Chapter Twenty-Three
Dante
Hazel fell back into her role with the ease of someone who genuinely loved her job. She took charge, made changes, and directed floundering employees.
Within an hour, she’d noticed a dozen or so things that needed to be changed that I hadn’t even noticed.
What’s more, no one seemed resentful to have it pointed out, or to have to fix it themselves.
It was impressive.
I couldn’t help but imagine her one day taking a slightly different management role. When Dom was off parole and moved on to run his own crew. Hazel could step into that role then hire someone nearly as good as she was to run the day-to-day operations.
She would want to step back eventually. If I was right about her future, that is. Our future.
A sparkling ring, a dress, plans, vows, the start of a happily-ever-after.
Christ.
Too much too soon.
I needed to slow down, to focus on the present moment. Not just because there was danger around. But because I wanted to be able to really bask in the glow of something new, something so right. If I let my mind keep drifting to the future, I would miss what was happening right then.
When she was called away, I had to force my legs to walk away from her.
It was crazy as fuck, but it felt like each step was harder, heavier.
She was safe, damnit. There were staff members and soldiers all around. I didn’t have to have my eyes and hands on her every second. There would be time for that back at the house, in the bed, getting lost in each other until we were both too tired to move.
I was about to go and check on her when the door to the shop opened.
Then there was Dom.
There was frustrated tension in his jaw and the lack of sleep he’d been running on.
“What is it?”
“Found someone who said they heard Big Ed talking about a new place. Said it was over by the river.”
And as any local would know, any property on that water source was exorbitantly expensive. Way outside of Big Ed’s bracket.
Unless, of course, he’d been making a killing by fucking over the family.
“Did you find it?”
“Not yet. Gonna be a job and a half. There are a lot of places he could’ve been living at the end. Gonna have to find someone who has seen him.”
“Okay. At least it’s some sort of lead. What about his recent jobs?”
“He did several small-time ones for a few of the capos. Nothing that would have put him in contact with any sort of external player who might have tempted him. And most recently, he’s worked here.”
Yeah, that tracked.
I’d asked for some help around the opening, when we’d still been looking for the actual employees. I’d been so overwhelmed with work then—both legit and less so—that I honestly didn’t remember who’d been around.
“Also, I heard something else,” Dom started.
“What?”
“I’m getting this like third or fourth hand, so take it with the grain of salt that needs. But apparently Big Ed was bitching about his income. About how much the Family was making, the big houses the capos are living in, that kind of shit.”
While he’d been living in an apartment similar to Hazel’s. It wasn’t a bad place by any stretch of the word. But, yeah, if you were comparing it to our houses, it probably didn’t feel like enough.
That said, if Big Ed wanted more money, there would have been hundreds of opportunities for him to earn more. Or he could have proven himself to be a big earner by finding his own jobs to bring to the Family.
His lack of ambition or work ethic was no one’s fault but his own. The rest of us were constantly courting new income streams. That was how we got the big houses—not because the Family itself paid us more. That wasn’t how it worked.
“It’s a motive. Now the question is, was Big Ed spending time with anyone else recently? Was this just him? Is there a larger unrest going on? Are our loved ones even safe with the men we’ve tasked with protecting them?”
“That’s a big question. Any chance you arm the wives and moms and sisters when things are in lockdown?”
“There are always weapons around. And they know how to get to them if they need to. But it’s not supposed to come to that.”
Domenico nodded at that.
“Let’s just hope it’s isolated,” I said, glancing out the window, wondering where Hazel had gotten to. We were supposed to be going over employees’ files.
It seemed like the second she stepped onto the property, a million tasks required her attention, and damn near every employee wanted a word or two with her.
I shook off my discomfort, knowing I had men everywhere.
“Wanna help me look through files?” I asked. “See if anyone working here could have been in bed with Big Ed?”
“I mean, they’re mostly kids, but sure.”
Dom pulled off the first page from the folder when I slapped it down on the counter, brows pinching.
“I didn’t hire this one.”
“Ant. Yeah, Hazel hired him.”
“There’s no picture,” he said, flipping it toward me.
“I doubt Hazel thought it was necessary.” The members of the Family were particular about knowing everyone’s vital details and having a picture of them on file somewhere. For this sort of situation. But Hazel would have had no reason to think that way.
