Page 72 of Taming Nikki

“Fuckers kept you for a while. Any trouble?”

“Not anymore. Someone scared the fuckers into talking. Find out who they are and who told them to lie. I want them handled.”

He nodded, his stony expression unchanging as he dialed his phone. I pulled out my own to check in with Nicole. She called me immediately after I sent a message.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just checking in. Are you still at the game?”

She scoffed. “No, the game ended. We won. We’re going out to eat. Are you going to join us?”

I smirked. “Why? Do you miss me?”

“Fuck off, Vitale. Are you coming or not?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there. Just send me the address. I’m going to make a stop on the way.”

She hung up, complaining about cocky assholes. It made me grin, and the stress of the last few hours dissipated.

“She good?”

Gio pulled into traffic, glancing at me in the rearview. I nodded. “She’s fine. Irritated and demanding, as always. We’re meeting them for dinner.”

I still needed to figure out what happened with the alibi. Something spooked them into talking, and I want to know who and why. If it was scary enough to get two guys who were trying to frame me into talking, I needed to know about it. It might come back to bite me in the ass if I wasn’t careful. But I missed enough of Nicole’s birthday. I had time to meet her for dinner.

ChapterThirty-Two

NIKKI

“I thoughtwe agreed no working on family days?” Diego complained. I borrowed the coach’s laptop when Leo was pulled away and I had been gathering information since. I still kept up with the game, though, so I didn’t know why he was complaining.

“You were working,” I pointed out. When he glared at me, I snickered. “Relax, Diego. I’m almost through. Just need to clean up a few loose ends.”

My brother was vaguely aware of what I did, though he didn’t know about the less legal portion of it. He thought I was a regular information broker and my boss was a hardass who made me work odd hours. I didn’t want him to have any knowledge of illegal activities so that if I was ever caught, it wouldn’t affect him.

“Your boss is an asshole. It’s your fucking birthday.”

I pushed through a virus to clear my history. I never left a trail. It was what made me so good. I shook my head and closed the computer, letting out a deep breath. I figured out pretty quickly through some old contacts that Leo was being framed, so I went to work on the two who were trying to pin it on him. I gathered all their dirty secrets and then made a phone call to the precinct as a family member. Once I threatened to reveal not only their shit but their boss’s too, they backed down and confessed. And I used Mikey’s burner to do it so no one would know it was me.

Diego was already changed and ready to go, standing over me with a scowl. I grinned at him. “You played good. I’m proud of you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Shut up. You aren’t sweet talking your way out of this one. You worked for hours on your fucking birthday. When are you going to find another job?”

“When hell freezes over. I like my job, Diego. Come on, please don’t do this. Not today.” I pouted at him. Like Frankie, my brother has always been a sucker for the puppy dog look. He turned away from me, trying to avoid my gaze, but I stepped around him and stuck out my bottom lip. He cracked a smile, and I knew I got him.

“Fine. Only because it's your birthday. I’ll bitch at you later.”

I laughed, linking arms with him as we left the dugout and headed toward the parking lot. Mikey and Dante followed behind us, talking casually about the game. They missed a lot of it, on high alert after Leo left, and I felt pretty bad for them. At least in the dugout, I could see everything and talk to the team. They spent more of their time looking at the crowd than the game.

Since we came in two cars, we didn’t have to wait for Leo to send someone to get us. We all crowded into Mikey’s car and headed toward the restaurant. Mexican as always. We liked to give a big middle finger to my papa on my birthday every year and celebrate the half of my genetics that he liked to pretend didn’t exist.

Leo was waiting outside the restaurant. He looked exhausted, his hair tousled like he’d been running his fingers through it a lot. He had changed after he left, his suit dark and well tailored and not a wrinkle on him even after an entire afternoon being stuck with the cops. I tried getting him out as quickly as possible, but the movies lie a lot. Getting information like that takes time. Especially if you don’t want to get caught. You have to be strategic.

I took his hand as we passed him into the restaurant. He looked surprised, but I wasn’t going to go all mushy on him. I just felt bad. Sitting in a police precinct the entire afternoon and well into the evening sounded plain awful. The one time I got arrested, I was in and out in less than an hour. Papa’s people moved quick. Leo put his arm around my shoulder, keeping our hands linked. To Diego, we probably looked like an actual couple.

“You okay?”

He nodded, forcing a smile. “I’m good. Sorry I missed the game.”

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