Page 4 of The Woman at the Funeral (Costa Family #11)

Nico

The noise from the nightclub set my teeth on edge as I climbed the steps toward my youngest brother’s apartment.

Zeno claimed the music helped him focus. Fuck knew how that was possible. But there was a lot about Zeno that made no sense to me but perfect sense to him. He was quirky that way.

“I told you I don’t want another of those edibles. I was hearing fucking color—oh,” Zeno said as he opened the door to find me standing there. “You.”

“You just texted me,” I reminded him.

“Did I? I guess I did. Welp, please enter my humble abode.”

He swung the door open wide, giving me a view of the getup he was wearing.

Namely, one of those giant wearable blanket things (hood included) that had a taco print on it.

It covered up the map of tattoos that covered his tall, thin frame.

Though I was pretty sure I spotted a new one peeking out from the neck.

Zeno claimed that, like the music below, the pain of the tattoo needle helped him think straight. I worried about what he might do when he ran out of skin to ink.

The family resemblance between all of us brothers was uncanny in our bone structure.

But Zeno’s dark hair was long enough to brush his shoulders—though he had it pulled back in a bun.

His eyes were the same dark brown as Cosimo’s and Leondro’s, not the dark blue that Gav and I got from our mom.

Like Cesare, he was a fan of body modification and had a piercing in his brow and one in his tongue.

“Christ, Zen, how’d it get so messy in three days?” I asked, looking around his place: the stacked energy drink cans, the scattered coffee cups, the overflowing sink and garbage.

“Hey, nothing’s on the floor this time! Well, just don’t go in the bedroom. Or bathroom. What’s that old saying? Progress, not perfection.”

“Why is there a dog bed here?” I asked, internally cringing at the idea of him getting another living thing he would need to take care of. There was an incident with a fucking air plant that made us all decide he couldn’t be trusted to keep things alive.

“Saylor had me dog-sit last night,” he said, shrugging as he made his way to the coffee pot.

When he found no clean ceramic mugs, he located a pack of paper ones and poured a cup.

“Ant almost fell out the window,” he said, nodding toward the hastily patched-up spot in the glass.

“He’s gonna have his crew come by and fix it. Coffee’s new.”

Lord knew I could use a cup after the day I’d had.

I made my way over, grabbing my own paper cup and pouring some coffee. That I quickly spat into the sink.

“Zen, this is burnt to shit. When did you make it?”

“Huh?” he asked, sipping his cup. “Oh, I dunno. At two?”

“That was almost eight hours ago,” I told him, pouring the rest of the pot down the drain.

I’d already lost my brother to something on one of his many monitors, so I went ahead and shrugged off my jacket and got to work cleaning his place. Again.

It was a labor of love I’d been doing since Zeno was old enough to start making his own messes.

Messes that he, apparently, just couldn’t see, even when they were right in front of him.

His mind was just in another place. Inattentional blindness , the shrink had called it the one and only time I got Zen to go see one.

It was like his brain just filtered out the mess because it got too overwhelmed and wanted to focus on something else.

It wasn’t his fault. So, it was hard to get annoyed that I was always the one who picked up after him when we were growing up.

Though I made a mental note to see about hiring a cleaner to come in and handle his place once or twice a week. He was going to get roaches or rats if the trash wasn’t taken out regularly.

When I was finished scrubbing the burnt shit off the bottom of the coffee pot, I put a fresh one on and made sure the auto shut-off was turned on.

It helped.

To have tasks to do.

To keep my mind from wandering.

Not to Matt’s death, where it belonged, but to his widow.

And the way her hot tears soaked through my shirt as I held her. How her arms went from pressed against my chest to wrapped tightly around me as she purged all the pain she’d been hiding during the service.

Then how she’d watched me with pinched brows, like there was something confusing about being taken care of as I put a blanket over her, as I pulled off her shoes.

I mean, it probably was new to her.

I’d known Matt a long time. I’d seen him with women. I knew how good he was at complimenting and showering affection. For about a week or two, a month max, before he got bored.

No one had been more shocked than me when he’d said he was getting married. Matt? With one woman forever? It didn’t compute.

I could see how he could get a woman to agree to marry him in those early days. How she would think she’d hit the lottery. But it couldn’t have been long after the wedding before he lost interest in the love bombing. And his other side would have been more openly on display.

The constant get-rich-quick schemes. The selfishness. The inability to take responsibility. The way he let his family sway his decisions and behavior.

I knew from Matt that Blair had been going to therapy, had been dogging him to go with her to couples counseling. She’d clearly been trying. It must have taken a lot for her to decide she was finally done.

