Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
V incent
Not the way I anticipated spending the night , I think, closing the door to the guest room and locking it.
My phone buzzes. Marco. I answer in Italian in case my new friend is planning on listening in.
“What did you find?” I ask.
“Her name is Sarah Williams. She just turned twenty-two, and she moved to New York about two years ago. From Colorado, but her history is a little murky. She might have had a name change at some point. It will take a bit to unravel.”
I pop some leftover pasta in the microwave. “What else?”
“Nothing unusual. Lives in a shoe box in the navy yard, doesn’t seem to owe anyone money.”
“Any mention of someone named Robert in her history?”
“You hire a psychic on the side, brother? Yeah, get this, she’s a ballerina. Like tutus and shit. There was some play this weekend and one of the other dancers listed is some cat named Robert.”
The microwave dings.
“You microwaving dinner again? It’s called takeout, man. Embrace the future.”
“You think there’s takeout better than mamma’s pasta?”
“Naw, but Morelli’s is pretty close.”
“Marco, that’s because they learned to cook from the same angry old Sicilian bat.”
He laughs. “You ain’t wrong, boss. But on business, what you want me to do about this Robert dude?”
“Just keep an eye on him for now. And text me her address. I’m going to poke around her place.”
“Sure thing. By the way, where is she tonight?”
“Here.”
“There?”
“Something wrong with your hearing Marco?”
He snorts. “No, just surprised. What are you going to do with her?”
“I have no fucking idea.” I hear Marco laughing in the background. “Just send me everything you have on both of them.”
“Sure thing, boss.” He disconnects.
I finish my dinner and settle down in my office to go over the material Marco dug up. An article about the Swan Lake premiere pops up, with Sarah’s face and her trim body held aloft by a young blonde man.
Sarah Williams and Robert Crosby as Odette and the Prince in the New York City Ballet Company’s premiere weekend performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.
I can’t imagine she’d want to go out after dancing all night, but clearly she did. The casino isn’t anywhere near where the show was, though.
I dial up the head of security for the casino.
“Yes, sir?” he answers.
“Anthony, send me all the security footage from around the casino for the last six hours. Including the garage and the street.”
“On it.” He’s not the head of security because he’s social. He’s the head of security because he’s smart as hell and mean as a junkyard dog when he needs to be.
Opening another program, I connect to the cameras inside the spare room. I pretend it’s for security reasons. She’s wrapped up in the robe and holding the shirt I left sitting on her bed. She seems to mull over her choices a bit before she stands and the robe falls from her shoulders.
Fuck me .
She’s goddamned gorgeous. Soft, creamy skin, long, toned legs that lead up to her bare pussy. Her waist is trim, her breasts small handfuls with perky upturned nipples.
Jesus Christ. I adjust my remarkably hard cock. I’m going to have blue balls for the rest of my goddamned life.
I almost feel bad about watching her on camera, but then I remember she damn near saw me kill someone and God knows what her friend Robert saw. I know it’s more than she said, and I want to spank her ass until she confesses every sin and begs for forgiveness.
And then bury my cock inside every hole in her body.
I shake my head. Jesus, fuck, get it together, man.
It’s been too goddamned long since I’ve had a woman in my bed, or over my knee. Finding a woman for the night is easy, but having one in your life is significantly harder when you’re the head of the fucking mafia.
My email chimes. It’s Anthony with the security footage.
I skip to the feed of the alley and start watching in real time, starting with when Marco and I dragged that woman-beating-waste-of-fucking-air out there. We were in a camera blind spot. The rest of the alley was visible, clear as day.
I see a pair of figures approaching, one much taller than the other. They are side-by-side, without a care in the fucking world. They become identifiable.
Hello, Robert .
I see the moment they round the corner. His hand flies to his mouth like a silver screen starlet when the monster comes out.
Well, now we know who gasped.
What follows surprises the hell out of me, and I pride myself on not surprising easily. My little ballerina yanks him back and shoves him behind the dumpster.
Fuck. I never saw him .
Neither did Marco apparently, since he beelined for the girl, who was sprinting as fast as she could out of there.
Clever, kitten, very clever.
I fast-forward until I can see him pop out from the dumpster and run for his car, which happens to be parked directly under a camera. I send Marco the plate to confirm that the mystery man is indeed Robert.
What the hell was she thinking, cutting through a fucking alley on her way to the bar? Just a stupid and dangerous thing to do. For fuck’s sake, I installed lighted sidewalks to the club. Does she not know what happens in dark alleys? What kind of men she will find there? Bad men.
Men like me.