CHAPTER FIVE
Mick stood in the shower stall with his hands flayed against the shower wall and his head dropped down beneath the wide rain showerhead.
It drenched him and tried to loosen every stiffened bone in his big body.
Then he leaned his head all the way back and allowed the water to careen down his neck.
He still couldn’t believe it. After that ambush behind that shoe factory building, he spent many hours of his own time and many days of his men’s time searching for her, putting the word on the street, trying to figure out just what went down.
Why was she targeted? What had she done?
Why was there no blood? Was it a performance and not a hit?
But nobody knew anything.
He assumed, after months of nothingness, that maybe she was gone. Maybe it wasn’t as it seemed to him. Maybe.
And what about that note Bella gave him?
She could be full of shit. She did her share of attention-seeking plots and schemes on the regular.
But she wouldn’t play about a thing like that.
And he saw the terror in her eyes. She was truly afraid.
But what was that about? And it was signed his past? Which past? He had a lifetime of pasts.
Still reeling, he got out of the shower, dried off, and made his way to the edge of his bed where he sat down.
Now Cleo was back? Was her sudden sighting related to that note?
Had it been any capo other than Robby Yale, he would not have believed that sighting.
But it was Robby. He was there through all of her bullshit with Sal.
He knew that backstory. If Robby said he saw Cleo, he saw Cleo.
And according to him, she was alive and well two years later.
Mick rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head down. Mainly because he was emotionally drained. But also because he knew Cleo wasn’t in Vegas to gamble. She wasn’t in Vegas to see her favorite singer. She was in Vegas to get something. That was what she did. But what was she trying to get?
And why Vegas of all places? Was it because of Sal? Or Reno? Or was it the perfect hide in plain sight alternative because everybody knew that Sal had it in for her ass and that Reno, although they fought like cats and dogs, always had Sal’s back? He didn’t know.
But he knew if Cleo Burgess was involved it was going to be something big. And chaotic. And all kinds of ways messy. That was what she did too.
He ran his hands through his thick, messy hair. And then he laid all the way back on his bed. His body was naked, but his soul felt exposed too.