I asked, "Did you find it?"
She hummed. "Not really."
I hesitated to question her further. Maybe it was because I was running around with the wrong crowd, but my paranoia and distrust had grown by leaps and bounds.
For a second, I wondered if she'd come to check up on me, or if she'd been told to by Angelo. They talked to each other, I knew he'd slept with her at least a few times. This was the first time I'd had reason to wonder about where her loyalties were, though.
You're overthinking things, I tried to tell myself as I sat down next to her, taking my own mug.
I didn’t believe it. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn’t seen Alex.
Chapter 4
Alex
I felt my heart beating fast in my chest.
It wasn’t anything that bad, I didn’t fear Destiny's friend, the only person I'd heard her speak of with any warmth. I hadn't met her before, but Destiny had described her to me. A bit shorter than her, blond with blue eyes. Supposedly nice and sweet, too.
But when I saw her walk in the bedroom alone, I got nervous. I wasn’t sure where Destiny was, but I didn’t think she'd let her friend walk into the room so easily.
Hell, she didn’t even look like she'd been invited. She looked around like she was sneaking, opening and closing the door quietly, and moving in slow, exaggerated movements. It was a pretty open room, though, with few spaces to hide.
I watched through the slats, sliding quietly behind the hanging clothes so I was further out of the way. I didn’t think she could see me anyway, but I was paranoid. I might have been just a teensy bit claustrophobic, though I didn’t think I had been before—besides, the closet was ridiculously huge, although it came attached to a hotel suite
I saw Zoe look around, then go for the en suite bathroom. I waited for her to come out, practically holding my breath. She took about a minute in there then she was back in the bedroom. She stood in the middle and made a slow circle, looking at every corner. I wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but I didn’t like it.
Then her eyes locked on the closet door, and I thought my heart would beat out of my chest. I cursed internally as she just stood there, frowning in my direction. I was paranoid enough to think she could somehow sense me.
I held my breath, waiting for her to either walk forward or leave. There wasn’t anything I could do if she discovered me here. I could have just walked out on my own, but Destiny hadn't told me to come out. Considering Zoe came in here all suspicious, I wasn’t feeling good about that plan.
I thought I would pass out from the relief that hit me when I heard Destiny call out for her. She hesitated, looking my way, but she left.
Then came the waiting game.
I grew antsy the longer she stayed, keeping me stuck in that closet. When I grew tired of waiting, I carefully sat down, making as little noise as possible, and pulling my phone from my pocket. It was a standard phone with most of the popular apps, but I'd deleted anything I wasn’t using to make room for my own stuff.
Building apps was surprisingly easy, at least it was for me, once I'd learned how to do it. I adored technology, how simple it made everything once you knew all the tricks. I'd known plenty to begin with, all courtesy of my dad, but I'd learned plenty more since I first sat in front of a computer and taught myself how to use it back in high school. Back then, all I'd had was the old machine at the school's library, but up until that time, I'd only ever heard of computers.
Technology had grown amazingly well in the decade plus years since then. I made sure my skills grew right along with it.
I amused myself with my phone, hacking the hotel's Wi-Fi—because I didn’t have the password and because I could—and surfed online for a bit. Even that grew boring quickly. I could build apps on my phone just fine, I messed around with lines of code on it for at least an hour every day, but to try to create something would annoy me. I preferred a PC or laptop for the wider keyboard.
I perked up when I heard a door closing. I didn’t move, because I wasn’t sure if it was the door, or if I was starting to hear things in my boredom. A long moment passed.
"Alex?"
It was Destiny's voice, pitched low but in the bedroom. I rose from my position on the floor, pushing at the door, opening it quietly until I could peek my head out.
"Is she gone?"
She nodded, pushing her messy hair back from her face. "Yeah, she just left. You can come out."
I opened the door wide enough to fit my body through, and closed it quietly behind me. I didn’t think she'd stick around in the hall and surprise us, jumping back in just to see who would come out in her short absence, but I wasn’t going to take the chance. I wouldn’t go out to the front room, anyway, not for a while.
I looked at Destiny, taken aback for a moment at how she looked. The T-shirt, one that would look large even on me, was rumpled, her hair all messed up, her face looking splotchy with make-up. She still managed to look sexy, if not more than when she was in the dress and all made up, while looking cute at the same time.
I wanted to smack myself when I realized I was getting distracted again.
Focus.
"What are we gonna do for dinner?" she inquired.
"What?"
"What are we going to do for dinner," she repeated.
"Uh, I don’t know. Isn't there any food left?"
"Nothing in the kitchen. I'm gonna call for room service, is that okay with you?"
She sounded distracted, and she turned and walked away without waiting for an answer. It reminded me of what I'd done earlier. For a second I wondered if she was trying to get back at me for it. But then I realized she was just preoccupied.
I hesitated, but followed her when she left the room. I didn’t think there was need for it, but better to be overcautious than overconfident these days. I found her in the living room, over by the phone. She was murmuring quietly into the receiver. After a moment, she said her goodbyes and hung up.
