Page 13 of Matteo

Click!

Click!

The shutter button threatened to break under the pressure of my finger. She was the center of the photographs until finally she dipped inside with her arms laced with Ken Ito’s daughter, Cassie.

How did you not know this?

The question hung inside of my head until Jason started talking over the coms again.

“What, I missed that?”

I heard him sigh, “Did you get anything?”

It took a moment before I replied. “Mostly it was Ito’s daughter and her posse going inside to eat.”

“I think we should call it, come back tomorrow.”

Agreeing, I slowly packed up my supplies as not to draw attention to myself. When I was done, I walked over to the rooftop entrance and headed back downstairs. When I reached the bottom, I turned the cap around, and adjusted the backpack on my shoulders. With the cap pulled low, I didn’t even dare to glance in the direction of the restaurant. When I was further down the street, Jason pulled over and picked me up.

“We sat out here for hours, what’d you get?” He adjusted the radio station.

“Not much,” I shook my head.

We were nearly at my apartment when I finally broached the subject of his sister.

“Does Jessica know that we’re on this assignment together?”

Jason’s head snapped in my direction, a scowl on his face. “Why in the fuck would I tell her that?”

“I don’t know,” I took a deep breath. “I just wondered.”

I watched my ex-best friend flex his fingers on the steering wheel. The vehicle had come to a stop in traffic, and we waited for the light to change. Jason was trying to control his breathing and finally he took a swallow and a deep breath, his Adam’s apple giving a bob before traffic started up again.

“Don’t worry about my sister,” he murmured. “She is happy and most of all she is no longer married to you.”

The rest of the drive was made in silence. I was happy to watch buildings and people out of the passenger side window. When it was time for me to exit, I didn’t say so much as a goodbye.

He drove off and I let out a sigh of relief as I finally entered my apartment and jogged up the stairs.

After a long shower, I sat down on my couch and cracked open my laptop. Placing the memory card from the camera into the slot, I waited as the large picture files took their slow sweet time before moving over.

As I waited, I grabbed a beer and checked my cellphone. My brother Mason had sent a message to the group chat.

I’m home,it read.

Bout fucking time, Cody had responded. He was younger than us, along with Asher. The two of them were down in Florida going to school and pretending to be normal. Trying to stay out of our father’s shit storms concerning his arms dealings.

Cracking the top off a beer I shot a text off.When are we meeting up?

Me and Nora were thinking about hitting up Noir tonight,he replied.

I’m out of the state but I’m glad you’re home brother,Carmine replied.

Oh, and what are you doing out of the state?

Seeing a girl, Carmine replied.

I shook my head. If there was one thing my brothers were going to do, it was going to be getting themselves some pussy. Carmine and Mason shared a common trait of being assassins whereas I had opted for becoming an FBI agent.

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