“You know I was set to marry Maria, right?”
Zeus nodded. “Got yourself a princess.”
I flicked my gaze to Odin, realizing suddenly that they were talking about Maria Galvano, who was Don Galvano’s daughter…and that merely by standing in this room with these guys, I was probably two degrees of separation from the FBI’s entire twenty-most-wanted list.
“Princess, yeah. It’s been a big fucking problem—you know how those mafiosos only like their own. And you put one of their princesses with a big brown boricua, and that’s a big fucking problem. Her father? Big fucking problem, man.” He shook his head. “It’s taken me two fucking years to warm old Galvano to the idea of me and his girl. Maria says she doesn’t care. She’s always going on, let my fucking family disown me, I don’t give a shit. But I give a shit because I know how that works. You don’t make your woman choose between her family and you. Especially once you start having kids, right? You want to have your people around you, to make a proper home, right? Death, birth, holidays, you need your people around you—that’s what it’s all about. And kids need grandparents and shit. Anyway, finally after two years I’m showing up enough with the old man that he’s giving me some respect.”
I nodded. It was so sweet.
“Last month I asked for Maria’s hand the old-fashioned way. You know mafiosos. Never met a tradition they don’t wanna get in bed with. I get the old man after dinner. Break out a nice old bottle of scotch. I tell him I’m gonna ask her. The old man says yes, so we’re good. Everyone’s good. We set the date for a big Catholic wedding. My folks are Catholic, too, so that’s something we all have in common.”
“Congratulations,” Odin said.
“Not yet,” Diego said. “Because somebody went and fucked me—messed me up good.”
We waited patiently while Diego ran his tongue over his teeth in a brooding, threatening way. “Old man has this beloved vintage Corvette. If you ask me, it’s an old white guy’s car that’s designed to say, Look at me, I’m not an old white guy. The last thing I’d ever need to drive, but I always act like it’s the shit. Man’s car. Form of respect.”
“Can’t criticize a man’s car,” Zeus said.
“Not a car like that,” Odin said.
I stifled a smile because we were all thinking penis of course.
Diego leaned back on the wall. He’d been avoiding the chairs, as were my guys. None of them wanted to sit. None wanted the height disadvantage.
I settled down in my comfy chair and flung my feet up on the desk, just because I could.
Guys.
I sighed contentedly and made a mental note to get a few stools to allow the many alphaholes who might come through here to sit without losing their height advantage. Including my own personal alphaholes.
Odin gave me a sly look. I gave him a superior smile.
Diego went on with his story. “So Maria’s parents and some of their capos are over in the old country for a month. Sicily, mostly. Their place is down to skeleton staff. Maria and I went over a few times to use the tennis court, but that’s it.”
“You guys play tennis together?” Zeus asked.
Diego nodded. “Tennis is a sport you can play with a girl, and you can play it your whole life long. You want to be thinking ahead on these things. Family, kids, holidays, togetherness, growing old together.”
I loved how sentimental this guy was, and I suddenly really wanted to help him.
Partly it was because I felt sad about the sisters I’d left behind. I’d had to fake my own death last year—it was the only way I could protect them; my bank robbers’ powerful enemies became my powerful enemies, but there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t’ve given to see them again, hug them. To decorate the Christmas tree—why had I always seen it as such a chore? Or even spend a night huddled in the lambing barn together with a thermos of coffee. Or curled up on the couch with popcorn. I missed lying awake at night in the rural stillness, when a strange noise out in the darkness just meant raccoons were probably getting into the garbage.
I wanted Diego and Maria to have that. Not the raccoons, but the picturesque future.
Diego had gotten to the important part of his story by the time I tuned back in: Don Galvano and his crew had arrived back from Italy a week ago only to find the precious Corvette missing. Stolen.
“Was he recording?” Odin asked.
“He was recording,” Diego said, doing air quotes.
Zeus and Odin nodded, like, oh, of course, he was “recording.”
