Page 83 of Love Him Like Water

The owner waved an arm out, his face scrunched.

“Like you. Like him,” he said, waving at Rico. “Tall, dark hair, young, olive skin…”

To be fair, there were a lot of us.

And we did all have similar characteristics.

Biting back a growl, I looked toward the camera on the wall behind him. “What about the camera feed?” I asked.

“Sorry, man, it deletes footage every three days.”

Of course it did.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“Okay. Listen to me,” I said, reaching across the counter for a notepad he had there. “You pay me. If anyone shows up here looking for a bag, you say it’s in the back, then you go back there and call me, you understand?” I asked, jotting my number down on the pad.

“Yeah, I got it. You’ve been good to my family,” he said, shrugging. “Don’t want to start any shit.”

“Good. Plug that into your phone,” I said, waving toward the paper. “I’m not gonna make you pay twice. But I’m who you pay now. And only me. Until further notice.”

With that, I turned and walked out of the store, waiting until I was around the corner and out of sight of the store owner before turning on Rico.

“Who the fuck?” I hissed.

Rico, on the same page as me, shook his head. “I don’t know. But we gotta find out. If someone is making a move against you…”

“I need to talk to everyone I trust,” I said.

“Elian?” Rico asked.

“Dunno why that is a question.”

“That fight was… unlike him.”

“That’s a different thing.”

“You don’t think it’s possible that he wants you gone to take Lore himself?”

“No,” I said, voice final.

“Yeah, I agree. Just gotta play devil’s advocate here. Who else?”

“Dav.”

If that man wanted my position in this family, he’d had more than one occasion where he could have taken me out.

“Cinna,” I said.

“Yeah? Even though she’s been one of the biggest voices against this alliance?”

“Even though,” I said. “Besides, he said it was a guy.”

“True,” Rico agreed. “Anyone else?”

“Best move’ll be to keep this small. This is going to be a fucking nightmare,” I added, exhaling hard.

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