Chapter 20 Valentino
Carlito picks me up from Tribeca, and I’m silent throughout the trip back home.
Something’s got me rankled, and I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not the way Naomi and I left each other in the apartment. It did strike me as odd, the way she clung to me then pulled back and cradled my cheek. She’s always been on the sensitive side, though, and her world just got upended again with Declan Reeves making his appearance like that, when none of us expected any of it.
It seemed like it was the last time she was kissing me… I don’t know where the thought came from, yet there it was. Then the soft kiss she pressed to my lips before she left—something’s amiss, and it’s driving me crazy not knowing what.
I enter the house and shed my coat, making my way to the study where I get a glass of whisky and down it in one gulp. What the fuck wasn’t I figuring out?
My phone rings. I throw the screen a glance and pick up when I see who’s calling.
“Anya,” I greet.
“Good. You’re home,” she rattles off. “Expect a video call in the next five minutes.”
I sigh. “I don’t do your bidding.”
“You know he wants to talk to you.”
“How did you even know I’m home?” Was she, or her employer, tracking me or something?
“It’s been an hour and a half since you left Tribeca.”
She didn’t say dumbass at the end of that sentence, but I heard it, nevertheless.
“Fine,” I breathe out.
“Good. Five minutes.” She cuts the call then.
I sigh again as I pour myself another drink and move to the desk. Far from me to do anyone else’s bidding, but Declan Reeves was reaching out, and I know I better be there to receive him.
My mind veers back to when Naomi was on the call with her uncle in the bedroom, which left me and Anya alone in the living room. I still couldn’t wrap my head around what had happened.
“So since when do you work for Declan Reeves?” I asked.
Anya shrugged. “What do you think?”
I frowned. “You’re a plant in Smith’s entourage.”
The shark smiled, then her face softened into a more human likeness. “He wanted someone close to look after Naomi.”
“Does she need looking after?”
“You got close to her, didn’t you?”
“I’m not a danger to her.”
Raised eyebrows greeted me, and I dropped the conversation then. Still, it comforted me she was in Naomi’s corner and seemed like the type who would fight tooth and nail for her. Good. Naomi needs more of this ilk in her life.
On cue, a tone rings out from my computer. I slide into my chair, take a sip of whiskey, then tap the keyboard to check the notification. An email, with a hyperlink. I frown. Encrypted link to an online meeting? What’s this shit?
I take a deep breath and click. Seeing https in the browser’s address comforts me somewhat. Definitely a secure network.
Same library background, same fair man. And he doesn’t muck around. No wonder the other call came on Anya’s laptop. She must have access to the same secure link.
“What are you doing with my niece?”
So, we’re going to jump into the hard questions already.
I smile at him. “None of your business.”
“You’re fucking her. Is that all there is to it?”
Yes. And no. However, I didn’t know how best to convey this to him.
“Bit late to be swooping in to play her protector, don’t you think?”
“You’re a bit old for her.”
The cazzo has a death wish or what?
“It’s consensual,” I bite out.
The grey eyes on the screen narrowed. “I’d hope you’re not like that bastard.”
“You can rest assured.”
Long seconds tick by.
“Good. Naomi’s no fool.”
I nod softly. “What can I do for you, Mr. Reeves?”
“You care for my niece, Valentino? Can I call you Valentino?”
I nod again. “I do.”
At least this, I can confirm.
“Then we have a problem on our hands, and I’m hoping you can help me make it disappear.”
I sit up straighter in my chair, the hairs on the nape of my neck raising with alarm.
“Naomi’s in danger?”
“Thad Billings tried to assault her today.”
I jump to my feet, a roar coming from my throat. “He’s a dead man!”
“He is,” Declan confirms. “Or he will be. As soon as he’s found, I can arrange to have him delivered to you.”
A red haze of anger is clouding my sight and making my blood pound. I’ll kill the figlio di puttana myself! But some of the words Declan just spoke make it past, cooling the bloodlust and making sense and rationality prevail somewhat.
I sit back down in my chair and smooth the tie in front of my shirt as I settle back and force in a deep breath.
“You don’t get your hands dirty,” I say.
“Literally, no.”
But any other way, he does… The pieces start to click in my head. I’d heard of Declan Reeves. Heir to an old fortune from Boston, heralded as king maker in certain circles. I thought the title pompous, yet now, it seems fitting. He might not be a crime boss per se, but he has people working for him, and he makes and breaks a lot of different things in a lot of different places.
“It is what you do, though,” he states. “Among other things.”