The reality was, she’d likely been in a relationship with a grown child instead of a partner. She’d probably not only been handling all her own usual shit, but his on top of it all.

Being taken care of had to be a foreign concept to her.

I squashed down the little desire to do that for her, to be the partner she deserved.

It wasn’t my place.

It never had been.

It never would be.

“So, you said you had something—” I started, but cut off when I looked over.

Zen had removed his taco blanket and was sitting in a pair of tight-ass pants and nothing else.

“Zen, the fuck are you wearing? Are those leggings?”

“Men’s compression fitness leggings,” he said.

“You don’t work out.”

“I went through a phase where I was going to start. Got the clothes, the gear, the gym membership. Then…”

He waved a hand, as if saying ‘you know the deal.’

And I did.

Zeno was great at being interested in a project. He wasn’t great at actually following through with the task.

It was kind of a miracle that he stayed interested in computers and hacking like he had.

Because he’d started and quit no fewer than five sports, twenty hobbies, and four different career paths before the Family decided his interest in computers would be useful and started hiring him for those sorts of jobs.

If only he could get obsessed with dishes or laundry.

“So, what I’m hearing is you haven’t done laundry.”

“Bingo,” Zeno said, making a gun with his fingers—black nails and all—and gestured shooting.

“So, what did you find for me?”

“Right. The… Matt thing.”

“His brutal murder? That thing? Yeah.”

“Wasn’t being insensitive. Easier to compartmentalize shit. Might want to try it yourself before I show you this.”

“You found the CCTV footage?”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much. Unless you see something I didn’t see—and I watched it about fifty times—there’s not much to go on.”

“Roll it,” I demanded.

I steeled my stomach as Zeno’s finger slipped to the space bar, clicking once.

The screen unfroze.

I recognized the street. I’d been there less than an hour after the news broke. Matt’s blood had still been staining the sidewalk. Cops were still standing about uselessly. Like no one was in any hurry to get to the bottom of the situation.

I knew from experience they likely wouldn’t ever figure it out.

Which meant it was on me to do it.

No, Matt wasn’t “Family.” But that didn’t matter. Someone had to find out who did this to him and make them pay.

I watched as a couple moved into the frame, walking arm-in-arm, heads leaned into each other.

Then there was Matt.

He had his phone pressed to his ear, his mouth moving quickly, his arms doing even more talking. Everything about him was agitated. No, not just agitated. He was pissed about something.

Then out of nowhere, his body jerked.

Once.

Twice.

Six times.

I didn’t need the sound to know what did that to a person.

Gunshots.

I knew from the way his body crumbled that he was dead before he hit the pavement. Even so, the way his head whacked off the sidewalk had my stomach lurching.

“Roll it back,” I said, realizing I’d been watching Matt, not looking for clues to the shooter.

But Zen was right; no matter how many times the footage played, there was nothing to see.

The very edge of a bumper. No plate. No person. No nothing.

“Anything on the ta—”

“Taillight,” Zeno finished for me. “I have it running. It’s only the corner of it. I don’t have a lot of hope. But you never know.”

“Okay. Let me know when you get something that looks like a match. And if you hear any chatter about the hit. Oh, and if you get into any of Matt’s accounts on anything. I think the cops must have gotten his phone. But if you can get into anything that might give me a clue.”

“He didn’t tell you what he was involved in?”

“You know Matt. He was always saying it was the next million-dollar scheme. Even if he did tell me, I didn’t commit it to memory.”

“Maybe his widow… no?” he asked when I shook my head.

“They were separated the last few days. That’s why Matt was at my place.”

“This wasn’t that far from your place. Are we sure there isn’t some link to the Family?” Zen asked, rocking back in his chair.

“It’s an angle I’m working. I need to have a talk with Lorenzo. See if there are any active threats. But I feel like if there were, they would have trickled down to me by now. Who knows, though.”

“I’ll see if there’s any chatter about the Family. But it should have gotten flagged for me if it was out there anywhere.”

“Thanks, Zen. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Will do,” he agreed. I made my way to the door, but my brother’s voice called to me again. “Hey, Nico.”

“Yeah?” I asked, turning back.

“You okay? I know you jump right into fix-it mode. But how are you holding up?”

I sucked in a deep breath and let it slowly out.

“I’m alright. I’ll feel better when the fucks who did this pay for it.”

“Yeah. We’ll find them.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, making my way out.

I made my way down to the street but paused next to my car, leaning against it as a wave of grief, confusion, anger, and helplessness overcame me.

I let myself have a minute.

Then I got in my car and drove to the boss’s house.