Page 33 of My Merciless Don

“Yeah. It sucks but the man has powerful allies. Why do you think it’s been so hard for me to get revenge?” Marco said bitterly.

I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I know you’ll get it done. For Amy.”

He looked down at the grave and nodded. “For Amy.”

My heart twisted in pain for them both and that was disconcerting.

Danger. A voice whispered to me, as the cold hand of fear trailed down my spine. I had to leave. Escape. Go. I was becoming way too attached for my own good. I closed my eyes, making the decision to come up with an exit strategy, even as the pain in my heart increased at the thought of doing that.

To never see Marco again.

Why did that hurt so much?

It wasn’t just losing Marco that bothered me. Having inadvertently spent time with his sister, I couldn’t help feeling that we were becoming friends. Going with her on her business mission - which consisted in doing background checks on a new customer - had been fun. We followed him around all day and took pictures of him with all the people he met. Then we went to his house, broke into his office and copied all the files on his computer.

“This is just preliminary work. Just making sure he is who he says he is.” Lucia told me.

“How long do you watch him for?”

“Oh, we’ve been watching him since the day he approached us. Today he was supposed to deliver his first shipment of goods to us. Instead, he called with excuses and postponed it. I’m just trying to find out why.” She told me as we drove away from the man’s house.

“What could be some bad reasons?”

She shrugged, “He’s a plant, he’s a cop, he’s looking to sabotage us… lots of things.”

“And what we did today will help you find out?”

“Sure. Hopefully. We’ll see.”

I nodded slowly as she flicked me a glance.

“I’m hungry. Wanna go for some burgers?”

I blinked in surprise. “Uh yeah. Sure.”

“Cool. We can eat while we try to identify all the guys he spoke to.”

“How?”

“I have a program George developed. Facial recognition. Did you watch the Fast and Furious movies?”

I was a bit breathless at the twists this conversation was taking. “Um,” I nodded, “I did.”

“Okay so you know God’s Eye, right? That software Ramsay developed to find anyone?”

“Don’t tell me you have something like that!”

She laughed. “Not quite, but George used that as a template to make his own much less impressive version.”

I just gawped at her, genuinely impressed. “Should you be telling me this?”

She grinned. “Probably not. But I trust you. You’re my friend, right?”

I blinked again, my chest squeezing with the unexpectedness of her words. “Of course I am.” I rasped.

“Good.” She gave me a pleased smile.

And now here I was, about to walk out on them all.

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