Page 27 of Rotten Men

“It’s eight in the morning, Vince,” I reprimand sternly, not at all happy that my friend insists in finding solace at the bottom of a bottle so early in the morning.

“Fine, I’ll have coffee. Satisfied?” he snarks while getting into the car.

“Whatever, I’ll follow you.” I roll my eyes like a teenage girl, and stroll to my car, happy to see that my baby wasn’t stolen last night.

Even in this shitty neighborhood, the street thugs recognize not to fuck with amade man’swheels if they don’t want to get a nasty visit for their troubles. And my car screams out money. A parked sleek, black Porsche isn’t exactly a common sight in this part of the city. Any man willing to leave it unattended for so long is either foolish or carrying the weight of the syndicate behind him. And Chicago isn’t known for its fools.

It doesn’t take long for Vince and Dom to find a place secluded enough for us to talk. Something tells me my boys are too anxious to hear what I gathered from my overnight visit with our girl. Lucky for them, I’m in a sharing mood.

“You had to go and see her?” Vincent barks out the minute we find a seat at the back of the diner.

“Only fair, don’t you think. You and Dom both did. Why should I have been denied the privilege?” I goad, while Dom orders three black coffees.

Smart man.

“Because I don’t want to give her any reason to stay in town. If she thinks she has an ally in Chicago, she’ll never leave, and we all know that can’t happen. I want her gone, Giovanni. Gone,” Vincent orders with a sneer.

“So you say.” I shrug.

“So I say,” he deadpans.

“Whatever. She’s not going anywhere. I can tell you that much.”

“She’s always been headstrong,” Dom muses, sounding too nostalgic for Vincent’s taste.

“Stubborn, too.” I chuckle.

“Part of her charm.” Dom laughs.

“Don’t I know it,” I add with a wide grin on my face, but one look at Vincent’s burning stare and my smile is robbed from me.

“Will you two stop with the reminiscing shit already? We have more pressing matters to discuss. You,” he says, pointing at me like he’s about to give me a death sentence, “start talking. I know you didn’t go to her motel just to see her.”

“You’re not wrong,” I smirk proudly.

“And? What did you find?” he insists, gesturing with his hand for me to speed it up.

“I found out our girl has been busy for the last ten years. I also found out she has no intentions of vanishing again. Not until she gets what she came for.”

“Maybe you should go back and persuade her otherwise,” Vincent exclaims, his brow high in the air.

“I can’t do that,” I answer, leaning back in my seat.

“And why not?” Vincent questions, annoyed.

“Because I haven’t been able to refuse Selene since I was a child. I don’t think that’s changed,” I confess my true feeling—one that Vincent refuses to acknowledge.

His resolve is just as frail as ours. He just hides it better. I’ve never been one for lying to my friends, so I’m not about to start now. If he can’t deal, that’s his problem.

“You were able to refuse her once, as I recall,” he counters, fishing for what really took place between Selene and me last night.

“Is there a question you want to ask, Vincent? Aww, don’t be shy there, buddy. Go ahead and ask,” I goad, my cocky smile so wide that satellites in outer space could pick it out.

“Did you fuck her?”

I almost want to punch him for his crude remark, but I know my response will be just as unpleasant.

“Last time we had this conversation I told you no. Don’t expect the same answer today.”

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