Everyone worth their salt in this part of the States knows who I am. No one’s ever asked me to confirm it aloud, though.
“Among other things,” I state.
“And she’s worth it.”
I nod. “She definitely is.”
“Good.”
“We done?”
Reeves laughs. “Far from it.”
“What more do you want?”
“Do you know why Billings felt he could take liberties with Naomi?” he asks, tone sharp and cold.
“I don’t need to know why. He’s dead either way.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “Stop being such a Romeo.”
I’m tempted to reach across the screen and bash his head onto the table. Who does he think he is?
“Listen to me, and listen carefully,” he continues. “Dominic Billings is a man at the end of his tether, financially speaking. He’s borrowing from Peter to pay Paul, and the powers that be are letting this continue. But it won’t last forever. He’s backing Joel Smith in his run for Governor for this reason.”
“So, Governor Smith will be amenable to helping out once he’s in?”
“So, the money will be unlocked once his son marries Smith’s daughter.”
My gut tightens, and something curdles in my belly. As much as it pains me to admit it, I’m not seeing the whole picture. “What do you mean?”
“Naomi is rich. My father left her a trust fund which unlocks when she turns twenty-five or when she gets married, whichever comes first. It was thirty million dollars when he died. Who knows how much it is now with all the interest accrued.”
The sour reek is now in my throat. “Thad Billings thought he could do to Naomi what Joel Smith did to her mother?”
“It worked for him.” Reeves sounds angry. Still ice-cold, but the rage is palpably coming off him even across a screen.
“Over my dead body,” I assert, fists tightening. Wait until I get my hands on that prick. I’ll cut his balls first, then ram them up his ass followed by the barrel of a gun that’ll blow him from the inside.
“Same here,” Reeves says. “He won’t live long enough to hurt her, much less what that piece of shite did to her after Naomi was born.”
I hiss in a breath. “You know…?”
He nods.
We’re united in our outrage and disgust in this moment.
“She’s not safe with him,” I voice out quietly, tone deadly.
“She isn’t,” he confers.
Billings is just one disposable piece in Joel Smith’s sick game. He’d simply find another Old Money, down on his luck fuckwad who can give him their family name and a leg up, and he won’t hesitate to trade in his daughter in exchange. Bile is now burning its way up my torso.
“I don’t know you, Valentino,” Reeves continues. “Under different circumstances, our paths wouldn’t even cross.”
He’s right. I manage a crime family, in a world where the syndicate regents our scope of action and field of operations. Declan Reeves is the type who doesn’t get his hands dirty since he deals in intangibles like information, networking, influence. While this sort proves helpful at times in my world—for example my connection with Carson Felix in Salt Lake—we are at most mutual helpers should the need arise. The ‘better safe than sorry’ type of relationship.
“What are you saying?” I ask.
“The enemy of my enemy is always my friend. And we have an enemy in common.”
“Plus, we both care about Naomi.”
I need him to know this. I might not be able to put a title or a name on our relationship, but this I do know is certainly true.
“From what I’ve seen so far, I’m tempted to concur.”
I’ll take that as a win. “Good.”
“Did you know Joel Smith and his cronies sit on the board of a certain hospital which has been sweeping its dirt under the rug for a while now?”
I frown. “And your point would be?”
“Shareholders are getting antsy. Many want to sell before they get sullied when the broom comes out, but they don’t know who they can trust to come out unscathed.”
Some things are starting to click. “Go on.”
“An obscure medical equipment company called BeathaAnáil holds thirteen percent of the entire stock value. Its owner is Donal O’Brien. Doesn’t want to sell, but can be convinced.”
I frown. By this, Reeves means he has something on this O’Brien guy.
“And you need a buyer,” I state.
He shrugs. “I’m a man who works best in the shadows, Valentino.”
I’d figured as much.
I add two and two in my mind, borrowing here and there in my imagination to come up with the sum total of what he insinuated with his little exposé.
He needs a buyer—an ‘official’ face or entity to start the buy-out process and reach majority acquisition of this hospital’s ownership. Then, that person or entity would be free to take on the likes of Joel Smith and his buddies.
I’ve already looked into the cazzo’s affairs. There’s no straightforward or easy way to topple him from the position he’s claimed in the political strata recently. If this were a game of snakes and ladders, Declan Reeves just handed me an anaconda to place on the board. It wouldn’t sting, wouldn’t poison, but it’d slowly choke. Either way, death would be inevitable. Slow, but a sure thing. We’d just have to hold on in the meantime.
I lean forward on my forearms. “What do you need me to do?”