Page 18 of Mine, Forever

The boys had assembled from all over the city. I usually kept a few of them working for me in the clubs, running them since I didn’t have the care factor for doing it myself. Most of them were great and because of that, I paid them well. I had a total of eleven clubs in the city, and all of them did exceedingly well compared to the Torelli businesses. I think that’s why Luca hated that I’d made a name for myself because he’d failed where I had succeeded, and I was still young.

“Sit.”

They all sat down at the table, and I took the head seat. My mind was reeling; Ebony knew something that Giordy didn’t want me to know. That just fuelled my desire to find out what it was.

“The fire lit by Giordy Torelli had completely burnt out the club building. It’s a no-go zone according to the marshals.”

The men groaned and argued with each other over what they wanted to do to Giordy. That kind of anger made me happy, but I was on limited time so I couldn’t let it play out like I usually did.

“We need to infiltrate his ranks, get in where it’s going to hurt him the most.”

Duncan put his hand up. “I could do it.”

“He knows you’re close to me.”

He shrugged and pointed to a man up the back I didn’t know well. “Chris is pretty good at manipulation.”

“How so?”

Chris stood up. “I know how to get people to trust me.”

“You do realize he’s going to be suspicious of people joining his ranks right now. We have to make it believable.”

Chris’ eyes narrowed. He knew exactly what I was saying, and a small part of me felt good about that.

“Whatever it takes.”

I nodded to Duncan to brief him, taking him away from the table so he couldn’t hear the next part.

“Giordy has something over Jenkins. I don’t know what it is, but I need to know how it’s going to affect us.”

“I have a contact in the Commissioner’s Office… his assistant.”

A chorus of wolf whistles went up in the air as one of the men, Leo, from the side of the room came forward.

“Who is she?”

“My ex. Well, we still fuck. We never could get our act together.”

“And she’ll divulge information to you?”

“Yeah… she has no idea I work for you.”

I nodded. “Good, make it happen. Any news about Giordy Torelli and I need to know, you hear?”

Everyone agreed, and I excused them. Walking toward the car, I spotted York smoking while talking to a woman. Never had I seen him even remotely interested in anyone. I was about to walk over and see who she was when I saw her reach up and slap him across the face, hard, his cigarette flying from his lips. He smiled, laughing as she made her way off the street and into a shop.

“Something I should know about?”

“Nah,” he responded, opening my door for me. “Just a piece of fun I was bored with.”

Smiling, I liked seeing this side of him. He got in the car and took off back to my apartment. The fire had bothered me. It wasn’t Giordy’s style to do something so flippant.

Something was up.

“What did you find out about Ebony?”

“A lot. She’s been out of prison for a few years.”

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