Brown Gigi took off her tiara. “Car bomb’ll do that to you. Drink up and I’ll let you wear it.”
“It’s okay.”
“I saw you looking at it. You know you want to wear it. Go on—bottoms up.”
I took another sip.
“Good enough.” She handed it to me, and I put it on.
“Perfect.” She smiled. “Is that better?”
“A little.”
“A tiara always makes you feel better. It makes me feel better every day.”
I looked at her anew just then. I’d always thought the Gigis had everything together, but I guess everyone has their demons, even pretty, talented safecrackers with the best jewels in the world. “Thanks.”
Black Gigi said, “I would not want to be that person right now. Can you imagine how they’re freaking?”
“You know as well as I do that anybody who wants to hurt my guys has a trump card to play.” I meant dropping a dime to the Feds and getting ZOX on their ass.
Brown Gigi pursed her pretty lips. “Huge fucking death wish, anyone who does that.”
“What the fuck are we doing?” I asked. “Maybe we need to rethink things.”
“You have three hot husbands, Isis,” Black Gigi said. “What exactly do you want to rethink here?”
White Gigi smiled. “Three husbands, bitch. You’re like a hero to us.”
“I’d like to avoid the car bombs.”
“Shit.” White Gigi fixed her gaze over my shoulder. I turned to see a dark-haired man in a fine tuxedo strolling toward us. Even in the chaos of Guvvey’s, everybody seemed aware of him—their faces and bodies turning toward him like sunflowers, orienting to the light. The ripple of attention following him was like a living thing. “Who is that?”
“Stamos Strong,” White Gigi said. “He owns this place.”
“I’ve never seen him here,” I said.
“Very reclusive,” Brown Gigi said. “Very hot, very rich, very reclusive.”
“Whoa,” White Gigi said as he neared, straightening her dress.
He came up to side. “You’re Isis?” Mr. Strong said.
I nodded.
He held out a hand and introduced himself to me, and then to the Gigis. “I just heard what happened,” he said. “I want to personally apologize, and let you know I put a team on all the feeds from the garage. We haven’t turned up any decent images of your culprit, but you go ahead and tell your men that Guvvey’s will assist in any way possible.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He bid us goodnight and left the way he came, in a wake of adoring gazes.
“He’s even hotter up close,” White Gigi sighed.
“Mother of fuck.” Brown Gigi slammed her drink. “The one time Stamos Strong comes around, and you were wearing my tiara.”
I smiled.
White Gigi pushed the champagne toward me. “Drink. Breathe.”
“I feel too fucked up.”
“Notice a color,” Black Gigi said.
“Excuse me?”
“When we’re on a hard job, or like when things are going wrong on a job, I look around and pick out a color to notice,” she said. “And I really take it in. I pick out one color. Go on, do it.”
I focused on the lime green leaves of one of the trees on the wall mural.
“Really notice it,” she said. “Let it into yourself.”
It actually seemed to work—my heartbeat felt slower. I felt more substantial, somehow. I regarded Black Gigi with surprise. She grinned. “You have to stay calm in our line of work. And here’s what else—your guys are the best. You need to trust them.”
I nodded, feeling better until White Gigi said, “We heard about your peepshow at the James brothers’ place.”
“Oh my god,” I said.
They teased me about it, assuring me that yes, everybody in Guvvey’s probably knew about it. It took my mind off the close call for about ten seconds, so that was something.
An hour later Zeus was there, beelining across the place. He pulled me up off my chair into a giant bear hug. “Baby,” he said. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay, baby,” I whispered into his ear. “We’re okay.”
It didn’t ease him. He was caught in his vast, deep animal emotions, and I wanted to tell him he was beautiful, but the word seemed so inadequate.
The Gigis gave Zeus and me a ride home, and we told him about the Stamos Strong visit. To hear them talk about it, you’d think the pope himself had stopped by.