I found myself wishing Thor were there so that he could explain what that meant. As they talked on, I started feeling a little out of my depth. I’d always been good at solving puzzles, and I’d imagined I’d make a good detective, but it was right around this moment that I realized how really useless I was. I might’ve made a good detective for normal people, but there was a baseline of normal in the criminal set that I didn’t understand, even after a year within it, like what it meant to be air-quotes-recording. It was such a cool idea, to be detectives for people who had too much to hide to go to the cops, and I really did want to be helpful, to be part of it, but apparently I’d do just as well breaking out a magnifying glass and Sherlock Holmes hat and solving pressing mysteries among the billy goat community.
Diego went on to recount how he offered to put out the word and help the old man find his car. “Between me and the Don, we have our beaks dipped in most of the chop shops south of Malibu,” Diego added, creating a truly strange mental image.
I bit my lip. When I looked up, Odin was staring at me knowingly. I forced myself to look away, to look like I was concentrating really hard on Diego’s tale.
A week later, apparently, the cops found Don Galvano’s amazing vintage Corvette smashed up near Crenshaw—right near one of Diego’s corners, which naturally cast suspicion on Diego. Then they got traffic surveillance showing a man with long dark hair driving the thing east out of Santa Monica toward Diego’s turf. There was a blob on his arm that could’ve been Diego’s tattoo. They used the data from the traffic cams to determine the route. Galvano then pulled surveillance footage from his businesses on the route. He got a direct and very distinct hit: the Corvette idling at a red light in front of one of his laundromats.
“High-definition shit,” Diego said. “Other guys have my hair, but nobody has my tattoo. You ever see it?”
Zeus had, but Odin and I hadn’t.
Diego pulled off his jacket and dress shirt and rolled up the sleeve of his white T-shirt to reveal a magnificent and massive firebird tattoo, wild with reds, yellows, oranges, and fury. The thing took up most of his upper arm, bright and gorgeous across his light brown skin.
Odin whistled. “That’s some distinctive work.”
“Oh, it’s distinctive,” Diego said. “Nobody else has this. Which means somebody took a photo of it and re-created it and wore a wig. Did an amazing job of framing me.”
“You got an alibi?” Zeus asked.
Diego shook his head. “I was staking out a job with one of my guys at the time. Does me no good.”
“Your guy can’t tell Galvano that?” I asked.
“My guys would die for me,” Diego grumbled. “You think they wouldn’t lie for me? The old man knows how that goes.”
“Don Galvano has cops on the payroll,” Zeus said. “Did they lift any prints?”
“Nah. Driver was wearing gloves in the shots, anyway,” Diego said, putting his outfit back to rights.
“So somebody was trying to ruin your relationship,” I said.
“Somebody did ruin it. Presented with fucking photographic evidence that makes it look like I took a joyride in her dad’s Corvette? Makes me look like I crashed it and lied? She wants to believe me, she mostly believes me, but the doubt is there, man. I see it in her eyes, and it’s killing everything about us. I vowed to her I’d prove it wasn’t me. I thought I had time…” His nostrils expanded as he huffed out a breath. He strode over to the window. “Now I find o
ut her fucking dad’s sending her for two years to Oxford—only way he’ll pay for her college is if she goes.”
“Oh, no,” I whispered, getting into it.
“She gets on that plane, and we’re done. She says not. But I know it. Don Galvano knows it. Deep down, she knows it, too.”
I nodded. “The doubt is bad. And then being sent overseas…”
“I’m losing her, man. She’s my life. “ His voice cracked. It was wild to see this big, scary man brought to his knees. He loved her. “I just need to stop her from leaving. I need to show her and her father it wasn’t me.”
“You got a sense of who’d do this?” Odin asked. “You know who would frame you?”
“That’s what I’m coming to you for,” Diego said. “I’m hiring you to get me a name. Because me and whoever did this…” He fixed Zeus with a hard look, then he turned it on Odin, then on me, and the air went dead cold— “me and whoever this is, we’ve got issues.”
Issues.