Then she just stood there, staring off into space. I walked slowly over, reaching for her shoulders. She jumped when I touched her, wide eyes meeting mine.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah," she murmured absently.
I didn’t believe her.
She pulled away from me, shaking her head. "It's just, Zoe…"
Clearly she had some doubts, as well she should. Zoe might have been her best friend, but she was involved with Angelo just as we were.
"You need to be careful," I cautioned her.
I didn’t like that her best friend had come to visit and decided to snoop around. Maybe they were close, but I wouldn’t have felt suspicious at all if she hadn't been acting that way to begin with. I never had one, but I didn’t think it was normal behavior for a best friend. I didn’t want to tell Destiny what to do with her life, though, so I kept my major misgivings to myself.
"But she's my friend. She's…"
There she went, getting lost in space again. I snapped my finger in her face instead of touching her this time. She came out of it, scowling up at me.
"Even if she's your friend, she might not have done it because she wanted to. She's one of Angelo's girls, isn’t she?"
I could tell by her frown she didn’t like the wording, but she didn’t argue it.
"Yeah, she is."
Something was dawning on her face, some realization; one she didn’t like. She held her hair back from her face and met my eyes.
"Maybe she was told to come check up on me."
"Is that possible?"
"I can't really say it's happened before, but she was acting weird. Maybe he fed her some wild story and she thinks I'm getting myself into something strange again."
Something strange. That was one simplistic way of putting it.
She suddenly looked determined. "I'm gonna go find out what's going on."
"What?" But she was already walking away. I followed her. "Wait, where are you going?"
"To see Angelo," she said,
matter-of-factly.
I stopped at the bedroom door, where she opened it and slammed it in my face. Seeing Angelo was a bad idea. Frankly, seeing him once had been more than enough to last me a lifetime. I waited outside the door, pacing until it opened again. She'd changed to a different dress, longer, concealing skin while outlining her figure to perfection and heels tall enough she was a bit taller than me in them. For a second, I almost let myself get distracted.
Then she walked around me.
"Destiny, wait. Are you sure this is a good idea?"
"I want to try and find out what's going on." She stopped suddenly, whirling around, and I had to stop myself to keep from bowling her over. Her eyes were troubled, her jaw clenched. It made whatever I was about to say dry up in my throat. "Zoe is my best friend. My only friend. She wouldn’t do something like this unless he put her up to it."
I could tell she felt sure of it. I didn’t want to disillusion her, it was a wonder I even could considering the crowd she ran with, but I knew how thin a thing loyalty was. It could be bought, and a man like Angelo had way more money than I did that no doubt flowed in that direction. I'd done it plenty of times myself, after all.
It was also a life lesson I got from my dad at a pretty young age; never trust anyone unless that trust was paid for handsomely. Even then—especially then—trust could only go so far.
"Why don’t you stay to eat, at least. You already called for food, right?"
"I don’t think I can eat right now, honestly. You can have it."
That wasn’t good. She hadn't eaten all day. I bought a snack in the lobby before the meeting earlier, but when I offered to get her something, she'd declined.
I didn’t think anything I said would get her to reconsider, though. Moments later, I watched her walking out the door, wondering if I was out of my mind for not stopping her.
Chapter 5
Destiny
I dressed appropriately when I decided to go meet Angelo; he liked to be impressed, after all.
He also liked having his ego stroked, so I put on a dress he'd bought for me, and the shoes and jewels and perfume were all presents I had gotten from him as well. I'd gotten so used to his likes, when I went to go meet him I automatically dressed to appease him.
I wondered exactly when that had happened, when I unconsciously focused on pleasing someone other than myself.
Angelo didn’t live at the hotel, even though it belonged to his father, and would soon be his someday. The house he lived in wasn’t far either, but he was rarely ever at his home anyway.
He liked to frequent one of his bars—one of the few establishments under his family name that he'd personally started, and was also his most lucrative business. Of course, I knew he was selling more than just alcohol, but he somehow managed to get away with it.
It was the last place I wanted to be, but I had to see him.
I wasn’t sure how he would take to me asking about Zoe, though. I knew he wouldn’t take well to being questioned. I'd been headstrong in getting myself there, but I faltered once I got to the bar.
But I needed to know. I just had to be creative about how I asked.
I threw my shoulders back, notched my chin up and sashayed inside the exclusive bar. A couple of bouncers stood at the door, but they were pretty used to me so they let me in without a problem, even with other people waiting to get in.
The large space inside was already crowded, even though it was still early in the evening. I didn’t bother looking at anyone else, heading straight for the VIP section. A rope closed off the flight of stairs that led to the upper floor. Two more bouncers stood there one on either side, and a long line of people waited for an invite to go up. Yet again, I was allowed entry, amid protests from those waiting in line.
It used to give me a sense of power, a feeling that I relished, in those first few months before everything went wrong.
The upper floor in the VIP section didn’t look like it belonged in the same building with the chaos downstairs. Everything was lush, upper class and sophisticated. Seats were set in clusters around the room where people congregated; there was a large bar where waiters and waitresses picked up drinks for patrons, no one else went near it. The atmosphere was pleasant with classy music playing at medium volume so people could talk easily over the sound. Everyone was dressed to suit the atmosphere, looking high class and chic.