Odin and Thor were apparently off looking into something. When we got back home, Zeus told me they’d returned to the James Gang’s place, looking to see whether Kenny James was there.
“It’s three in the morning,” I said.
“They’re up,” he said, pulling me onto his lap on the couch. “But I wanted to get you out of there.”
Odin and Thor came back a bit later. They said Kenny James wasn’t around, but they were very suspicious of him at this point.
“Kenny James loves to blow up cars,” Odin said.
Thor grabbed a bag of cheese curls, his favorite middle-of-the-night snack. “I knew the James brothers were hiding something. Even I could see it. It’s something with Kenny.”
Chapter Eight
We headed back to the office the next day for another meeting with Diego.
I’ll admit, heading out to the office was not on my list of top ten most-appealing things to do after somebody tries to blow up your car with you in it, but my guys were keen on moving forward with the investigation, and Zeus had this thing about showing up at the office every day.
So we showed up.
I sat on the desk as they went around turning on the lights and clearing the place. And there was no Coco Chanel suit, either. Instead I wore my favorite sweater and jeans. Comfort clothes. I was shaken.
I’d always thought they couldn’t be in more trouble than they were already in, sort of the way you can’t get more pregnant than pregnant. They were internationally wanted fugitives, after all; could you get more wanted than that?
Yes, apparently you could. Apparently other criminals could turn on you, too. It was a vast and exciting new panorama of enemies to make. The devious kind that knew where you hung out. The kind that would want to blow up your car, and probably had the perfect bomb-making materials in the closet where most people kept their wrapping paper and Christmas tree ornaments.
Thor came over and took my hand and kissed it. “We’re okay,” he said.
I managed a weak smile. We were so far from okay it wasn’t even funny. We weren’t okay on the inside, what with the rift between Zeus and Odin, and we weren’t okay on the outside.
But we were all determined to help Diego. Like we couldn’t have a normal life, but our pal Diego could.
Diego brought Maria Galvano along to the meeting. She had long black hair and decal nails, and she was a biology major at USC, or had been before the transfer to Oxford. I’d met her once or twice at Guvvey’s, and I’d always liked her. She seemed skeptical, though.
“You seriously think it’s Kenny fucking James?” she said once Zeus had caught them up on the night’s events. “That Kenny James would take my dad’s car…”
“It wasn’t me!” Diego said.
“I believe you, but…” Maria paused. “Kenny James? With a wig? The candlestick, the library…”
Diego sighed impatiently. Maria wanted to believe him, but she didn’t.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said.
“Sorry, I don’t mean to sound impatient. I just don’t have much time. I have to pack. I have to get clothes for a whole different climate.”
“Your dad won’t make you go once he sees he’s being played,” Diego said.
Odin asked him about his history with Kenny James, and Diego went into a long saga about his younger sister dating Kenny James. When she’d discovered Kenny was having an affair, she’d dumped him. After that, Kenny showed up at her house—repeatedly—pleading his case. He’d
gotten a little scary at one point, and she’d called Diego, who’d come by and beat the crap out of Kenny.
“In front of her,” Maria said.
“Damn right I beat his ass in front of her,” Diego said. “So she could see him cry like a little girl and not want him back. A girl doesn’t want a guy once she sees him weep from a beating. It’s evolutionary, man.”
“Evolutionary in a man’s mind,” Maria said. I smiled in solidarity, even though I kind of didn’t agree with her.
“Fuck yeah,” Diego said. “And now I’m gonna tear his fucking face off. I mean that literally, man.” He stabbed a finger at Zeus. “You find him, and I will take care of the rest. And he’s going to apologize to the don, and then he’s going to apologize to Maria and kiss the ground she walks on.”
A seemingly tall order for a man with no face, but that wasn’t the kind of detail you pointed out at a time like this.
He turned to her, then. “Fucking put you through this. Put us through this.”
“I know, baby,” she said.
Diego pulled her tight and kissed her. “I can’t believe Kenny would do that.”
