Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
ALESSIO
Wild is the only all-male strip club in the city.
Hell, maybe even the state for all I know.
It’s probably Lorenzo’s only legal venture and might be one of his most profitable.
Never let it be said that Lorenzo Moretti is a bad businessman.
I check my watch again and shoot the doorman a passing, polite smile.
Twenty minutes late—that’s not too bad. Just enough that I need to come up with a decent excuse.
A sultry beat thumps through the speakers, and my eyes are drawn to the main stage as I make my way around tables and horny patrons on my way to Lorenzo’s reserved table.
The guy on stage is good, working the pole like it’s his rich Daddy and he’s trying to earn his allowance, and the drunks with hard-ons and bachelorettes with crooked tiaras are eating it up, tossing crumpled bills onto the stage at his feet.
I kind of miss the days when Dante owned the main stage, before he settled down with Salvatore and didn’t need the money anymore.
Not because I’m lusting to see his bare ass, nice as it is.
But it was always fun to see him go feral on customers who couldn’t seem to read the No Touching signs plastered all over the club.
Elio and I used to have a standing bet going, an over-under on how many bones Dante would break any given week.
I had the over, and I almost always won.
Doctors all over the city must be scratching their heads over the sudden drop in hand injuries since his retirement.
The Moretti table comes into view with all the chairs filled except for mine.
Elio, Lorenzo’s younger brother, is sitting on his left, sipping a drink and casually watching the dancer on stage without much interest. Sure, when you have a beautiful, violent MMA fighter to come home to every night, just waiting to fuck you like he hates you while whispering “I love you” in your ear, strippers are only mildly interesting.
Xaviaro is on Lorenzo’s right, no drink, and a cool, bored stare on his face that isn’t directed anywhere in particular.
The Ice Man, Lorenzo’s best friend and longtime trigger man.
The only time I’ve seen a smile twitch on his impassive face is when Sparrow shows up to bust Lorenzo’s balls.
Salvatore is across from him, next to my empty chair, wearing a tailored peacock-green suit and looking at his phone.
And then there’s the man himself, Lorenzo Moretti.
King of the city, the Devil in Armani, head of the Moretti Crime Family.
Fuck, he looks agitated tonight. A random person walking by might not be able to tell, but I’ve learned to read his body language like my life depends on it over the years.
His shoulders are tense and it doesn’t look like he’s touched the drink in front of him.
He’s too busy drumming his fingers on the table and glaring at the dancer to bother with it.
I’ve known Lorenzo since we were kids. My dad was one of Lorenzo Senior’s most trusted Capos.
I guess you can say we were friends—we certainly spent enough time together—but I think even then, some lizard part of my brain was aware that I should never piss him off.
We got along alright though, and still do for the most part.
After my dad tried to turn State’s Witness on Lorenzo Senior, I always felt like Enzo looked at me differently.
More wary, less trusting. Lucky for all of us, it didn’t amount to anything.
My dad “mysteriously” shot himself before the trial could start, and the whole case fell apart without their star witness.
As far as I’m concerned, that’s the risk you take when you try to rat.
Besides, that was between them, not us. But after his old man kicked it and Enzo took over The Family, I figured he wouldn’t want to take the risk of letting me anywhere near anything important, just in case I turned out to be like my dad.
Maybe he’s sticking with the philosophy to keep your friends close and your enemies closer, or maybe he’s just a forgiving guy.
Either way, I’ve always been careful to never give him any reason to think I have my eye on his job or any plans to get in bed with the feds.
I’m just fun-loving Alessio who doesn’t have any fucking desire to know what it feels like to take one between the eyes.
“You’re late,” he says without looking in my direction. He stops drumming his fingers, and in spite of everything else in the club continuing as usual, I swear I can feel his stillness vibrating in the air.
He might not look at me, but three other pairs of eyes all swivel in my direction at once. Xaviaro looks impassive, greeting me with a grunt, Elio gives me a mildly pitying smile, and Salvatore uses his foot to nudge the empty chair towards me.
