Page 43 of Vito

Nodding at the security, she glances at me—probably wondering what I'm doing in the middle of this—then stalks away.

"Gus, cover the bar, please," she orders as she goes through the door into the hallway that leads to her office.

"Mr. Santoro," Peter tries me.

I eye him and his wife coldly. "The owner and operator of this facility has ordered you to leave. You will forcibly be removed if you don't turn around and walk out that door."

Peter takes his wife's hand, who's openly crying now, and they leave. The security eases back, and the crowded barroom resumes what they were doing. Gus is behind the bar; he catches my eye, and I go over there.

"Was that who I think it was?" he asks me quietly.

I nod. "Aiken ever say anything about his parents or family?"

Gus's brow furrows, making the scar at the top of his nose pop. "Whenever the subject came up, he shut it down."

"Sort of like his sister," I murmur.

When I drove Eden home that first night, I tried to apologize for my role in what had happened at the graveyard. She nearly jumped down my throat and told me that Edna and Peter Fallen werenoton the docket for discussion.

"At Aiken's funeral, when Eden encountered her parents, she said Aiken had disowned them years ago."

Gus drags his hand over his face. "I know nothing, Vito. Honest. But I think it's wise to drop it."

I fix a look on my face that communicates I'm more than happy not to get drawn into family drama. "I'm headed out. Have a good night, Gus."

"Night, Vito," he says as one of the servers comes up to the bar with a large order.

I don't leave Gilly's, though. Instead, I make it look like I'm headed to the bathroom. I bypass those and continue walking down the hallway to Eden's closed office door.

If I knock, I know she'll tell me to get fucked and go away.

Glancing over my shoulder to ensure the hallway is empty, I turn back to look at the keypad that will unlock her office door. I try the code Gus and I had succeeded with before—the phone number Aiken had given Gus for Ed.

The green light flashes, and I smile, then slip inside.

Eden's back is to me and the door. The bat isn't in her hand any longer, which bodes well for me walking out of here with all my teeth and nuts intact. She grips a bottle of fire whiskey. Her hand clenches around the bottle's neck, and it looks like it's shaking.

When I re-arm the lock on her door, she swings around, startled. Her hazel eyes are wide and filled with pain.

Seeing that pain is like taking a bullet to my gut for some reason, and I have to shake it off.

She quickly schools her features back into her impassive look and glares at me.

Then she sinks into her chair behind her desk and takes a drink from the bottle. She grimaces and wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. "I knew I should've changed that fucking code."

I settle into the chair on the other side of her desk and reach for the bottle. After I take a long pull, my throat burns, and I grunt out, "That really is the shits. Christ, Aiken." I push the bottle back toward her. "No idea why he loved that so much."

"I think it's the cinnamon," she says quietly. "He loved anything with cinnamon."

Closing her eyes, her hand squeezes around the neck of the bottle, but it doesn't look like it's shaking anymore. When she opens her eyes, she levels me with a cool look. "The subject of Edna and Peter Fallen is still off-limits. And get out of my office; this will look bad."

I remain seated. Instead of leaving, I go with some truths that I know.

"I know Fenton was your sister, and she died in a hit-and-run." Eden jerks like I slapped her. "She was twelve; you were fifteen and ran away from home shortly after that. That was when Aiken disowned your parents, wasn't it?"

She shoots to her feet. "Get the fuck out of my office, Vito."

I calmly sit back and interlink my fingers over my stomach. "No."

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