Page 33 of Protected By the Mafia

Felicity found herself shaking her head. “But…” What was she supposed to say to that?

“But what?”

Her mind a confused, stressed-out mess, Felicity muttered, “But it was a lie.” She realized her mistake only when silence greeted her. Her eyes widened at her own stupidity and she clapped a hand over her mouth. Was it possible to recover from that horrendous blunder?

“Sorry,” Taylor finally said, her tone cautious. “What was a lie?”

Tears burned Felicity’s eyes and she slumped against the sofa. “All of it,” she whispered. “The whole story about my neighbor breaking in, taking my phone, the landlord being involved, and losing my job after—none of it was true.” She did her best to hide the sound of her tears.

Again, Taylor was silent for several long seconds. “So you changed your number, and just thought you’d play a prank on me or something? See how long you could run with it?”

Horror flooded her. “What? No! That’s not … it isn’t like that.”

“Then why,” Taylor asked. Her voice had tightened in a way Felicity wasn’t used to hearing. “Why the hell did you lie to me like that? Do you know how worried I’ve been about you?”

“Th-there are reasons,” Felicity said, “but I can’t actually explain them right now….”

Taylor grated out a laugh. “Well that’s awesome. I’m glad you’re actually fine, then. Maybe I’ll call him back and apologize more than I ever have in my life, give him your new number, and have him delete mine.”

Felicity opened her mouth with the intent to plead with her friend, but she bit the words back. She had no right.

“Do me a favor,” Taylor said, “and don’t talk to me again until you feel like being honest.”

eleven

New Information

Cristiano was agitated. The feeling was partly residual due to how he’d felt after leaving Patrick Todd’s residence, but there it was also anticipatory. Going at all—and dropping a body—meant an increased risk of drawing exactly the kind of attention he was hoping to delay. He knew that, and he’d done it anyway. For reasons he still agreed with. It was fucking confusing.

So adding having been unexpectedly stuck with a low-level interrogation before he could even make it home for lunch had him on edge. He disliked these conversations. They ranked on a par with tandem driving in his mind, on a good day.

When the smart-mouthed, baby-faced, amateur drug dealer had wasted no time talking back, Cristiano had been sure he’d be leaving the mid-town facility with fresh blood on his hands. But like the good soldier he tried to be, he listened to the maybe twenty-year-old’s words for whatever clues he could get first, and he noticed something interesting.

Most Ink Blots they hauled in started singing pretty fast about crew loyalty. Most of those eventually broke, but so far, they hadn’t known much of anything, anyway. This one, on the other hand, hadn’t bothered with the usual song-and-dance. He was spouting off in frustrated defiance, but he hadn’t said a word about standing with his crew. He hadn’t even threatened retaliation by them.

Cristiano sat back in his chair opposite the punk whose name he didn’t know. “You got a name you can share, or would you rather I keep calling you ‘boy’?”

Silence stretched for several seconds. Then, calmly, the boy said, “Miguel.”

Cristiano tipped his head. “Miguel. You’ve got a head on your shoulders. Why run drugs?”

Miguel rolled his eyes. “Gotta get cash from somewhere, old timer. We ain’t all rich.”

“They’ll just replace you as soon as your feet leave the asphalt,” Cristiano said. “You’re nothing more than a pair of legs to them. Is that what you aspire to be? Someone else’s spare legs?”

Miguel stretched as far forward as his restraints allowed. “Fuck. You.”

“I’ll take that as a ‘no’.”

Miguel made an exasperated sound, his legs spreading outward at the knee as his shoulders slumped. “Look, I got obligations. So kill me if you’re gonna fuckin’ kill me, and if you’re not, then let me go.”

“You’re confused, Miguel. We’re not the police. We don’t need probable cause to hold you however the fuck long we want. If you want to make it through this like the survivor you claim to be, you might have to do some evolving. Are you prepared for that?”

Intrigue sparked Miguel’s eyes and he straightened a bit in the chair. “Hold up, you’re sayin’ there’s a way I walk outta here?”

Slowly, Cristiano inclined his head. “I’m saying your odds aren’t zero. The rest depends on you.”

Suspicion darkened the boy’s eyes again. “What kinda information do you want, exactly?”

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