“I dunno if I’ve even talked to someone named—” he started.
But he was cut off by the loud, frantic pounding of fists on the glass, making the panes wobble as both our heads whipped over to see Hazel.
She was round-eyed, pale, sweaty, with a trickle of blood on her neck.
My fucking heart dropped to the floor even as Domenico and I both broke into a run.
We were reaching for our guns before we even made it out the door.
She was okay.
That was what mattered.
She was right there, running to the haunted house.
Scared, traumatized once again, a little bloody. But okay.
Domenico and I had no idea what we were walking into, but we charged into the haunted house. And as the light flicked on, illuminating all the dark corners and removing the protection of blackness, it wasn’t hard to see what had Hazel running for her life.
The place was fucking painted in blood, the gore splashed up on the walls, over the decor, and pooling around on the floor near our feet as we moved closer to the scene in the last half of the haunted house.
One man lay on the ground, unmoving. Another man sat on top of him, still ripping a pocket knife out of the body below him.
Even with the movement, blood was flung everywhere, splattering across the face of one of those creepy antique dolls that gave even me the heebie-jeebies.
It was even creepier now, dripping actual blood over its lily-white skin, making it look all the more grotesque.
My gaze slid back down to the guy all in black with black-and-white face makeup.
The knife was still in his hand, the entire thing soaked in blood, dripping at a lazy pace onto the floor.
The guy himself was panting, his chest rising and falling rapidly.
And it was no wonder.
The body under him? He’d been stabbed dozens of times.
Those eyes stared unblinking up at the ceiling out from an all-too-familiar face.
A movement at my side had me looking over at Dom, who nodded to the side.
Turning, I saw Hazel standing there, frozen in place.
“Fuck,” I hissed.
There was no protecting her from this, no trying to paint over the gritty reality of my life and my profession when it was spread out before her in vivid detail.
I watched, though, as her shock seemed to morph into something else. Something more calm, more accepting?
No.
That couldn’t be it.
“Ant,” she said, her voice low, but the kid heard it, his head whipping up. “You saved me,” she said. “I thought it might be you, but you saved me.”
The kid moved slowly, stretching up to his feet with the predatory grace of a cat, and turned to face Hazel.
“You did good,” he said, giving her a nod. “But you’re bleeding,” he added, taking a step toward her.
“Don’t touch her,” I snapped, moving closer.
His gaze slid up from Hazel’s bloody neck to me.
His hands spread, the knife pressed to his palm with just the pressure of his thumb.
“I wouldn’t hurt her. I know she’s yours.”
“And how would you know that?” I asked.
To that, a smirk twisted up on his features, made almost menacing by the face paint. “Well, I just meant that she worked here, for you. But it’s good information to clock away that she’s yours-yours.”
“Why are you storing anything away?” Domenico asked, grabbing the kid’s wrist hard enough that it had to hurt, but Ant didn’t even flinch. Dom took the knife, dropping it down onto the body.
“Because that’s how you get the attention of an organization as insulated as this one,” Ant said, shrugging.
“Did you kill Big Ed?” I asked.
“No,” he and Hazel said in unison.
“No,” Hazel repeated. “He,” she said, gesturing toward the body without looking at it, “did it. He said so before… before I got away.”
“We gotta contain this,” Dom said when we all heard the laughter of some of the other employees moving around outside.
“I got it,” Hazel said, nodding.
“No, babe. I should take you home. Get you—”
“I got it,” she repeated, chin lifting higher. “I will send everyone home. Then you can do… whatever it is you need to do.”
Without waiting for any more objections from me, she turned and walked out the door.
I could hear her voice rise to be heard over the other voices, but I couldn’t make out anything she said.
“You can lock me in here if you need to call the boss and shit,” Ant offered.
“Who the fuck is this kid?” Dom asked, voicing what I was wondering too.
“Ant. Ant Marino. Antonio, if we’re being specific. But I haven’t ever gone by that.”
“Marino,” I repeated. That was an Italian last name, though it didn’t ring any specific bells for me.
“My old man’s old man worked for your boss’s old man back in the day. Took one to the back of the head during that war with the Russians. My gran panicked, thinking they’d come for the family next, and moved the family out of the area.”
“Then why are you back?” Dom asked.
