He paled.
“Back to your question. Michael Flamell is a friend of a friend. A trustworthy friend, unlike the jackasses you pretend are yours. Can’t exactly be friends with the people you blackmail into giving you control of their businesses to use as strongholds for your dealings. That tends to piss them off.”
I’d hired Dallas for a lot of reasons, but one of the biggest being his former background in criminal justice. He worked for the police force upstate before moving to the city and retiring when his wife and him decided to expand their family. He was offered a gig working for the NYPD because of his reputation, but he turned them down. He’d gotten calls from the chief asking to help with a few profiles, which was how he got into tracking. He accepted smaller jobs along the way which led him to me. I knew the tasks I’d given him weren’t what he was used to, but I paid him well and offered him plenty of incentive when the situation called for it. And the best part? He came with connections. A lot of them.
Not to mention, he cared about Della. That reason alone made me pay him more than most so he’d stick around and look after her.
“This friend told me about Flamell a while ago, said I’d be interested with the intel he had on a high-profile case right here in the city. Wasn’t quite sure why the fuck I’d care, frankly, but when your name was mentioned?” I didn’t hide the shit-eating grin on my face. I relished in it—relished in the fact his lips turned downward, how his face drained of color, because he knew. He knew where I was going with the story, knew who my friends were. I didn’t have many, which meant targeting the ones that were around wasn’t hard. Which also meant he knew who Dallas was, including his background. He had people for that too.
“Flamell wears a badge now for the feds. Made real good friends with McAllister from what I learned after our conversation. In fact, between him and McAllister, I found out you and Flamell have a lot of mutual buddies. He enjoys talking to them as well. And guess what, fuckface?” I grinned. “They like talking to him too.”
“You’re lying.” He didn’t even believe that, but it was about time he tried acting like the powerful man he made himself seem. He knew he didn’t have any of his men here to get past what I was laying down. He had nobody.
“Am I?” I challenged. “If I’m lying, you wouldn’t hesitate to open that folder to prove me wrong. You’re a coward, Richard. Always have been and always will be. See, you may be able to scare other people into doing your bidding, but unlike the other scum you keep around, I don’t get mixed up in the dark side of the city. So, you can threaten to out my feelings for Adele all you want but it won’t make a difference.”
He stepped up to me with hard features like he was willing to throw down. The fucker was a few inches shorter than me, leaner, and had barely any muscle because he let everybody else do the fighting for him. I could take him down with one punch, but I knew I wouldn’t need to. “How do you think people would react if Adele were caught with drugs? Do you think they’d leave her alone knowing she was starting where Daddy Dearest left off? Just because you don’t want anything to do with the dark side of things doesn’t mean your little young pussy doesn’t.”
I wanted to hit him—to cave his face in with one blow. But he was expecting that. It’d look bad, even with Dallas and Flamell in my corner. They wouldn’t be able to stop me from getting arrested if they knew I threw the first punch and I wasn’t about to let The Dick get to me like that. “She doesn’t do that. You’ve been talking out of your ass about her for months and have no goddamn proof, so I suggest—”
“What do you think the police will say if they knew how much time she spends in the south side? It seems convenient she’s been seen there at night. What else would somebody her age, with her reputation, be doing there? All it takes is one little call, West. One.”
My fists clenched. I knew everything he spouted was bullshit, like usual. The warehouse was the one place I wished Della would have stopped going to a long time ago, but the least I asked of her was to take Dallas when she decided to ignore my concern. Dallas may have liked her, but he would have told me if there was something more going on than I was aware of.
She was always by herself there. She painted. She sometimes even fucking danced—I’d seen it, watched it on more than one occasion before she even started practicing again with the Anderson girl. Della wasn’t there because she was into the things her father had gotten pulled into.
That warehouse was where she felt closest to her parents. It was the only reason I didn’t try arguing with her about going, even if it pissed me off. She wouldn’t have listened to me if I forbid her. We both knew I didn’t have that kind of power over her. I didn’t want to.
“You have no proof. And even if you did, which is not fucking likely—” I stepped even closer until he could feel the anger ripple off me like radiation I hoped he burned from. “—it won’t matter anyway. You tried destroying the Saint James name so no one would believe a word they said. That’s exactly what’s going to happen to you.”
The