“Either way, we really appreciate your trying to figure this out,” Maria said. “If there is any way we can help…”
Zeus asked her what she was doing, and she told him she was shipping some boxes, then heading off to the mall.
“Don’t start shipping things yet,” Diego said.
“I have to be practical,” Maria said.
“We’re going to figure this out.”
“I can’t just drop out of college in the meantime,” she said.
“Your dad still sends you around with muscle, right?” Zeus asked.
“Sure,” she said. “I got two guys.”
Zeus crossed his arms. “Can Ice come?”
“But the investigation!” I protested.
“Not when the explosions start,” Odin said. “This guy’s getting desperate.”
“And you know what today is?” Zeus said. “You’ll require a new dress.”
“A new dress?” I said. “You think that’ll make it okay to not include me? Because, wow, I get a new dress?” I could barely swallow my anger.
“When things start blowing up?” Zeus said. “Damn right we’re not including you.”
“I’m an important part of this team,” I said, looking my bandits in the eye—Zeus, Odin, Thor. No go. All I saw was a united front of caveman thinking. Even Thor wasn’t going for it. The car bomb had really spooked them. “This is our thing. Ours together.”
“We’re hunting, baby,” Zeus said. “You’re amazing at the questioning, but we’re hunting a hunter. Somebody who knows we’re after him. Somebody who is looking at a very undesirable fate if he is to be caught.”
I knew this was an argument I wouldn’t win.
“Come along with me,” Maria said. “It’ll be fun.”
I turned to her. “I know. It’s just—”
Her wistful look told me she got it. “I know.”
“Man’s got nothing to lose,” Odin said.
“Fine,” I said.
“Bring something to do while I deal with shipping and customs forms, and we’ll have some fun after that,” Maria said.
Chapter Nine
Having two bodyguards trailing you was a lot different from being in the God Pack. My guys were all about flanking me and hanging arms around me and being the romantic unit. Treating me like a princess.
But when you were an actual crime figure’s daughter, like Maria, the bodyguards were discreet. And the biggest difference: they took orders instead of giving them. Once we got into the freight place, she had them carrying boxes, filling out forms, running for coffee.
“I hope that didn’t seem insulting before, like I didn’t want to come,” I said.
“I get it,” Maria said. “My dad is Carmine Galvano. Do you know how much I’m shut out of? Not that I want to join that business, but just being able to know things, to feel close to him...” She took a clipboard and signed, then handed it back to the guy. “I get to know nothing.” She handed her credit card to one of the counter guys.
“You’re really going,” I said.
“Trust me, I don’t want to. I know it looks like me being dependent on my dad, but it’s actually me getting out from under his thumb. Setting myself up for med school. If this is how I have to go to school, this is how I do it,” she said.
I nodded.
“Do you think Diego was set up?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“You really found a wig hair?” she asked.
I nodded.
“A lot of people wear wigs,” she said. “Some of them ride in Dad’s car.”
I nodded.
“I want to believe him,” she said, glancing at the clock. The silence between us got a little awkward. “Most days I do. I don’t know. We had an…honesty crisis early on.” She pulled out the quote fingers for honesty crisis. “Did he tell you?”
I shook my head.
“We patched it up, but now all this shit. He’s a good man. I know that.”
I nodded. It wasn’t my place to argue. But Diego was right—she’d get on that plane and that was it.
Afterwards we hit the Grove, with its endless luxury shops.
At Etro I found a fabulous print gown with a faux-fur-trimmed plunging neckline from a rack.
“A definite do,” she said, holding up an emerald green and black dress.
“For you?”
She nodded.
“Do,” I said, feeling clever and special for shopping at an Italian luxury design place with the daughter of a mafioso.
She grinned, and we headed back to the changing room.
“I hear you visited Nico,” she said over the partition.
“Yeah. We brought him donuts.”
“He told me.”
“You talked to him?”
“Don’t tell Diego,” she said. “Diego doesn’t like me staying friendly with Nico.”