“Saw more of a future here than I did over in Bumfuck Nowhere, Wyoming.”
“Fair,” Dom said, shrugging. “And once I got here, I figured I’d shoot my shot.”
“By working as a performer in the woods?”
“By keeping an eye on the place, seeing where I might be able to fit in. Figured if I saw you often enough, I might gain some favor.”
“And what about this? What happened here?” I asked, waving toward the body.
“I saw Hazel take over for Brit. Then once the last group came out, she went in. Then I saw one of your guys go in.”
“What made you go in too?”
“Dunno if you’ve ever seen a guy about to do some shady shit, but I have.
Fuck looked like a cartoon villain, half going in, checking both directions, then slipping inside.
Suspicious as fuck. So I went in just to see what was up.
Didn’t expect to see him scoping out Hazel, creeping up on her and shit. ”
“Then?” Dom prompted.
“Then he grabbed her. I told her not to move. Your guy started spilling his guts. Talked about a guy who chased her. Figured that’s what happened to her face.”
“What about him?”
“He was some kind of hacker. Was just supposed to break in, get the account codes off the work computer and get out. But he went rogue.”
“Did you get a name?” I asked.
“Nah, man.”
That wouldn’t be too hard. We’d seen him on the cameras. If we could add in the tidbit about him being a hacker in our search, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to find him.
Then he’d pay.
Long and ruthlessly. Like he’d put Hazel through.
“What then?” I asked.
“I got Hazel to look quickly down, so she could lock the knife with her chin, then I rushed forward. She ran out. I handled shit.”
My gaze slipped back to the body again.
A lot of blood.
A lot of violence.
He’d handled it, alright.
There was a soft knock on the door before Hazel inched it open. “All the employees are gone. But I didn’t tell any of the other guards because… well…”
Yeah, that was an angle I hadn’t given any thought to yet.
What if this went beyond the two men? Were we going to need to interview every soldier and associate? That would be a huge undertaking. But potentially necessary, given how blindsided we’d all been by this.
“I texted Luca and Lucky. They will get everyone else together.”
“Good,” I agreed. “You got this?” I asked Dom, waving to the body and Ant. “Just so I can talk to Hazel.”
“Yep. Got it,” he agreed as Ant leaned back against the coffin, ankles crossed, casual as could be. Like he hadn’t just killed a man. Brutally, at that.
“Thanks. I’ll be right back. Babe?” I asked, walking up to her.
“You’re not worried about Domenico?”
“Nah. Dom can handle himself.”
“I’m really okay,” Hazel assured me as we moved around the building to head into the shop, both of us ignoring the curious looks from my men gathered around.
“Okay. I just want to make sure,” I said, locking the door behind us as we made our way into the shop. “You just saw a man get murdered, babe.”
“To be fair, I didn’t actually see him get murdered. I was out here getting your help.”
“You saw a body.”
“Is it wrong that this one freaked me out less than the first one?”
The first one
Fuck.
This was the kind of life and situations she would be exposed to if she decided to stay with me. Somehow, that suddenly felt incredibly selfish.
“It’s not wrong. But it might be more shock you’re dealing with. It might settle in later.”
She nodded at that.
“He was probably going to kill me, though,” she said, drawing my attention back to her neck. “So it’s harder to feel upset about it.”
“I got Ant’s story. Can you give me yours, just so I’m sure all of Ant’s facts line up?”
She slipped back into it, giving almost the exact same blow-by-blow that the kid did, plus a few more details that Ant had either left out or hadn’t noticed when he’d been trying to find a way to save a woman with a knife to her neck.
By the time she was done, I expected more of the disgust or fear to creep into her voice, but if anything, she was even calmer about it.
And at that point, the whole Family was showing up. We had shit to discuss. Then work to do.
“I can stay locked in here,” Hazel offered.
“It could be hours.”
“I have nowhere else to be. I can start looking at catalogs for Christmas decor,” she added, eyes going bright.
I reached for my wallet, found my credit card, and passed it to her.
“Go wild.”
“You’re going to regret saying that,” she warned, practically bouncing behind the desk to wake up the computer.
I really, really didn’t think it was possible to regret anything with Hazel.
So I placed my gun on the counter, then locked her into the shop with visions of sugar plums and mistletoe running through her mind.
And got back to the Family business.