“Just spent some time at the Claw and Crown last night, Ma,” Arlo says finally, before tearing into his bolognaise. He stuffs his mouth and groans, making Ma blush. She knows that we love her food, but what woman doesn’t like being reminded of it?
“And what about you?” Pops looks at me and tears off a bite of garlic knot. “Did you get into anything good this weekend? Or run into any problems?”
Yeah, I got into something good. My mind immediately goes to Eva’s sweet little cunt. That was easily the best thing that I’ve been in in a long damn time, and the look on Arlo’s face tells me that he knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“Not much,” I finally tell him. “The Claw was pretty quiet last night because of the rain.” Even though shop talk at the table is forbidden, I know that my dad is asking if I saw anything from my cousins. None of us really thought that they’d attack us at the bar, but then again, I’d never had someone kill my dad.
Not quite sure how I’d react.
“That’s good.” Pops nods and the conversation moves away from me. He knows that my uncle’s family and associates didn’t come by to pay respects to him last night, but that’s something that we can talk about later. It’s definitely not something that Ma would approve of us talking about at the table.
Even though I know that I should pay attention to what’s going on around me, I’m having a hard time focusing on what people were saying since I can’t stop thinking about Eva and her magic little pussy. I know her first name, and I know where she lives, but that doesn’t tell me a lot about her.
Oh, and I know about her sloppy drunk little friend, but she doesn’t interest me, not in the least. I guess I should thank her for dropping Eva off in my lap, but that seems to be about all she’s good for.
After dinner I stop my cousin. The women are all in the kitchen washing dishes and I’m hoping that I can get some info from him without everyone knowing what I’m looking for. “Ricky, you still any good at looking people up?” As much as my Pops may be mad at Ricky right now, there’s no way that he’ll kick him out of the family. Not only is he blood – kinda – but he’s got a real knack for finding out who people are. Nobody in our family would deny that that’s not a useful skill to have, especially when shit’s going down.
His particular skill of getting all the information on people that you need? That’s what happens when you have blackmail on half of the police department. They may be in our pocket, but the person they seem to respond best to is Ricky, so he’s usually the one that we go to when we need intel on someone.
This isn’t official family business, but I know that there’s no way he’ll turn me down. Not when I sit at Pops’ right hand.
“Who you need to look up?” He pulls a phone from his pocket and I immediately recognize it at his burner. We all have them – phones that work just as well as our regular ones but can easily be destroyed or ditched without repercussions. When you stay in contact with questionable characters and ask people to bend the law for you, it’s a good idea to be able to lose a phone quickly.
“Her name’s Eva,” I tell him, and then I give him the address. He punches all of the information into his phone and enters a number by memory.
Snapping the phone shut, he nods at me. “Sit, cousin. It won’t take very long for them to get back to me.” We lean back on the sofa and Kelly brings around some after-dinner whiskey for all of us before she retreats to the kitchen with Ma. Even though I’m sure she’d love to sit in here and listen to what we’re going to talk about, she’s learned.
Good for Valentino.
“So,” Pops says, leaning back in his recliner. “What’s really going on?” Even when we’re not at the table, he commands the room. He’s not a huge guy, but he’s roped with muscle like I am and has dark eyes that can easily cut through you and tell when you’re lying. When he’s dressed down, like he is right now, he’s not so scary, but when he’s in a full suit and packing, he’s a fucking holy terror.
“Things are mostly quiet,” I tell him. “I didn’t see any action at the Claw last night, and I didn’t hear anything about retaliation. You already know that they didn’t come to make the drop. I don’t know what they’re planning, but the fact that they wouldn’t come for the pledge is a little worrisome.” Even though my Pops is the undisputed ruler of the family, his brother had caused some shit. Since the cousins didn’t come last night to pledge to Pops, things could get ugly really fast.
That’s why my uncle is dead – because he couldn’t keep from being fucking greedy. That’s why we’re being a little extra careful with security. It would be fucking stupid for my cousins to retaliate right now, but everyone knows that grief makes people do stupid fucking things, especially since they were obviously interested in sending a message last night by not showing up to meet us.
Pops nods. “What intel are you looking for from Ricky?”
Fuck. He really knows everything, doesn’t he? Ricky glances up at me and raises an eyebrow, waiting on me to
