Chapter 30
Papa raised me to believe I would one day run the Greenich Bay underworld. A delusion I actively sabotaged at every opportunity. I might have been a Donato, but that name meant little outside a tiny circle in Greenich Bay.
Signing over my negligible slice of the city to Adelaide Orazio, the actual power behind the city underworld, had felt damn good. I didn't miss the pressure at all. Of waking up and slumping into the sensation of failure before I'd even taken a morning breath.
Except now I had more time to wallow in girl troubles. Was my ego hurting because Lara didn't fawn over me the way women usually did? Maybe.
"The running stings more than the ghosting." I waved my hand with a sigh.
The words poured out like a bitter fountain, making Jonah pinch the bridge of his nose. I'd been repeating the same thing for days, ever since we got proof that she was dating someone else. Working myself up and going in circles. But I always came back to the same point.
"She chose someone else. Just focus on getting us to the warehouse." Jonah slanted a look at me, but his jaw clenched before he turned his broad back on me as well. "Charlie hasn't checked in for a few hours. I swear I'm going to strangle him if he's fighting with his woman again."
I rolled my shoulders with a sigh.
"Let's track down Lara's date and bring him to the warehouse for questioning."
The lanky body, the patchy red stubble only a teenager would be proud to wear. Was that what Lara liked?
Jonah was good looking in a brick wall kind of way. Not as handsome as me. There were levels of good looking. I was God-tier, obviously. Cheekbones that could cut, almost perfectly symmetrical features. It was science, not ego.
Jonah was something else, mysterious and broody. That was catnip for some girls. They saw his tree-trunk legs and thick arms and knew this was a man who could toss them around in the bedroom. But what made Jonah irresistible was something he didn't even realize he was doing.
He gave off "treat them mean, keep them keen" energy.
Which was ironic because he was the most respectful and romantic out of our little group. But his scowl was the right balance of handsome and unapproachable.
Wherever we went, we drew attention. I got the bulk of it.
The symmetry of my face was no joke. But some who slid past my classical good looks and drooled over my friend.
He passed by them without even a flash of interest, which just made them more curious.
How could they get this gorgeous brute to notice them?
I didn't have the heart to tell them it was a waste of time.
Jonah only had room for one woman in his ice-brick heart, and Lara shattered it when she turned on her heel and ran.
"Jonah, I'm begging you. Commiserate with me one time." I slammed my fist on the wheel as I parked. "What the fuck does that guy have that we don't?"
I seethed with barely restrained anger. I wanted to run the stranger over with my car and turn him into a pancake. Jonah let out a deep sigh. The only response. But I was on a roll now.
"He's got horrendous fashion sense. I mean, black isn't the only color that exists." I held up a finger.
Long, elegant fingers Lara enjoyed many times.
"All I wear is black." Jonah arched an eyebrow.
"That's different. You can pull it off with those gorgeous eyes and muscles."
Jonah's cheeks flooded pink.
"Do you think Charlie's in the cells?" Jonah recovered and strode toward the warehouse.
The wayward guard was nowhere to be found.
The dank, dark walls of the interrogation cells underneath the warehouse had a way of coaxing out confessions.
They reminded me of where my papa left me when I reneged on my engagement at eighteen.
But right now I was riled up enough not to care about the suffocating feelings it brought.
My fingers itched to inflict pain on someone else for a change.
It might take away from the clenching agony stabbing through my heart.
"He's probably fighting with his girlfriend again. Try him once more."
Jonah stalked toward the warehouse as his phone call rang out unanswered.
"I told him to keep his damn phone on loud," Jonah muttered.
"Let's toss him in the cell, teach him a lesson."
Jonah rolled his eyes, grunting in disapproval. I can't believe I knew what his grunts meant.
"Just joking."
"No, you fucking weren't, Raimondo, and we both know it," Jonah said.
I wanted to ask if his heart hurt like mine did.
Jealousy, thy name is Raimondo Donato. I hated the way it tasted in my mouth. A sharp, dry tang. I threw my hands up and followed him. Big guy was done with my bullshit. I chewed on my lip, determined to be quiet, but the indignation rose like a wave again, and I couldn't help myself.
I didn't feel like this when my papa died.
Granted, I had run him over with a car. My growth over the last few months was natural.
There had been someone supporting my change, encouraging me, and it wasn't my papa.
I'd never been good enough for him. I thought I had been enough for Lara.
Maybe that was why her words hurt so much.
Once again, I hadn't been someone's first choice. Or second choice even.
Jonah flattened his palm on the entryway of the warehouse, and the door swung open.
"Where is everyone?"
I shrugged, flattening my thumb on the pad to unlock the basement.
The hidden level had been in business since the sixties, when Matteo Orazio bought this warehouse.
There was something poetic about the scent of blood and salt.
The wall beside it hissed as a crack appeared, widening as a hidden door slid open.
My foot slipped on the dark stairs, and I clutched at the railing.
The sensor light hadn't come on, and my throat tightened for a moment.
Panic and fear were mind killers, and wandering deeper into the dark made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
Jonah whipped out his gun, but it was unneeded.
Blood smelled sweet to me. Cloying and thick. I flicked on the light switch and nothing happened, so I pulled out my phone. This wasn't cleanup on aisle three.
"I don't think Charlie's arguing anymore."
Dark congealed red coated the stairs. I ventured further into the basement, each step heavy as I skirted around the puddles of blood.