Once upon a time, it used to impress me.
Instead of walking further into the room, I cut to the hallway to my right, taking a couple more turns until I arrived at where I needed to. I could have gone through the back for a more direct route, but I hated using it because it went out behind the alley. I wouldn’t use it unless I had to. I'd rather ignore anything strange went on and call for plausible deniability, than put myself in an even riskier position by taking the chance and stumbling on a backdoor deal.
I knocked and waited to be called in before opening the door that led to Angelo's personal office.
The room was large, also spacious because there wasn’t much in it. A desk pushed against the far wall, somewhere in the middle of the floor, closer to the right wall where there was a single window, sat a long couch. A few portraits and tapestries hung on the walls; there was a carpet covering the whole floor, and that was about it.
Angelo stood alone, in front of his desk pouring himself a drink into a highball glass. He looked up as he closed the bottle and left it on the desk, reaching for his glass.
Angelo was a big man, with the tanned skin, dark hair and eyes that came from his Italian ancestry. From a distance, he and Alex would look quite similar. Only Angelo was bigger, and so much more handsome and compelling. Not that Alex wasn’t good looking, but Angelo was the kind of man that could turn every woman's head and have them smitten with him in minutes. His hair was always styled, he dressed in the latest fashion; mostly suits but occasionally in casual wear that only made him even more desirable and approachable.
He surprised me when he suddenly smiled widely at me, as if he was very happy to see me. The smile transformed his face from handsome to stunning, the kind of face women fell for because they didn’t know what lurked underneath it. Looking at him just then, I could imagine him being who I'd initially thought he was, a rich socialite, a nice if not decent man; normal. Someone that would lavish me with money and attention in exchange for my company.
I knew better, though.
There was no reason for him to look so happy to see me. I wasn’t his favorite anymore, at least I wasn’t his latest, for a while all I got was a cold affectation of his earlier warmth. It was so obviously fake, that even in my stupidity, I realized it. I knew I walked on thin ice where he was concerned, so I worked hard not to give him something to complain about; and now this.
What the hell was going on?
"Destiny, sweetheart. I didn’t know you were coming."
I felt something shrivel in my chest. Sweetheart?
"I…"
I floundered for a second, thrown by his attitude. Something must have happened, something I wasn’t aware of yet. My reason for coming was suddenly moot. I recovered myself quickly, pasting on a warm smile.
"I wanted to see you," I murmured, pitching my voice in a sultry murmur.
He smiled, looking pleased, like I was a dog that managed a particularly clever trick. "Please, come in. Can I get you something to drink?"
He reached his hand toward the low shelf behind his desk, where several glasses and a few bottles of liquor sat for his convenience, but I was shaking my head.
"I haven't eaten in a while, I'm afraid drinking anything might be a bad idea."
He shook a finger at me. Like I was a five-year-old. "Now, now Destiny, that isn’t good. You need to be taking better care of yourself, no? Would you like me to have something brought for you?"
Instead of letting how disturbed I felt show, I walked forward so I was standing next to him, adding an extra swing in my hips when I noticed his lingering eyes.
"Please, don’t trouble yourself. I can eat later."
"Hmm." He hummed to himself, taking a sip of his drink, eyes lingering on my body. Then his eyes suddenly met mine, and they were sharper, less approachable. "And how is your new roommate?"
"You mean Alex?" I asked, feigning ignorance.
"Yes, Alex Wright. I trust he treats you well?"
"Well, I wouldn’t call him a gentleman. Not really social, I think." I mentally sent an apology his way, even though it wasn’t a total lie, at least the second part.
Angelo nodded in understanding, like he expected it. "His types are usually like that, or so I hear. So, how is it going? With the work he's doing."
"I believe he's doing well. At least he hasn’t had anything to complain about. We collected money from a client earlier today."
"Yes, I got the report. This is working out nicely, isn’t it?" That last part he said more to himself than me, a satisfied smirk spreading his lips.
My heart beat a little faster, seeing that cat-that-ate-the-canary smile, on Angelo of all people. It couldn’t mean anything good. More than the fear, though, I was curious. When he initially had me go see Alex, it was without much knowledge of what we would be doing besides collecting money and exchanging it.
"What exactly are you using Alex for?" I asked tentatively, my heart picking up speed as I feared that he might take it the wrong way and get mad.
But he was in an exceptional mood, one I hadn't seen him in in a while. He took the question in stride. His smile grew wider, suddenly looking smug and satisfied with himself. He gulped back the remaining contents of his glass and set it back on the table top. When he turned to me, his face was animated.
"That boy, is a certified genius."
"What do you mean?"
"I don’t know how he did it, but my father came to know about him and his particular… talents. He already had some knowledge of Alex's father. And when his dad screwed my dad over, he used his life to get his son to do some work for the family."
Dirty Money: A Dark Mafia Romance (Alpha Men Book 1) Page 3
