Page 87 of Ready to Cash Out

“Suzanne was my mother,” Cold cut in gently. “And she was a great singer.”

“Really?” Trev’s heart lurched. “Wait, what happened to her?”

“She died giving birth to me. So, be thankful you had a mother who loved you enough and was there to spin falsehoods to protect you.”

“Were our moms really sisters?”

“No. Good friends with the same terrible taste in men.”

“Apparently.” Trev snorted. “Do we… Do we have any other family out there?”

“Blood relations?”

“Yeah.”

“No. Rowena has some distant relations through her mother, but they’re estranged.”

Trev huffed out a laugh. “Don’t like gangsters?”

“On the contrary,” Cold replied. “They’re Luchesis.”

“Well, fuck.” Trev made a face. “Is that, like, a problem…?”

“No.” Cold shook his head. “She’s made it clear where she stands.”

“And you?”

Cold’s lips twitched up into a small smile. “The Luchesis are very aware of my feelings toward them.”

“You killed a bunch of them, right?” Trev recalled what Jupiter had told him. “Wiped out a whole generation?”

“Allegedly.” Cold’s smile grew. “Anything else, Mr. Usher?”

“Ew, don’t. Just call me Trev.” Trev wrinkled his nose. “Mr. Usher is old. And creepy.”

“Fine. Anything else, Trev?”

Trev frowned, scanning over Cold’s face as he considered his next question carefully. “What do you want from me?”

“Nothing.”

Trev tensed. “Seriously?”

“You’ve already told me what I want to know.”

“But I didn’t tell you anything.”

“But you did.” Cold raised his brow. “You’re slow to trust, you think you’re clever, and you despise authority.”

“Hey, that’s my Grindr profile. Also, I love big, hairy tops.”

Cold rolled his eyes. “You don’t have any allegiance to the Luchesi family, and that’s all I care about.”

“How do you know?” Trev wagged his eyebrows. “Maybe I’m playing you.”

“Because of the questions you asked. The way you asked them. Your main concern was for your mother. You’re angry that she lied to you. You probably never trusted anyone else and that’s why the sense of betrayal haunting you stings so. You’re having to reconcile that with how much you loved her, but you still wonder was there anything else she lied about.”

Trev did his best to keep his expression calm.

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