The Woman with the Wallet (Costa Family #10)

Chapter Two

CHAPTER TWO

Miko

“I swear to fucking God, Nero, if you killed a bunch of people again, I’m gonna lose my shit,” I said as I walked up to my brother, who was standing on the sidewalk outside of a random coffee shop with two cups in his hands. “I just barely stopped getting my ass handed to me from Cosimo about the last time.”

“For the record, it wasn’t a bunch. It was two. And shit got out of hand. It’s not like I went looking for a problem,” he said, passing me a paper coffee cup, the heat of it immediately warming my freezing hands. “Cold as fuck today,” Nero said.

“And you got me doing a meeting on the sidewalk why?” I asked, looking around the street, catching sight of a bit of New Year’s Eve confetti that had been missed during the clean-up a few days before.

“‘Cause we’re not supposed to talk business over the phone,” Nero said, shaking his head.

I had three brothers. All of ‘em would be going into the ‘Family’ business eventually, but Nero was the only one currently working for me. And I was working for Cosimo Costa, a high-ranking capo. But I had hopes that, soon, the books would open up, and I would be my own capo, would get my own crew.

My pain-in-the-ass little brothers would all likely be my first group of associates or soldiers, depending on how much time they had been doing jobs for the Costas.

It was why I was probably harder on Nero than I needed to be. Because until the day when I was the capo, that I was the one everyone was answering to, their actions reflected on me and Cosimo. Their fuck-ups became my fuck-ups and, by extension, Cosimo’s fuck-ups.

So they needed to be good.

No, not just good.

Exceptional.

And after Nero’s screw-up a few months back with killing two guys he was just supposed to get some money from, I’d doubled down on rules with my brother.

So much so that the only time he was allowed to text me was about shit to do with our parents or sisters. And if he was calling about business, all he was allowed to do was give me a time and place.

Hence meeting on a crowded street during a frigid polar vortex.

“Alright, what is it then?” I asked, sipping the coffee that was steadily becoming lukewarm.

“Went to collect the money from those frat boy pricks who opened the brewery,” Nero started.

There were a lot of jobs guys working their way up in the Family could do. One of the most important jobs, though, was working as the bagman. Meaning, they were the ones who went into businesses that paid for the Family’s protection and collected the cash.

It was a pain-in-the-ass job that often required intimidation, if not outright violence, if someone was getting ideas of shorting us or deciding they were done paying as a whole.

The best bagmen didn’t have to knock anyone’s teeth in to get the results we all wanted. But they all had to be willing to do exactly that, should the situation call for it.

It sounded like the frat boys might be looking for a little roughing up.

“They didn’t want to pay?” I asked.

I’d been in his shoes plenty in the past. Working as a go-between for the public and the capos. Not knowing exactly how far to go, or if permission was needed to do some shit.

But I’d always had good instincts with that sort of thing.

I was worried that if Nero was coming to me asking about this sort of shit, that I’d messed up his instincts by making him come to me about too much.

“Actually, no. They paid. In small bills. Even put it in this nifty reusable bag,” he said, pulling a canvas tote out of his jacket that was wrapped tightly around a small pile of cash.

“Huh. Alright. What’s the problem then? Shouldn’t you be on your way to Cosimo to give him that?”

“He said he doesn’t wanna see anyone before two today,” Nero said with a shrug. “Actually, they are having a problem.”

“The frat guys?”

“Yeah. They have some local crew leaning on them.”

“For money?”

“Yep.”

“How the fuck’d that happen? That street has always been ours.”

“Maybe they’re new. There was an argument in the bar area. So we didn’t get to finish the conversation. I said I’d be back later to talk about it. Figured that gave me a chance to come to you and Cosimo about it, see how you two want to handle it.”

“Alright. Well, I’m cool with you going back and getting more information. But you can’t be making any promises on behalf of the Family. Just get the information and bring it to me and Cosimo. Then we will all discuss what can be done.”

“It sounds like you’re considering letting me run point on this.” There was a hopefulness under Nero’s calm tone that anyone else who wasn’t related to him would have missed.

“I got a lot of shit on my plate already. I know Cosimo doesn’t want the headache. Depending on who this crew is and what they’re into, we might consider letting you handle it with the help of someone like Venezio.

“It’s all gonna depend on what information you get. So make sure you learn everything there is to know before you bring this to Cosimo. If he gives you the go-ahead and this shit blows up around us, it’s gonna be your ass—and your future in this organization—on the line.”

