Chapter 19
Gabriel
Thunder claps outside, shaking the windows in the hallway leading to Savvy’s private room. When I had her things unpacked into the room, it had been with the intent to give her a place that could keep her occupied and tucked away from me.
I’d wanted space. But I wanted her here. It seemed the right place. But now that I have to trek across the whole damn house to put my eyes on her, it’s turned out to be a mistake. She shouldn’t even have her own space; her space should be my space.
I’m going to have her books moved into my office.
She can curl up on my leather couch with her cup of tea while she reads her smutty books.
Aliens with eight-inch dicks that squirt rainbow shimmering cum create more questions than answers.
I’m saving it for a day when she’s being particularly bratty.
It will be the perfect way to fire up a blush on her cheeks.
Then I’ll fuck her until she swears she’ll be my good girl again.
There will be no rainbow shimmering cum smeared across her soft skin, but I will make my mark.
Fuck. I adjust myself as I get to her room.
“If he goes on his own, he’ll get caught.” Her voice carries through the narrow opening of the partially closed door. “I’m not saying you have to do it, Cassie…I get it…I’m just…fine…no…I said fine.”
Days have passed since she met up with Cassie and Tony, but we still haven’t discussed it.
“I won’t. I promise… am I going to see you before you leave?” Another long pause. “Yeah, I can make that. Three o’clock; I’ll be there.”
She lets out a heavy sigh, then mutters, “Shit.”
I wait another beat to be sure she’s off her call, then push the door open the rest of the way.
She’s sitting with her feet tucked under her, a book propped open on her knee, and her phone face down on the cushion next to her. When she notices my arrival, she slides the phone closer to her.
“Hey,” she says, trying to sound casual. But her face says everything. Her cheeks are flushed. She’s obviously been running her hand through her hair, and there are fingernail indents in her palm.
“Hey.” I mimic her tone, picking up her hand and running my thumb over the indentations. “Something’s wrong.”
She tries to pull away, but I hold steady.
“It’s nothing.”
“Does it have to do with the boy you don’t want to talk about?” I let go of her hand.
“It’s not like that.”
“Like what? I haven’t said anything yet. I’m waiting for you to explain.”
She huffs. “I don’t have to explain anything.”
“We’re back to that?” I lean against the mantel, folding my arms over my chest as she slaps her book shut and re-shelves it.
She bows her head, then presses it against the bookshelf.
“Cassie is leaving tomorrow. I’m just…I’ll miss her.”
A half-truth. An improvement from the outright lies she’s told me in the past.
“I heard you say three o’clock. Is that who you’re meeting, Cassie?”
She spins to face me. “You were eavesdropping?”
“Yes.” I lift a shoulder. I won’t lie to her, especially not over something so trivial as listening to her phone call.
“Of course you were. I don’t know why you bother; I can’t go anywhere without one of your men driving me, so you always know where I am. And don’t think I didn’t find that tracker you had on my phone.”
I smile.
“I fixed it, by the way,” she says, the snark dripping from the words. “You’ve been tracking some random woman who was sitting in the booth next to us at the diner.”
My smile widens.
“What?” she snaps when I don’t react. That would be what she wants. She’s looking for a fight, so she doesn’t have to deal with the real problem. Tony and Cassie.
“You didn’t find the other tracker.”
She blanches.
“I knew you’d be looking for one on your phone, so I had one put on that was easy to find, but then I had a real tracker installed that you haven’t found.”
Snatching up her phone, she starts scrolling and tapping, going into the settings and the networks. All the while, her cheeks get redder, and still she can’t find it.
“My hackers are better.” I pluck the device from her hand, scroll two screens, pull up a file folder, and open it, showing her where the application was hidden.
“You’re impossible!” She throws the phone onto the couch.
“You’re not mad at me.”
“I’m not?” She cocks her head to the side.
“No, so why don’t you just tell me what’s going on. What happened at that diner?” It would be easy to throw her over the arm of the couch, yank down her jeans and make her tell me everything.
It’s how I’ve always done things. I wanted something, I took it, no matter the cost or who it could hurt. It was mine the moment I set my eyes on it.
I want Savvy. No, I need her, like the earth needs the sun. But if I force her to let me behind those walls of hers, it’s just another example of someone in her life doing what’s best for them and not considering her.
“Savvy.” I sit on the couch, hooking one elbow over the arm. “You can tell me anything.”
A war plays out in her eyes. She sucks in her bottom lip, chewing on it while she deliberates her next move.
Slowly, she makes her way to the couch and sinks into the cushion as far from me as she can get. It’s a smart move. Too close and I won’t be able to keep my hands off her for very long.
“You don’t already know who Tony is?” Her eyes narrow on me.
“I assume you met him the same way you met Cassie. In a foster home?”
She nods.
“Okay, so go on. What got him so mad he was stupid enough to put his hands on you?” Damien should have broken the asshole’s finger for daring to put it on Savvy.