“Sorry. Sal’s sister had me tied to the bed,” I quip, grabbing my chair and flipping it around so I can straddle it as I sit down.
“I think we agreed that jokes about fucking each other’s family members were over the line.” Sal taps on his phone screen one more time before setting it down on the table.
“Pretty sure that was just dead relatives,” Elio argues.
“We’ve already wasted half an hour; can we not spend any additional time on jokes tonight?” Lorenzo pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s got a headache and sighs. “Xav, what have you got for us?”
Xaviaro straightens up a little and pushes a plain manila folder across the table to Lorenzo.
“Nothing new yet with the Fitzpatricks, but it’s obvious they’re scrambling, closing ranks but trying to act like everything is peachy fucking keen.”
Shit, I clearly missed something.
“What’s up with the Fitzpatricks?” The Irish mob has been inching closer to our territory for two years now, dancing right on the edge of giving us a reason for a full-on war.
If you ask me, if it weren’t for the way Declan always manages to sweet talk Lorenzo, we’d already have run them out of town.
Not that I’m stupid enough to say that out loud.
“Declan’s missing,” Elio says quietly, a solemn edge to his voice that sends a chill down my spine.
“Missing?” I repeat, making sure I heard him right.
“Allegedly,” Lorenzo says much more loudly and harshly. “It could be some kind of trick to make us think they’re vulnerable, to draw us into making an aggressive move so they have an excuse to counterstrike.”
The tension in his shoulders visibly increases, and I might be an asshole, but relief floods me. Clearly his mood is less about me being late and more about whatever game the Fitzpatricks are playing.
“I’m keeping an eye on things, and I have a couple of guys low-key checking on anywhere they could possibly have him stashed,” Xaviaro reports.
Enzo nods and picks up his drink for the first time, bringing it to his lips and downing half the glass in a couple of gulps before setting his attention on me.
“Why did you go over to Salvatore’s before you came here tonight?”
Shit.
“Orion, Sparrow, and Dante all texted us,” Elio explains.
“I’m surprised they had time to text between plotting world domination and downing martinis.
” I let out a laugh that I hope to hell sounds carefree and not like I’m about to shit my pants.
Obviously, I can’t deny that I was over there, so the lie that Sparrow already gave me is probably my best bet.
“I thought maybe Dante would have some ideas about how I could work on figuring out who The Ghost is. He’s drawing a lot of attention, boss, and it seems like maybe we need to have a talk with him before we end up with these murders becoming national news.
Last thing we need is a bunch of eyes on Wildcliff. ”
He hums in agreement.
“He is a bit of a problem,” Xaviaro says.
“None of us are losing sleep over any of the Sleepless Reapers, but whoever this Ghost is, he’s sloppy as hell.
He’s leaving bodies out in the open, killing multiple club members in one week sometimes.
Les is right—we should figure out who he is and have a chat with him. ”
Lorenzo nods. “Do it.”
I open my mouth to tell him that Dante made it sound pretty much impossible to find someone whose name we don’t know, let alone anything else about the guy, but he was talking about my intruder, whether he knows that or not.
Finding The Ghost won’t be easy, but there are some options.
At least we have a general idea of where he’ll be: wherever the Sleepless Reapers are.
“Xav, work with Les on this one,” he adds, and Xaviaro nods.
The meeting shifts gears into numbers and reports, and I nod along and add my contributions when necessary.
I wasn’t angling for my lie to get me put on the Vigilante Task Force, but fuck it, there are worse jobs to be assigned.
Finding my hot, dominant intruder might be a lost fucking cause, but hunting down The Ghost is a decent distraction. For now, anyway.
GHOST
You’d think since I’ve left a dozen of them in pools of their own blood, the Sleepless Reapers would be a little bit more aware of who’s slinking around the shadows at their parties, but so far no one has given me a second glance.
They’re all too drunk and high, or too focused on plying bleary eyed men and women with drugs and alcohol to notice me.
I pull a hard candy out of my pocket and pop it into my mouth.