“Got it,” Nero said with a nod. His posture straightened at the idea of being given another chance to prove himself.

As much as I ragged on him, he genuinely was a good kid. He wasn’t a fuck-up just because he’d fucked up once. We all did shit in this job that put us in danger, that made our bosses want to beat our asses. That was just part of making your bones in a criminal empire as powerful as the Costa Family.

“Anything else?” I asked, itchy to get a move on.

“Ma said she hasn’t seen you at her table in a month,” he said.

“I know. I’m gonna make it this weekend.”

“Been saying that every weekend,” Nero said as he was turning and walking away.

My family was important to me. All six of my siblings and my parents. That said, trying to secure your position as a capo in a syndicate like this was two full-time jobs. And that was being conservative. Because while my job was mostly being Cosimo’s right-hand man, I also had to run jobs of my own to kick money up to him and our Capo dei Capi. That kind of shit gained you favor.

And word was that Ant had been sworn in and given his own crew. So the books were somewhat open. I needed to work harder to prove my worth to get another spot before they closed shit down again.

Who knew how long they would keep them closed after this.

I wasn’t getting any younger.

That said, if I couldn’t make it all the way out to Greenwich for dinner, I could at least call my damn mother every now and again.

I made a mental note to get that done sometime later. But for right that moment, I had something really fucking important to get to.

I was tempting fate to stay there in public for as long as I had already.

So I started walking.

I spotted her a whole block away.

Couldn’t tell you what it was at first that caught my eye. The city was full of women, each with their own kind of pretty.

There was just something about this woman’s pretty that made me look, made me stop to take her in.

She was tall and on the thin side under her cheap faux leather jacket and holey jeans. Her hair was cut into a long bob—or a ‘lob,’ I could hear my sisters saying in my head—and dark at the roots, but brightening to an almost white-blonde at the ends and around her face.

And what a fucking face, too.

High cheekbones flushed pink from the cold, plump lips, and eyes that I couldn’t make out, but they seemed light from far away.

She was the kind of gorgeous that a man would change his plans for just on the off chance she might agree to get a cup of coffee with him.

Any other fucking day, I would have walked right up to her, tried to get a feel for whether she was receptive to talking or not. Get some food with her. Spend the night trapped between her thighs.

But this one day, all I could do was admire her from a distance.

I could have sworn she looked right at me at one point. The kick to the gut sure felt like a mutual moment of acknowledgment, of mutual attraction.

But she just as casually looked away, flipping the hood of the sweatshirt under her jacket up over her head, hiding her hair and most of her face when she turned in my direction, hunched forward against the cold, and started walking.

She was so busy looking down that she didn’t seem to notice me as she got closer that she was plowing right in my direction.

I couldn’t seem to make myself do the gentlemanly thing and move out of the way, though.

Nope. I just let her pretty ass plow right into me.

I’d forgotten all about my coffee until I felt it sloshing down my hand, my suit jacket, and onto my new shoes.

“Fuck,” I said, too distracted for a second to realize that the woman had just… kept walking.

No asking if I was alright.

No apology.

Nothing.

I turned, watching her as she continued walking like nothing at all happened.

Fuck if that didn’t make me all the more attracted to her.

Hell, I almost turned and ran after her.

Almost.

But the coffee was literally starting to freeze on my skin thanks to the cold air, so instead, I tossed the cup and ducked into the closest café to go rinse the shit off of my hands, suit, and shoes.

It wasn’t until I was making my way out of the restroom and thinking about grabbing something to take with me to eat later, or on the way, that I realized what had happened.

When I reached for my wallet.

And found it gone.

She hadn’t put her hood up and ducked her head to resist the cold. She’d done it so I couldn’t see her up close, so I couldn’t identify her in a lineup.

And she hadn’t rammed into me because she wasn’t watching where she was going. She did it so she could use the impact and confusion to reach her fucking hand into my pocket and jack my wallet.

Honestly, if it was any other day—any fucking day of the week, month, year—I would have thrown my head back and laughed. I would have nodded in approval for her quick hands and her steel balls.

I would have called to cancel my cards and shrugged off the loss of cash. Gotten myself a new ID.

No big deal.

But this wasn’t any day.

This was the one goddamn day when I had something irreplaceable in that wallet, something that I was going to use to secure my place as a capo in the Costa Family.

“Fuck fuck fuck ,” I hissed, rushing out of the door of the shop and making my way back toward where the run-in happened.

But she was gone.

Of course she was.

She was clearly a pro.

And she’d just made off with the score of her entire fucking career.