There were a lot of places I didn’t want to be just then—prison. Hell. Strapped into the chair of an insane dentist. Being on the other end of those issues with Diego Washington would definitely rank right up there.
“But you have a guess, a suspicion, enemies that spring to mind,” Odin said, moving around to lean back on the desk, forming a triangle with Zeus and me. I got the feeling that even the way my guys configured their bodies was carefully calibrated to show that they were enclosing Diego with their strength, but not threatening him. Watching my guys use their professional acumen was always a thing of beauty. I’d seen it before, when I had been the target of a stalker, and now here it was again. It gave me chills.
“Lotta guys it could be,” Diego said.
Odin eyed him, head tilted in a way that seemed to say, let’s consider this together. “Five? Ten? How many?”
“Guys who’d have it out for me?”
“Yeah, who out there would want to fuck you up in this particular way?” Zeus asked. “The crime itself tells us a lot. It allows us to rule out everybody who wants to kill you. What does that leave in? Three groups of people. In the first group you got those who have it out for you, but not bad enough to kill you—they just want to make you a little bit miserable.” Zeus held up two fingers now. “Second group—people who have their reasons for not wanting you to get close to Don Galvano, which could include his own guys. Third group: people angling to break you and Maria up for reasons of jealousy or otherwise.”
Odin handed him a pad of legal paper. “Make a list. Anyone in those three groups.”
Diego started writing.
Odin went on to quiz Diego on his knowledge of Don Galvano’s operations. Did he know the coin laundromat was there? How well known was it that he had a coin laundromat there? The whole line of questioning seemed odd. Personally, I was wondering why Galvano had a coin laundromat at all, or why that laundromat would have a camera pointed to the traffic in front of it…but then I realized I probably didn’t want to know.
“We’ll need to see all the footage,” Odin said. “Who has it?”
“Galvano.”
“What’s your status with him?” Zeus asked. “Does he know you’re having this looked into? You think he’ll let us have copies?”
“I don’t know. He’s pissed. And more secretive than ever, due to…new organizational realities.“
My guys nodded, like that was all really clear.
Diego scribbled down a few more names and looked up. “Fuck, man, you wouldn’t catch me dead driving a Corvette. Please. But can I say that? No.” He scribbled down another name. “Whoever did this, they’re gonna wish they killed me.” He tapped his pen on the pad. “All eight James brothers are pissed at me, but not enough to kill me. Do I need to name them separately?”
Odin looked over his shoulder. “Just write James brothers. What’s your hassle with them?”
“Disputed territory shit. They wouldn’t like the idea of the alliance, my people with Galvano in the background.”
Odin asked, “Who’s Nico Piazolla?”
“Maria’s old boyfriend. He was pissed when we started things up. I could see him behind this. And my old corner guy Hector Alavarez—right here—he did a two-year bid off beating a guy on one of my corners. I hear he thinks I didn’t do enough witness intimidation on his behalf. I could see him behind this.”
Diego went on and on. The list was like twenty names long—more if you considered that some of the names were groups, like the James Gang, as I preferred to call them.
“That’s a lot of enemies,” Zeus said.
“Fuck it,” Diego said. “Shows you’re doing something right as far as I’m concerned.”
“We’ll analyze that footage. That’s where we start,” Odin said.
“You sure you need the footage?” Diego asked.
“It’s the only known footage of the person impersonating you—in high definition,” Zeus said. “We definitely need it.”
“So what if I say I don’t think he’d give up the footage? Is that a deal breaker? Can you still solve it?”
“Can we still solve it? You fucking-g insult us, Diego,” Odin said. “A thing we need is behind lock and key.” Odin turned to Zeus. “Zeus, a thing we want and need is behind lock and key. What do we do about that? How will we ever get it?”
“Hmm,” Zeus said. “If only we had skills in that area.”
“Hold on—fuck—” Diego said. “I don’t want you robbing him.”
“You want your mystery solved or not?” Odin said. “You hire the badass bank robbers, you get the badass bank robbers.”
“I’m not sending three guys with AKs to do a violent takeover of the don’s house. I’m in deep enough shit with him here.”
