Page 24 of The Woman with the Wallet

“To what?” he asked, but the elevator car stopped at another floor, letting a rowdy crowd of twenty-somethings get on and preventing any further conversation until we finally made it to the lobby.

“He’s with me,” Miko said when I spotted a man all in black waiting just outside.

The man in question didn’t look like a Made man to me. He was tall and a scrappy kind of fit in black jeans, a black hoodie, and Timbs.

He was handsome, with great bone structure, dark hair, and one and a half brown eyes.

Yep.

Half.

The other eye was half brown and half green.

It was a cool feature, but I imagined someone working in crime hated having such a distinctive look.

“Venezio, good timing,” Miko said, shaking the other man’s hand. “Wanna take a drive?” he asked, looking at me. “Go somewhere that people won’t be staring at you?”

“Where’s that?” I asked, immediately suspicious.

“Don’t worry,” Miko said, shooting me a smirk as he moved to open the back door of the car for me. “It’ll have lots of exits.”

Maybe it wasn’t the smart thing to go with this random mafia guy who was short half a million dollars because of me.

But he’d gotten me medicine and had given me time and silence when I’d needed it. That didn’t seem like the actions of someone who was going to kill me in the back of his car.

Even if it was, it was too late.

I was sliding in.

Miko was moving in behind me.

Venezio got in the driver’s seat.

And we were pulling away from my apartment building.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Miko

There weren’t a lot of places that guys in our organization felt comfortable having private conversations. Public spaces could so easily be wired, or people overheard shit they weren’t supposed to.

The risk was too high.

That said, Cosimo had one place.

Apparently, it was a safe space because when the owner’s daughter was drugged and assaulted, a young Cosimo went out into the city, tracked down the bastard, chopped off his balls, and brought them to the owner as a gift.

Ever since, there had been an understanding that Cosimo and his crew could use the place as much as they wanted. Even sweep the place for bugs when it was closed, just to make sure it was all on the up-and-up.

So that’s where Venezio took us.

It was a little red brick bar that catered to blue-collar workers who were looking for a few drinks and a chill atmosphere.

“A bar?” Max asked when Venezio double-parked, ignoring the horns behind us.

“Told you. Lots of exits.”

Max looked out the window toward the bar before reaching back to flip her hoodie up over her head. It didn’t escape me that she had her head ducked as we walked in too, not wanting to deal with the sideways looks from anyone inside.

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