Page 135 of Ready to Cash Out

Trev stayed with Juicy until his nurse arrived to give him his meds for the afternoon. He’d tried to get Juicy to open up a bit more about his time as a hitman to confirm his theory, but Juicy only wanted to talk about Barkie. Whatever earlier clarity he had possessed was gone.

But that was all right.

Trev was still very sure he knew where those three bodies were.

Once Juicy was doped up and settled down for a nap, Trev left to go find Jupiter.

Mickey was just walking out of the guest room with Jupiter’s chains in his hand.

“Hey.” Trev scowled. “What’s going on?”

Mickey raised his brow.

“Where’s Jupiter?” Trev raised the folder as if he was about to smack Mickey with it.

Mickey did not look impressed.

“Hey, fuck you. Maybe I’ll get lucky and you’ll get a really nasty paper cut.”

“Trev!” Jupiter popped up at the door behind Mickey. His chains were gone. “I’m okay.”

Trev pushed by Mickey so he could hug Jupiter tight. He slid his hands over Jupiter’s neck, rubbing over the marks left from the chains. “What’s going on?”

“No idea.” Jupiter shrugged. “Mr. Tamerlane isn’t exactly chatty.”

“I can always put them back on if you’d like,” Mickey said with a sweet smile.

“Nope. We’re good. Bye bye now.” Trev grabbed Jupiter’s arm and dragged him inside the room so he could shut the door.

“What did Cold want?”

“Other than to solidify my opinion of him as being an absolute fucking asshole of epic proportions? A lot.” Trev ushered Jupiter over to the bed. “Did you know that Juicy Cusack was a hitman for your fucking family?”

“What?” Jupiter scoffed. “Are you serious?”

“Yup. And he’s apparently been stalking me and my mom for years ’cause your uncle or somebody told him to.” Trev fished out the photograph with Juicy in the background. “Look. That’s him.”

“Okay, back up, baby doll.” Jupiter pinched his brow. “Why would the Luchesi family have a hitman watching you?”

“Because my mom saw Federico Luchesi kill a bunch of people. That’s why she was in witness protection. The cops were, like, on the family’s payroll and they wanted her to take the stand and put Feddy behind bars or whatever.”

“Why wouldn’t they just kill him?”

“I asked the same fucking thing. It was because of some promise made to the Don, blah blah blah. Something, something, Cold went on his murder rampage and everybody who knew what was happening was killed. My mom had already moved us to Perry City ’cause your family was gonna, like, keep an eye on her.”

“Juicy?”

“That’s what Cold said, yeah.”

“I’ve heard about Federico.” Jupiter made a face. “The family made arrangements for him to, ahem, have an accident in prison.”

“Wow, your family sucks.”

“Never denied that.”

“Well, listen. Cold is saying all of this bullshit is because of a former FBI douche named Champagne or something. That he was the one who told you guys about me after he read this file and put the pieces together or something.”

Jupiter pressed his lips into a thin line. “Champignon, yes. I’ve heard Emil mention him. I didn’t know he was an ex-fed, but that makes sense. The drugs the family is trying to move right now? Came from a federal warehouse before it could be destroyed.”

---