Page 92 of Need Him Like Oxygen

But no one had.

I mean, this was Brooklyn. It wasn’t exactly a rural area where new faces would stick out like sore thumbs. And there was no way this guy was a local criminal, because I was pretty sure either Dav’s crew, my crew, or Drake’s crew would have known about it.

He wasn’t from this area.

Which wasn’t helping.

My phone vibrated in my pocket after a few hours, and I pretended to ignore the way my heart trilled at seeing Dav’s name on the screen.

You’re a pain in my ass, Cin.

I caught myself smiling down at my phone, and forced my lips into a straight line as I shot a text back.

I’ll let you know if I need backup.

Sure you will, he shot back. Then, Don’t forget we have a meeting with Renzo tonight.

Crap.

Yeah.

That shit with the butcher shop.

Like I needed something else to worry about.

Though, Renzo wasn’t an alarmist kind of boss. So if he was calling us in, this was probably something big. Maybe even that shit going down with the Russians that he was siccing Elian on.

I scrolled through my texts, finding the one from Renzo, then making a mental note to head in that direction around that time. Which still left me the bulk of the day to keep running down leads.

“And what about your wife?” I asked yet another guy on my list, six pints deep in the middle of the afternoon on a weekday.

“What about her?” he asked.

“She pissed at me?” I asked as he reached his hand into the bowl of nuts that likely had fifty unwashed hands in there per shift.

“Why would she be? You weren’t the chick I was fucking instead of her.”

“You’re real charming, Joe,” I said, rolling my eyes at him.

“She had a good snatch too,” he said, looking down at his beer. “Even after the kids. Dunno why I did that.”

In general, I thought I liked working in a male-dominated profession. I fit in better with their detachment and coldness. But, fuck, every once in a while, one of these idiots made me wish I was a hairdresser or some girly shit like that.

I was about to walk out when Joe called back to me. “Can I see that picture again?” he asked. “Something’s bothering me,” he added as he finished off his beer.

With a small surge of hope after another long day of nothing at all, I walked back, holding out my phone.

“Think I maybe saw him with Lip once. Givin’ the poor guy a hard time.”

“Lip?” I repeated, brows scrunched.

“Guy out front of the sushi place over a block or so,” Joe said, waving in the general direction.

“Guy out front?” I repeated. “You mean homeless?” I clarified.

“Think the PC term is Person experiencing homelessness,” Joe said with an eye roll. “But yeah. Think that fucker in the picture might be the guy I chased off a while back when he’d been harassing the kid.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “Thanks. Maybe you’ll get your wife back,” I said.

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