. “Fuck, I know when I’m being followed. I didn’t get to where I am today by collecting fucking brownie points.”

I sighed heavily and gritted my teeth.

“We don’t know who it could be and why,” Gio stated. “We also got nothing on Barabbas or the Manellos. It’s all gone quiet again.”

I looked at Pa. Sometimes I thought he should be in charge. He was more experienced than me in this part of the game. I was more of a foot soldier, but I guess that had its merits too. I didn’t just issue orders and sit in my chair waiting and watching. I was still the foot soldier I’d always been.

“What do you think?” I asked him. Everyone looked to him.

He pulled out a wad of paperwork from the inside of his blazer and smirked. He looked like Luc when he did that. It made me miss him. I hadn’t realized just how much I’d relied on Luc until I didn’t have him. But I respected his life now, and honestly, I was happy that he was happy.

“I think there’s something brewing, stewing beneath us, and the sooner we find out what it is, the better. What is this?” Pa came over to me and handed me some paperwork. “The secretary handed it to me on my way in here. Came by fax.”

I looked it over. It was David Shipel’s purchase proposal. I’d expected this to come in. It was one of the topics I wanted to discuss.

“David Shipel wants to buy the Willows Shipping Company.”

“And you don’t think that’s strange?” Pa raised a brow. “Tell me you do.”

“I do. I’m just not sure how it’s strange yet.” I flashed a look at Gio, then Dante.

Gio leaned forward. “Is it still five million?”

I looked on the document and frowned. “Seven and a half. Seven and a half million.”

Alex wolf whistled. “That’s a lot of zeros, boss. Why do we think this is weird? The guy’s a billionaire.”

I looked at Pa as I geared up for the answer. “It’s strange because anyone willing to pay that much for that company could afford to set up their own.”

Pa smiled at my answer.

“And why wouldn’t he just set his own up?” Dante asked, shaking his head. He looked at each of the guys, then back to me.

“Time,” I answered.

“Takes too long to set something like that up,” Gio added.

“You sure you guys aren’t getting paranoid?” Alex frowned.

“I’m with Alex,” Jude offered. “Boss, you could just be paranoid because you were followed.”

“But the instigation came from me, son.” Pa cocked his head to the side and stared Jude down.

There was an air of something distrustful in Pa’s stare that caught my attention, but then he diverted his gaze to Alex, who looked back and pursed his lips together, knowing his place.

Pa wasn’t the boss, but to me he was. He was the fucking Godfather in my world. Felt like I was too young to call myself that, although I was thirty-eight.

“Boss,” Pa said to me and twisted back to face me. “This looks like a pot of shit. This guy is working for someone who needs the shipping company for something. We used to use it for many things. He could have picked anybody else. But he came to us because we’re special. Anything leaving those docks on our ships passes through. No one touches us. We need to find out why he would need something like that. What could be worth seven and a half million?”

“Even more money?” Dante said.

I agreed.

Fuck.

“How long till we have to give him an answer?” Gio asked