“Now you’re being insulting,” Zeus said. “Violent takeovers aren’t our only move. It’s just the one that gets on the news the most.”
“Fucking-g news is so sensationalized,” Odin said. “Fucking-g bullshit.”
“I don’t want you breaking in quietly either,” Diego growled. “The whole point is to repair our relationship. Jesus.”
Thor walked in just then, still in his scrub pants, blond hair tied back in a short ponytail. He slung his satchel off his shoulder and onto the desk. “You guys started without me?” He headed to Diego, hand outstretched. “How’s it going, man?”
“Thor.” Diego took his hand and they shook.
Thor smiled. “Alexander Hamilton, huh?”
Diego snorted. “That’s what you get for asking. Thanks again for Jorge.”
“He using that arm okay?”
“Good as new,” Diego said. I realized that Thor must have treated one of Diego’s guys. Thor sometimes had gunshot victims coming his way.
Zeus turned to Diego. “We need that footage from the don. One way or another.”
Diego frowned, rocking slightly. Not quite a nod. “Fine. I’ll tell him you’re coming. You’re going to have to be cool with him, though. Repairing bridges here. Not burning them.”
Zeus nodded. “Don’t worry, we know how to talk to this guy. Go ahead and give him a call. Tell him we’re coming. He probably has his car out for work somewhere, and we need to get to it before the forensic evidence gets fucked up. Which it already will be, but we can probably get something.”
Zeus led him into the back office.
“What’d I miss?” Thor asked, bending over to kiss me.
There was a glint in Odin’s eyes. “Isis wants us to fuck her in front of a stranger.”
“Stop it!” I said. “Don’t talk about that anymore. It flips Zeus out too much.”
“Ooh, Ice.” Thor went over to where my legs still rested atop the desk and laid a hand on one bare calf. “What about Diego?”
“What about him?” I asked.
“You want us to fuck you in front of him?” Thor asked.
“Are you insane?” I exclaimed. “He’s a client. And a dangerous drug lord!”
Odin snorted and cam
e around to my other side. “It would take a lot more than a dangerous drug lord to keep us from getting it up for you, goddess.”
“You have to stop this whole watching thing. Zeus hates it.”
“Zeus is being fucking-g inflexible,” Odin said. “It’s not as if we’re inviting another man to fuck you.”
“Zeus isn’t into it?” Thor seemed surprised by this.
“He’s forbidden it.”
Thor straightened. “What the fuck?”
“You have to respect that,” I said.
“Yeah, well, Zeus didn’t want you in the gang in the first place,” Thor said. “Maybe he needs a little prodding.”
“He’s serious,” I said.
“What if we tied Diego up?” Odin suggested. “He thinks you’re hot. And he would be watching, wishing it was him.”
“He’s our first client,” I said. “We can’t tie him up and have sex in front of him. That’s not how a private investigation firm is supposed to work.”
Thor pulled the elastic band from his ponytail and shook out his hair, looking every inch the hot Swedish soccer player. Or maybe tennis player. Not a bad dilemma to have. “We can do anything we want. That’s one of the fringe benefits of being outlaws.”
“What do you say, goddess?” Odin said.
“Let me think about this a sec. Do I want you to tie Diego up and fuck me in front of him, thereby losing our first client and angering Zeus, not to mention Diego himself? Um…” I put my finger prettily to my cheek. “NO!“
“Not your type,” Odin said. “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” He ran his finger up the inner part of my thigh, creating an invisible line of sensation that got me a little hot.
Thor grinned. “You have a type for watching? This is getting interesting.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes she does,” Odin said.
I sniffed.
“I bet you’d like him tied up,” Odin said, trailing his finger back down toward my knee. My mouth went dry—he always knew exactly how to touch me. “Whoever watches, you’d want him tied up. Reluctant. Chafing at his restraints. Right?”
A warm, delicious feeling bloomed in my belly. “Subject closed.”
The Most Wanted (Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers #4) Page 3
