Page 68 of Worth the Heat
Mom sighs. “He is one attractive man.”
“Mom!” Arianna and I say simultaneously.
She shrugs. “What? I’m not allowed to look at the merchandise? It’s window shopping, ladies. It’s fine as long as I don’t touch or purchase.”
“For fuck’s sake,” Arianna mutters. “I think we got our ho tendencies from her.”
“Speak for yourself. I have never been a ho,” I tell her.
Arianna giggles. “Oh I definitely was for a hot minute, especially when Stone would piss me off, acting as if he wasn’t attracted to me.”
“You get your ho fromNonna,” Mom offers. We both turn toher, horrified. “You don’t want to know the things I’ve heard about. You should be thanking me that I always made sure to lock the bedroom door.”
Hannah comes up behind me. “It’s worse for me. I married into it, and I’ve already experienced sexual situations with more than one of you hoodlums. So I appreciate a locked door.”
“Alright, let’s get started,” Sebastian says, clearing his throat. He looks so handsome and controlled. His aura takes over a room, commanding it. Even Dom looks smaller than my man. “How many of you met Isabella’s ex-boyfriend, Rick?”
Only a few people raise their hands. Looking back, I realize I didn’t bring him around to family events much because I knew it wasn’t a long-term relationship. I think I was more embarrassed about him cheating on me with Amelia, than actually hurt by the action. My decision to destroy his apartment was mostly due to it being the final straw. I was so sick and tired of being stepped on by men. Overlooked and discounted. Glitter bombing his space was me taking back my life, and vowing to never let a man become more important than me in my own fucking life.
Sebastian holds up a picture of Rick, then one of Rick and Amelia. He looks at me apologetically. “This was taken yesterday. One of my guys followed them. They were loudly arguing about some missing items. While they never clearly said specifics, it was insinuated that the group Rick was distributing for is getting more aggressive with scare tactics.”
“It’s definitely drugs?” Dad asks, and Sebastian nods.
“We were able to access the doorbell camera footage from the person across the hall from Rick. Only thirty minutes before Isabella and Arianna entered Rick’s apartment, an unidentified person went in.”
“How did you access the camera footage?” Dominic asks.
Sebastian’s eyes meet mine, and I swear a slight hint of ablush creeps onto his cheekbones. “I, uh, well, maybe I shouldn’t say.”
Leo raises a hand. “Let’s just say it was liberated from the Internet, and we’ll leave it at that.”
Everyone turns to Leo, myself included. “Liberated it from the Internet? Have you done that before, Leo, or were you secretly involved in this project?”
His lips twitch. “It’s classified.”
I roll my eyes. “Uh-huh. Sure.”
My parents turn to Arianna. “You were there too?”
Arianna has the decency to look relatively embarrassed. “Well, I wasn’t going to let Belly go there by herself. Honestly it was so cool to see her stand up for herself. The girl has massive balls for someone who stays pretty quiet and introverted. No one piss her off, though. She’s pretty creative when she’s vindictive.”
Looking around, I find all of my siblings staring at me with varying looks of amusement, but I can tell they’re impressed. Beaming, I look at Sebastian, and find the biggest smile on his face. Even without their pride, I know Sebastian will always be proud of me, and that’s all I want.
“The person who entered before my sisters. Male or female?” Leo asks. He stands uncomfortably by the staircase, using the banister to support his weight.
“We ran it through some software and found the person’s height to be only around five-six, and due to the overall size being thin and lanky, we’re safely saying it was a woman.”
“Did she enter by breaking in, or with a key?” Leo asks.
“The apartment complex is fairly new, and the doors have keypads where residents input a code. Whoever it was knew the code, and entered quickly.”
My mouth falls open. “Rick wouldn’t give me the code. I looked over his shoulder once to see it. He’d never give it out to anyone, not even his family.”
Sebastian watches me. “Do you think Amelia might have the code?”
I ponder that thought. “I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t even know how long they were sleeping together. Their interactions were few and far between. I don’t know if they knew each other before we started dating, or if I actually introduced them.”
Alex murmurs something quietly to Sebastian, and he nods. “Moving on. We’ve managed to connect Rick to a drug distribution ring within the Denver metropolitan area. It has connections to the Salazar Cartel in Mexico. The main drug they transport is fentanyl, which explains why both Rick, and the man who broke into Isabella’s apartment, referenced tablets. But Rick also asked where the Molly was, which is a version of ecstasy.”
