Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Luca
“Stay here and recover, sexy. You can do some online Christmas shopping. Here is a card and a tablet.” She sits on the sofa with her legs bent behind her butt.
“You’re trusting me with the internet?” she asks, raising her brow and smirking.
“Yes. You know the rules when it comes to your brother anyway. Besides, you can’t leave the condo, and we’ll head out in a few hours.” She stands up and kisses my lips.
I’m in my flooring warehouse to discuss the absence of Mr. Colombo, who I personally dispatched of, and with great pleasure too.
As much as it’s none of their business, I couldn’t have my employees talking or asking too many questions.
This is one of my legitimate businesses, so I need everything to be as smooth as possible here.
I enter and am greeted by the security at the front. “Hello, Mr. D’Antonio. It’s great to see you here.”
“I’d like to hold a staff meeting, Mr. Porter. Gather all the managers in the conference room in five.”
“Um, sorry, but only Mr. Decker and Ms. Kane are here.”
“Very well. I’ll just do a silent inspection and then address the staff.”
“Yes, sir.” He nods, and I take the stairs to the fourth floor where the business suites are located. As I enter, I’m greeted by a staffer who nearly hits me with her cup of coffee. “Oh my God, sir, I’m terribly sorry. Please don’t um…”
“Relax. Just be more careful.”
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir…” She quickly scurries away to a tiny cubicle.
There are eight cubicles in the middle of the floor, all of them six feet high to offer a bit of privacy as well as convenience while they are answering calls.
As I walk around them, I notice one is unoccupied.
It pisses me off because no one informed me that we are understaffed.
Certain cubicles are for certain tasks. This one has been strictly for incoming customer service calls.
I tap on the office door next to the empty cubicle to find a nervous, scrawny man in a sweater vest and tie.
“Oh my, Mr. D’Antonio, forgive me. I didn’t know you’d be in today.” He reaches for his suit jacket.
“That’s fine.” I wave my hand for him to stop. He does and calms down. “Excuse me. I need to speak with one of the supervisors for this department.”
“Um…Mr. Cochran is on vacation at the moment until after Christmas.”
“Oh really?” I’m not aware of all the details of employee vacations, but it still takes me by surprise. We sell flooring to installation companies, so it’s not like we are typically busy at this time of the year.
“Yes, so there isn’t anyone here and, sir, we haven’t seen Mr. Colombo in days.”
“He quit; I’m in the process of looking for a new manager. Where is the floor supervisor?”
“On vacation too.”
“It appears we’re short a person here as well.” I point to the empty cubicle.
He stands up and frowns. “Oh, yes. We had to get rid of someone.” Any firing should warrant at the very least an email to me.
“What happened?”
“Mr. Cochran said she was stealing secrets and recording them on her phone.”
“And I was not notified?”
“I’m sorry, sir. I assumed that you had been notified. Mr. Cochran said he handled it, so I was sure he contacted Mr. Colombo at the very least.”
“Well, a woman was fired for stealing company secrets, and yet no one decided to let me know.” I’m livid.
“At least she wasn’t allowed to leave with her phone intact.”
“I’ll need all the information on this woman sent to me.”
“Okay. As soon as Mr. Cochran returns from the holidays, I’ll have him give you her information. Personally, I thought Angel was sweet.”
“Angel?”
“Yes. I don’t remember Angel’s last name, but I thought her first name fit her. She worked here for about six months and was always kind, but Mr. Cochran gave her a really hard time about everything.” I pull out my phone and scroll to an isolated picture.
“I want you to do me a favor. Don’t say a word, and keep this conversation between ourselves, but I need to show you something. Is this the woman?”
“Um. Yes, that’s totally her.” He grabs at my phone again and looks closer. “Oh my goodness. Yes, that’s Angel. I hope she really wasn’t a spy. She was such a nice person.”
“No, I don’t believe she is a spy. Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“That I think Mr. Cochran is a douche bag, but you didn’t hear that from me.”
“I assure you anything you say is between the both of us; this is my company, after all.”
“Thank you, sir.” He nods profusely. His anxiousness goes above the fact that I’m his boss. He must understand who I really am. “Truthfully, I really thought Angel was lovely and she didn’t deserve to be fired. She came, she did her job, and then she went home.”
