Page 63 of Clean Slade
He grabbed Mac and gave her head a little teasing rub, to her dismay.
“Yeah. I can’t stay mad at him for too long.”
“Why are you mad at Daddy, Tiago?”
Santiago frowned and pinched the girl’s nose.
“As I just said, I’m not mad at him anymore.”
“Agh, you’re lying to me, Tiago. Why do people keep lying to me?” Mac huffed.
Santiago opened his mouth to answer, but before he did, he pulled the little girl into his arms.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, honey. I didn’t mean to. What happened is…well, Daddy lied to me, and I got as upset as you just did,” he told her.
“Lying sucks!” she said.
“It so does,” he agreed and kissed her head.
King returned to the room, and we all watched Mac’s movie for the next half-hour before the doorbell rang again.
“I’ll get it,” I said when I realized King was half-asleep.
I checked my wallet for cash and opened the door, but I paused when I found two guys staring back at me. One was a big guy with tattoos and an angry-looking face holding two pizza boxes. The other one, behind him, was a larger man in a suit with a cigar between his lips.
My heart beat faster, and I wished I could hide a gun around the house without risking Mac’s safety, but seeing as I was weaponless, I’d have to resort to my good old fists.
There was no denying Tony Ferraro was at the door. The cigar, the suit, the attitude. I didn’t need to know what he looked like to know he was a mafioso, but the other guy? I didn’t know who he was. Probably a lackey.
A lackey with a dog.
Shit. The guy from the gas station.
“Can I help you?” I asked, standing in the doorway, hoping to prevent the worse from happening.
“Is Kingston around?” asked the younger guy with the dog patiently waiting at his feet.
“I’ll have to check. He might still be at work,” I said as they both stood on the doorstep.
“That’s okay. We can wait for him,” said the older man, Tony, and pushed past his lackey, but he wasn’t getting past me.
I knew what I was doing was probably a crime in his eyes, but I didn’t care.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I warned him.
Ferraro inspected me with half-slitted eyes and, when he was done, blew his smoke in my face.
“Slade, what’s taking so lo—” King came to the door and froze when he saw both men. “Wh-what are you doing here?”
“We had a deal, remember? I’d like to meet my granddaughter.”
“You didn’t warn me!”
“You know this guy?” I asked King, pretending I didn’t know who the hell they were.
“Yeah, um…they’re…my father-in-law and brother-in-law,” King said, staring at them.
“Oh, how nice of them to pay a visit.” I feigned ignorance. Whether they bought it or not was a different matter altogether.
