Page 11 of A Very Rossi Christmas
Over the last half hour, it had helped me convince Donny Parletti and his crew that the Rossis were quite willing to work with them on their jewel importing—even buy from them—but only if the Parletti operation was willing to give us the price we were looking for.
We wanted the valuables Parletti and his people brought in. But we also wanted a pretty significant discount. My father had sent me out here to make sure that happened, and he’d let me come because he knew I had a better mind for numbers than anyone else in his crew. I could run circles around other people when it came to on-the-spot calculations.
And ten minutes ago, I’d used that capability—and the mask I’d worked so hard to build—to get Donny to agree to half the amount he’d originally been asking for.
I allowed the mask to drop a bit at that, and a grin touched the corners of my lips.
My dad hadn’t wanted to send me out here. He’d been sure I was going to screw it up, and that I’d lose the deal. It was my mom who’d convinced him to let me come out here and prove myself. My dad had given in only because he knew how good I was with calculations.
I wasn’t completely positive, but it seemed to me that a price of $7 million for the first shipment rather than the $14 million they’d originally asked for would make dear old Dad sit up and pay attention.
And that right there meant success. The fact that it had taken me a week less than he’d originally given me?
That just meant I was in the city for the rest of the week on my own, with nothing further to occupy my time.
Nothing but Sloane Brennan, that was.
I slid back into my car, started it, and typed a name into the mapping app on the screen.
“Santa Monica Rec Center,” I said aloud, watching the words—and the corresponding choices—appear on the screen. I touched the one I wanted and watched as the system mapped out the route I needed to get there.
It looked like it was in the middle of Santa Monica, which told me … well, absolutely fucking nothing, honestly, as I didn’t know anything about that city. But it certainly wasn’t in a high-profile sort of place. Nowhere near the beach or anything like that.
What the hell was Sloane doingthere?
Then another thought flew through my mind—one that had more to do with why the hell I should care what she was doing there, followed by one that reminded me that it was nowhere near my business what she was doing.
And then one more. The face of the guy who was following her, and the familiar planes of his face.
I shoved the first two thoughts away and let my anger begin to grow again.
No, it wasn’t my business.
But Sloane had been holding my heart for long enough that I wasn’t going to be okay with being in the same city as she was and failing to protect her from a guy who pretty obviously meant to do her some sort of harm.
My father might have walked away. My brother, too.
But that wasn’t me.
It never had been.
7
SLOANE
WALKING THE LINE
I let my eyes dance over the parking lot as we pulled in, looking for a certain nondescript sort of car. You know the kind. The ones that no one notices. The ones that aren’t brightly painted or too flashy or too interesting.
The ones that can melt into the background—along with the people driving them.
Don’t look at me like that. When you grow up in the mafia and find yourself related to the head guy, you start to pick up certain habits. Like making sure that if you’re going to get out of your car, there’s no one waiting to kill you when your feet hit the pavement.
“But what do you think he’s even doing here?” Brooks was asking.
Brooks, of course, had grown up close to the mob but had never actually beenrelatedto it. She'd never been the target of a hit, or seen her own bodyguards go down for her, giving their lives so she could walk away.
She'd never seen her father's best friend shot so many times she lost count.