Charlie was at the bottom of the stairs with the back of his head caved in, and the sickly-sweet stench intensified.
Shards of red soaked skull, the gloopy remains of his brain would have made my stomach turn, but I was a Donato.
Papa trained my weak stomach out of me years ago.
He locked me in a cage and made me watch dogs tear a man apart for the crime of spilling secrets that weren't his.
I'd been thirteen years old, too cocky for my lanky body, keen to prove my strength.
They don't tell you about the sound of death.
The violent wrench of skin as it's ripped from bones.
I learned a lot that day. Like how to pull a wall down on all my emotions.
I built it now, brick by brick, with a mouth of sour vomit.
"Not your best look, buddy." I welcomed the adrenaline that surged through my body.
"Could he have tripped?" Jonah reached down to check Charlie's pulse. I gave him an incredulous look.
"Half his brains are painting the wall, Jonah. I don't think his heart is working."
"If you make another joke, I will throat-punch you. Last warning."
There were no cameras in the basement or in the warehouse. Only a madman would steal from the Orazios?
Jonah pulled out his phone with a grimace and put it on speaker.
"What the fuck is going on?" Adelaide's crisp, disapproving voice chilled me.
How good were her spidey senses?
"Look, Addy, we just got here. It's a damn mess and—"
"What are you talking about? I spoke to Lara earlier, and something is going on. She won't tell me anything." She cut me off, and my back snapped straight.
Had she not called because of the mess we were standing in?
"She dumped us before we were even official." My bitter words poured out, the body forgotten.
Jonah made a noise and stomped back up the stairs.
"What did you do?"
My fingers strangled my phone. "Why do you assume it was me?"
"Because my best friend is perfect, and you're lucky to even breathe the same air as her."
"Can't argue with that."
"What were you talking about?" Adelaide said.
Jonah appeared on the stairs, pinching something between his fingers. There was a twitch above his eyebrow. That meant Jonah was about to break down.
"Nothing."
"Ray," Adelaide warned.
"Nothing. Jeez, don't you trust me? Go enjoy your honeymoon." I climbed the stairs carefully. If I get blood on these brand new shoes, I swear.
"Ugh, gotta go. A gorgeous man wants to hand-feed me dinner." She sighed dreamily and hung up before I could answer.
Good thing, because I didn't want to explain to her how someone had broken into our warehouse and slaughtered our security. I rubbed the back of my neck.
"Look at this." Jonah waved me toward him.
Pinched between his fingers was a tiny, circular-shaped, black camera. Goosebumps spread up the back of my neck.
"Where did you find this?" I touched it, and my fingers accidentally brushed against Jonah's. He jerked back with a sharp inhale.
"It was on the floor, and before you ask, this isn't ours.
Someone bugged the warehouse, so maybe Charlie found the culprit or the camera, and was killed for it?
I don't know, but I think we can call in a favor from the chief and see if he's had anything like this collected from crime scenes recently. "
"Great idea. You call a clean-up crew, and I'll have a friendly chat with our on-again, off-again brother-boyfriend."
We hadn't had much contact with Beck despite trying to make a group chat happen. He was busy with his work and content to dodge questions about his past. I didn't care as long as he continued to work with us, rather than against.
"Ray, no."
"I wonder if Beck knows Lara's seeing other men?"
Jonah let out a beleaguered sigh.
"He's got creep factor off the charts for Lara. There is no way he wouldn't have noticed how different she seems. Forget the fact that she was lying through her teeth. Did you even look at her? She looks half dead, hair unwashed, pale skin."
Jonah made a noise, a half-growl, like he wanted me to stop speaking.
"You know I'm right. You trust your gut, don't you? What does it tell you?"
"We've got to respect her boundaries. It's not our place to intrude, even if something is wrong, which I agree there is."
"I never thought you were a quitter, big guy."
My veins churned with restless energy. Jonah grabbed my collar with a scowl and jammed his face close to mine. For a second, his gaze dropped to my lips. Maybe I was just so horny I was hallucinating.
"You think Lara isn't everything to me? You think I don't want to shake the truth out of her? Now is not the time when we have a goddamn dead body to deal with."
"Okay, dramatic. You're acting like you've never stumbled upon a body before. Your issue is that you've spent so long keeping your mouth shut for Adelaide, you don't know when the right time to speak up is. We both love her, don't we?"
Jonah dipped his chin. The tiniest movement, a vulnerable crack in concrete. I sighed and dialed Beck's number.
"Spare." Beck picked up on the first ring.
"Don't call me that," I bit out, letting my frustration control my tongue.
"Did you call to annoy me? Because you're already succeeding," Beck snapped, and I forgot my anger in momentary confusion.
What did he have to be upset about?
"I have a favor to ask, but before I get to it, I have some news about our mutual connection that might interest you."
"Don't keep me in suspense."
"Did Lara tell you she's dating someone new?" I replied as Jonah turned a harsh glare in my direction. The scent of blood coated my nostrils.
"Is that what she told you?" A devious brightness lit his tone.
"No, she didn't need to. A picture tells a thousand words."
"Is that right? My Little Liar knows how dangerous that would be. I assume you have proof."
"Our Little Liar," I amended. "And she deleted the photo, but I can get another copy."
"Please do, because I'm sitting with her right now, and I want her to try lying to my face this time."
A shot of heat blistered my spine, and I jerked upright. I should have been thinking about the dead security guard, but I headed toward my car.
"Jonah and I will be there soon."