Page 95 of Bad Men

“You look gloomier than usual,” Nero mused, descending the glass steps leading from his living space to the common area. “Did the sun wake you up again?”

From my vantage point at the glass and marble island taking up most of the vast kitchen, I glanced up from the process of pouring coffee into a mug. My eyes had nearly adjusted to the beams of buttery yellow spiking off glossy linoleum. Nevertheless, I felt my scowl deepen.

“I don’t understand why there needs to be so many windows,” I griped, dropping my gaze back to the mug in my hands. “No way a sniper would miss.”

“We’re on the fiftieth floor of the highest building in the city. There isn’t a sniper alive capable of shooting us from anywhere.”

That’s what he kept telling me, but I’d asked him once how he would get his mark if his mark lived in our new condo and he’d had no trouble giving exact details and angles. He denied it afterwards, but I wasn’t fooled.

“Your fly is open,” I grumbled instead.

I saw him fumble with the zipper from the corner of my eye and masked a smirk behind the rim of my mug.

“What’s the plan for today?” he asked, reaching for the handle of the stainless-steel refrigerator. The metal door caught every light in the place as it swung open.

“Aside from meeting Alejandro at the docks tonight, you wanted to talk to Mike about replacing Joaquin and we need to deal with the Luis situation.”

Carton of creamer in hand, Nero emerged from the fully stocked fridge and joined me at the counter. The carton was set down. A mug was brought down from the cupboard to join it.

“We should deal with the Luis thing first,” he mused, locating the freshly brewed pot of coffee and filling the cup. “We can talk to Mike afterwards.” He glanced up from his task. “What do you think of Mike, anyway? I liked him the few times we talked, but do you think he’s up to taking Joaquin’s position?”

Mike was a good guy from what I assessed. He loved his family, which my past-self would have considered a weakness, but I’d seen him with his two little girls and his beautiful wife. They always seemed so happy. No one could have guessed he helped run drugs, but sometimes, a guy had to do what he needed to support his family.

I’d had my misgivings. Mike, like a few of the others were the skeletal remains of Cortez’s old crew. I had wanted to start over, find a crew loyal to Nero, but he hadn’t wanted to start over when everyone already knew their jobs. I knew that wasn’t the whole reason. I knew part of his decision was so people like Mike didn’t lose their livelihoods. The other part was not having to deal with the idiots who might start trouble for getting axed, but he was the boss. It was his job to make the big decisions. It was my job to make sure his decisions didn’t get him killed.

“Mike’s fine.”

He lifted a brow. “Do you have someone else in mind?”

I shook my head, watching him dump half the creamer into his mug. “Not really. I think we can trust Mike.”

He nodded slowly. “Good. I’m glad you agree. Now,” he set the creamer down and reached for the sugar bowl. He heaped two mounds in after the creamer. “What about Luis?”

I set my mug down and tugged my phone free of my back pocket. “The guy’s name is Roberto Franco.” I pulled open the text I’d sent the crew the night before. The mission had been to find the guy, which had been the easy part. My other request had been blackmail material, anything I could use against him if things started going against us. I got four replies back. All four gave me Franco’s name and the same basic information. “He’s just a smalltime bookie.” I dropped my phone down and returned to my mug, wrapping my fingers around the warm ceramic. “Charges way too much on interest. Known for breaking a few kneecaps when that payment isn’t met. Has a few underground connections, but nothing too exciting. I think we should just kill him.”

Nero hummed contemplatively and took a sip of his nasty concoction. I fought not to barf. “If he does have connections, someone might notice. Don’t want to start anything with the underground crew. We’ll just go down and chat.”

I didn’t say that part of me had wanted to forget the name and let Luis get what was coming to him. He’d put himself in that mess when it hadn’t been necessary. The fact that no one had come to collect from him should have been indication enough that no one was coming to collect from him, but in his fit of foolish pride, Luis had taken it upon himself to find a shady loan shark and take out a loan he couldn’t pay. That was his problem. I had no sympathies for the guy. Had I not loved his daughter, I would have walked away and never looked back.

But I did love Mia and I knew she would be devastated if anything happened to her parents and we did nothing to help them, even though Luis was a grown ass man who had made his own bed.

I blew out a frustrated breath without thinking and immediately caught Nero’s attention.

“What?”

I shook my head, masking my annoyance behind my drink. “Nothing.”

“You sure?”

My hesitation lasted a full second before I blurted, “I think we should just let Franco break Luis’s knee a little as a lesson not to be such a self-righteous prick.”

“Dav…” Nero sighed, unimpressed by my idea.

“Just a thought.”

He shook his head and turned to dump the rest of his white coffee down the drain. He rinsed the sugary sludge from the bottom and placed the mug down on the rack.

“Okay, let’s visit Franco.” He wiped his hands on the dishrag hanging off the oven handle bar and turned to me. “Then we’ll deal with the rest.”

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