“Oh yeah?” I want to know more about my future wife because she sure as hell is not spilling the details without me pressing.
“She barely spoke to most of us; only during our lunch time, of course, or the occasional after work get-together.”
After work get-together? My teeth set on edge. “Did you ever try to hit on her?” I question. With every word, I’m getting closer and closer into his personal space.
He steps backward, banging into the cubicle wall behind him. “Oh goodness, no, sir. I have a girlfriend. One who I adore,” he mutters, voice cracking, hands shaking.
“Well, that’s good for you. You take care, and have a Merry Christmas.” I straighten and walk toward the elevator.
“You too, sir,” he calls out. I’m sure he’s grateful for my departure, while I leave the building with a multitude of emotions going through me.
One, I need to get a hold of that son of a bitch Cochran and get information from my little bride-to-be.
How could she have worked for me for six months and I had no idea?
I need to find all the employee records for my company.
A call comes in as I get inside my vehicle. “What’s up, Sammy?”
“The maid came to clean the house, and it was robbed.”
“Not robbed. No, sorry.” I could hear a woman talking over him on the other end of the phone. “The cleaning lady said that the door was broken, and the house was a mess.”
“Fuck. I need to know what was taken and if anything can be salvaged. She lost her parents, damn it.”
Everything else has to wait because her area isn’t known for break-ins, and it obviously didn’t appear like the house was unoccupied as we’ve been there recently.
“I’m heading back to the condo. Find out what you can and then keep me informed.” Fuck, how am I supposed to tell my Angel about the house? She’s going to be devastated.
I already know that fucking Fields and his boys have something to do with it.
I haven’t had a word with Torcello and his men, but if he truly wants a war, he’ll get one.
There’s no doubt in my mind that he is itching for one.
As rivals, we’ve been dancing around each other for years.
All it takes is a single incident. Georgie had been on the take.
Torcello had gotten to one of my guys, a weak link.
I’ve had several of my men scope out his people, but what I have learned is that Torcello keeps his inner circle all family.
Fields wants in that circle, but he isn’t getting there.
Not the way he’s playing. He is a fool to even consider it.
Blood means more to Torcello than anything, and nothing Fields does can get him in.
I have to make a call. “Tommy Boy,” I greet the asshole as soon as he picks up the line.
“What the fuck do you want, d-bag?” How charming.
I want to rip his balls off, but the crusty fucker never makes things easy.
He hides behind the brass. He has so many more on the take than I have.
It’s bullshit. For every single cop or politician I have working on my side, he has six.
Sex sells, and he gives it away for the right price: a bribe here and a bribe there.
“Cute. Did you come up with that all by yourself? Or did you have to find someone to do that for you?”
“Are you pissed about Georgie? I know he’s gone missing. It’s interesting no one can seem to find him.” The bastard is trying to get me to incriminate myself, like that shit would happen. I wasn’t fucking born yesterday.
“The dirty rat ran when I found his little flash drive of my employee’s addresses and passcodes. I learned that he was paid a lot of money by you to retrieve them. Why, pray tell, would you need access to our homes?”
“Why else?”
“Well, then, he better pray I don’t find him, and as you know, trespassing will get intruders shot.”
He chuckles. “You need to do a better job with your men. I only have the best, the most loyal family members. Speaking of loyalty, I hear you’ve got a pet. A pretty one at that. I was truly hoping to add her to my own menagerie.” He’s goading me, and it’s working.
“It’s like you’re asking for a bullet to the head.”
“Did I strike a sore spot?”
“You speak about my wife like that again, and I’ll make sure that I hit your sore spot.”
“Wife? Since when is the great Luca D’Antonio married?”
“Soon.”
“Ah, so you’re not settled down with the very sexy Angel. We’ve had our eye on her for a while. She belongs to us. Georgie spotted her and made it clear that she’d be perfect for my club. Then we laid the plan in motion, one small step at a time. Or one accident.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Just give me back my little whore. At least the girl probably learned some valuable skills at your hands. I’ve heard that you’re a talented lover, so she’ll be good at pleasing my higher-up clientele.” My blood heats, and I’m about to strangle the bastard through the phone.
“Come near her, and I’ll end you.”
“You can’t always protect her, and she has that little hiccup with her. He seems to be a bit of a problem.”