“Tony’s had a rough time. He got involved with drugs, and he’s never been able to kick it. When we were all in the same foster house, the mom, Maggie, taught us things like counting cards, pickpocketing—”
“Forgery,” I supply, and she cracks a small smile.
“Yeah. I had a knack for it, so she hooked me up with a friend of hers who showed me the harder stuff. Cassie was good at the cards, so she worked with her.”
“And Tony?”
Her face falls. “He was okay with working with someone, but he couldn’t go out and do it on his own. Like he could help Cassie hustle a card game, but he wouldn’t be able to sit at a table to clean up on his own.”
“Would he have been able to hustle that pool game with you?”
She laughs. “No. He can’t hit a pool ball with a baseball bat. But that’s what I mean, he just wasn’t great at the stuff. So, he wasn’t much help bringing in any money. So he hooked up with a dealer in the neighborhood…” She sighs and lifts a shoulder, letting me fill in the blanks.
“But he started using the supply he was supposed to be selling.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you and Cassie get on him about the drugs; is that what pissed him off?” I lift her leg, and drape it over my lap, resting my hand on her calf.
She leans against the back of the couch.
“No. He wanted to pull a job, but Cassie’s leaving tomorrow for St. Louis, and if I did what he wants it would be breaking your no working with other people rule.” She mimics my tone with the last bit, but I forgive the snark.
“What’s the job?” There’s a lot to unpack there. Her saying no, Cassie getting ready to move, and whatever else Tony asked of her. Taking things slow and not just demanding everything at once would annoy a weaker man.
I’m not patient, but I’m not weak, either.
“The poker tables at Inferno,” she says after a long pause. “It’s an open house night or something. He wants me to get him paystubs so he can get one of those payday loans for the buy-in, and Cassie to sit at the tables with him.” The weight visibly lifts from her as she confesses his plan.
“Which place?”
She blinks. “What?”
“The loan. Which one is he going to?”
“He didn’t say, just that he can use the stubs to get the loan approved without any credit pull. But the paystubs have to look perfect.”
Something doesn’t sit right. “No credit pull? A payday place will always check the score, that’s how they come up with the insane rates they charge. Even the shitty ones will check.”
Her brow furrows, and I watch her turn it over the way she does when she’s working out a lie or building one.
“The place he’s talking about isn’t an actual loan place,” she says slowly. “It’s most likely a wash.”
“Explain.”
“A real lender wants your ID, your social security number, something that ties back to a real person, because they need to be able to collect. A place that doesn’t check that stuff isn’t lending money, it’s moving it.
You don’t walk in off the street for one of those, someone vouches for you.
” She pauses, like she’s weighing whether or not to tell me something.
“And of the washers I’m aware of that would do something like this for Tony, Vincent Ricci runs a few of them. ”
I’m silent, letting the information sink in. He wants her to scam one of my clubs.
“Do you think he’s going to try to go through with it on his own?”
“I don’t think he can. The last time he tried to pull a con on his own, he almost got caught.” There’s something in the undertone here that catches my attention.
“When did that happen?”
She frowns and stares at me like she doesn’t want to answer me, which tells me my suspicion is right.
“He almost got caught, because you took the fall,” I say running my hand over her calves, more to keep my hands from calling Lucian and asking if he’d like to let out some anger on this kid’s face.
“He was older, almost eighteen. They would have sent him to prison. I had a better shot of walking away with a slap on the wrist.”
“But you didn’t. They put you in juvie. He let you go to jail for something he did.” Saying it outright like that makes it even harder not to reach for my phone.
“It was only a few months,” she qualifies. “He could have gone to prison for a year or more.”
“And now he’s asking you to cheat the card tables in one of my clubs. He has no regard for your or Cassie’s safety.”
“We told him no,” she reminds me. “But that’s what got him so upset. He can’t do it on his own, and he needs cash.”
“Do you know where he’s staying?”
“Why? Gabriel, leave him alone. Promise me you’ll leave him alone.” She reaches across the couch and squeezes my arm. “Promise me.”
“I’m not going to hurt him, Savvy. But if he’s that desperate, I want eyes on him.”
She loosens her grip. “Maybe you could hire him.”
“You said he’s using again. He’s not going to be able to work for anyone in that condition.” Although, tossing him into a rehab facility might not be the worst idea. I’ll make a mental note to bring it up to Roman. He’s had a friend go through a program.
“That’s true.” She scrunches up her lips, like she’s trying to solve the problems of the world. For a woman who has been failed time and time again, she’s still held onto her own humanity.
I’ll have Roman run down who’s actually fronting those storefronts. If Ricci’s washing money through them, I want to know before Tony finds out the hard way what kind of men he’s borrowing from.
“Maybe there’s something we can do for him. But we’ll deal with that later.” I make a point of checking my watch. “If you’re going to meet Cassie at three, we need to get started.”
“Started with what?”
I maneuver her leg so it’s behind me, and I crawl up the length of her body.
“Your reward. Now take these fucking jeans off so I can kiss your pussy.”