Page 80 of His Passerotta

“Of course he did.” Settimo looks off then smiles when he meets my eyes. “Well, I get to have the first dinner, then. Tonight, seven o’clock? Don’t mention it to Lorenzo. I wanna piss him off after the fact.”

“We’re not dating, Settimo. We’ve never even had sex. She was only at Victor’s reception because Maksim brought her to me.”

He rolls his eyes. “Don’t bullshit me, little brother. I saw you with her. Even if Lorenzo hadn’t told me she had you by the balls, I could see it on your face.”

He could?

“Seven o’clock,” he says as he stands.

“Um, yeah, I’m not sure yet. I’ll have to see what she has planned,” I lie. It’s doubtful I’ll ever see Bailey again. If she’s smart, she’ll have already left Vegas.

My shoulders fall thinking about her, but I force them to square. “I’ll let you know.”

“Sounds good.” He smiles, no awkwardness to it this time as he backsteps toward the door. “I’m thinking duck. She’s not a vegan, right?”

I shake my head.

“Good. That food tastes like shit… Don’t tell Lorenzo I said that.”

I chuckle. Lorenzo’s wife is vegan. The first time I had dinner at their place, I ate beforehand, but I found out I actually like her cooking. A lot. She talked me into meatless Mondays.

“Your secret’s safe with me.”

He turns and tosses a wave over his shoulder before leaving. I feel twenty pounds lighter, but as soon as he’s in the elevator, the sinking feeling in my gut returns.

Again, I fight myself over whether or not I should keep digging into Joshua Murphey. In the end, I cave, just like I knew deep down I would. I can’t help it. I’m wired to need to know the truth.

I pull up his police reports, scanning the laundry list of petty crimes before clicking off it and moving on to his documented tattoos. Everything about him screams gang member, and those guys are stupid enough to advertise it on their skin. If I can figure out what gang he’s in, I can go from there.

Except, I don’t have to go from there. As soon as I spot the TLB on his bicep, barbed wire wrapped around it, I know who’s behind this. I know the motive. And I know how to find them.

TLB.

The Lost Boys.

The gang the street trash told me about, the ones I should’ve been looking at all along.

I pick up my phone but hesitate once I’ve made it to my contacts. If I make this call, there’s no going back. I could very well be sentencing Bailey’s brother to death.

Like he tried to sentence me.

Like he tried to sentence my family.

My hand balls into a fist as my jaw clenches. I find Maksim’s contact and make the call.

Bailey was right. In the end, family always comes first.

20

BAILEY

Heat spreads over my palms as I stand outside Anthony’s door holding a pot of soup. My eyes burn from all the crying mixed with lack of sleep, but my face is dry. I ran out of tears a while ago.

Every nerve ending in my body is at the ready as I knock on the door, then step back to wait.

What if he doesn’t answer?

No. I promised myself I wouldn’t play the what-if game. I’ve already spent too much time going through the possibilities of what he might think of me. All it did was take up the brainpower I needed to figure out what I think of him.

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