“Nico doesn’t want to get back together, though, right?” I asked.
“Fuck no. He’s all over Sophia Viga, not that he’ll ever get her, but a man can dream. It’s cute.” She knocked on my dressing room door. “Check it out.”
As soon as I had the dress on, I opened the door and looked her over. “Right color, but you need a new bra.”
“Weird neckline,” she said of mine.
We re-upped on gowns and went back in. I tried on a pink jeweled-bodice gown; she tried a low-back black and white print.
She spun around in the mirror. “Even if he wanted to get back together, Nico would never pull a thing like we’re talking about. I mean, the Corvette thing was actually too crafty for him. He’d die if he heard me say that. Nico has a good heart, but he’s more of a puppy dog. He follows rules really well. He’s great at his job because you can give him instructions and it gets done. Which has its advantages.”
“Hot,” I said.
“Yeah?” She spun some more.
“Hot as fuck.”
She pointed at mine. “That’s too mother of the bride. Stay there.” She left and came back with a pair of red gowns. I closed the door and inspected them. Back when I had red hair I stayed away from red. But hey, it was a new day, and I had platinum hair.
She kept on about Nico. He wasn’t entrepreneurial like Diego, she told me. She loved how Diego was a man of vision, how he could see structures where none existed. She told me he was supposed to have gotten some shakedown territory after the wedding and he would’ve built that territory, whereas Nico would’ve just ridden it until it dissolved under him. “Of course it doesn’t matter now.”
I came out in the slinky red gown. Maria clapped her hands. “Fuck yeah!”
We headed out on the quest for accessories, and then we browsed at a sports store and discussed the merits of various yoga mats. Afterwards we split a cinnamon roll at a bench in the shade while her sunglasses-wearing duo of bodygu
ards sat nearby. That’s when it hit me—Nico had said there would be no handing over of territory. What is this, 1920s Sicily? he’d said.
I turned to her. “Did Nico not know he was getting territory?”
“We didn’t really discuss it. But my sister’s new husband got something.”
“Did Nico know about that?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Oh, at Guvvey’s last night, he was like, no way would the don be giving out pieces of his action. Like he knew for a fact that wouldn’t ever, ever, ever be happening.”
“That’s weird,” she said.
“Is it weird he’d say that, then?” I asked, thinking maybe I could be getting a new clue for our investigation here.
“Kind of,” she said. “Though Nico always wanted people to understand he wasn’t with me for the money. It was always really important to him, because people used to say that he was, due to his gambling thing. And it really wasn’t true. Nico’s a man who falls hard.”
“Do you know what territory Diego would’ve gotten?” I asked. It probably wasn’t that important now that we had our sights set on Kenny James, but my guys were always talking about how every piece of information was important.
“The shit adjoining his central corners up to Oakford Lanes. Dad said he wouldn’t feel right running protection under Diego’s nose, because it put them at odds.” She sighed and looked away. “Diego was so proud to have won him over. He’s so into family. His parents are amazing, and the way he takes care of them is amazing.”
“He’s super into family—I could even see that.” And then I was thinking about Zeus and his white picket fence and family holidays thing.
We hit the bookstore, loading up on way too much awesomeness. I was trying to sell her on a sassy little vampire number when I looked up and found her grinning. She whispered, “Your husbands are here.”
I smashed the book into her chest. “Don’t let them hear you call them that! God, what am I, a Mormon?”
“Oh, honey, nobody is thinking you’re a Mormon.”
Odin came up. He grabbed me and kissed me, and then Thor did, and then Zeus did, and I was feeling stupidly happy and Maria was just laughing.
“How’d it go?” I asked.
“We discovered a lot of places where Kenny isn’t,” Zeus growled. “Fucking Manny James knows where he is, but now we can’t find Manny either and…” He ended the sentence with another growl. “You ready to go?”
The Most Wanted (Taken Hostage by Kinky Bank Robbers #4) Page 11
