Chapter 21 Bait
Bait
Grant
It wasn’t uncommon for me to not know Andrea’s whereabouts at any given time.
It’s not like it was my job to track him down.
Typically, I was tracking other people down.
I was, however, pretty shocked to see a message from him this early in the morning demanding a meeting.
An in-person meeting. As in, here in Vegas.
After a night of tossing and turning, worrying about what Lore was planning, and whether she was safe, I was admittedly not in peak condition to deal with his runny brand of bullshit.
I was supposed to be getting on a plane back to Chicago in two hours.
Not that I had any plans to follow through with that order, but Lore didn't have to know.
As soon as I read through the message twice, I chanced calling him. “What’s going on, Andrea?”
Light clinking of silverware on a plate indicated he was eating breakfast. I waited with as much patience as I could muster for him to finish chewing.
He seemed to be taking his sweet time. “I’m tired of waiting around.
You said you were on speaking terms with Lore, right?
So get us a meeting. I have business to talk to her about that, apparently, you cannot handle. ”
I broke out into a cold sweat. If Andrea really was involved in Patty’s death and Elio possibly coming to Vegas, now was the absolute worst time to be dealing with him in the flesh.
Keeping my cool over the phone or a video chat was one thing, but face to face…
he didn’t survive as long as he did without sharp instincts.
Andrea would be able to see the cracks in my loyalty in the first five minutes of a meeting.
He would be able to sniff out in an instant where my support lay now.
“This… may not be the best time,” I hedged. “Would it suffice to see if she can call you sometime tomorrow? Name a time and—”
Andrea’s voice was low, but commanding. “No. Today, six o’clock sharp at Tio’s Eatery. I’ll send the address. You better fucking be there with Lore Brennan.”
The hollow silence of the phone disconnecting left me panicking, still holding the phone to my ear like an idiot. “Shit, shit, shit!” I almost flung it across the room, but at the last minute clutched the phone in my palm until my knuckles turned white.
My instincts told me this was not going to end well for me.
I was on the outs with Andrea, that much was apparent.
The question was, how far was he willing to go to kill me in Red Riot territory?
Because there was no fucking way I was leaving Vegas on my own terms. My alliance with Lore was precarious at best, but there was still a seed of hope in my bitter heart that I could convince her of my innocence with Patty’s death.
The moment I left the Las Vegas city limits, I was as good as dead.
But staying in Vegas while Lore is on a rampage was equally detrimental to my survival.
I knew she loved me. But I doubted her restraint.
I couldn’t see another option besides setting up this meeting and hoping I could smooth things over in person.
Begrudgingly, I set about looking up the restaurant’s contact info and setting a reservation for a private room in my name for tonight.
My body was just going through the motions of getting dressed, getting coffee, and sitting at my computer.
There was only space in my head for Lore.
I couldn’t leave her to think I’d betrayed her trust to a bastard like Andrea.
With dread pooling in my stomach like molten lead, I fiddled with my phone on the desk and debated whether to risk calling Taylor.
I felt like I needed to warn someone in the Riot about Andrea coming to Vegas.
Surely, Lore knew, but… I needed to show her where my loyalties were.
This was the last time I answered to the Lupi Selvaggi.
Staring blankly at the phone’s screen as I rocked it from corner to corner on the desk, it startled me when the screen lit up and Reggie’s name appeared on it.
He and Felicity were the only two people in my life who had this encrypted number; actually, now three since Lore somehow managed to contact me on this phone before.
Even now, I tried desperately to keep them separate from my dealings with the mob.
I sighed and gathered what little restraint I had left before answering. “Hey, Reggie.”
“A warm greeting, as always,” his gruff chuckle came through the line.
Something creaked on his end, and I could imagine the old green recliner he always sat in that made that noise.
It was so threadbare it had almost lost all the color where his body sat every night after dinner, but Felicity couldn’t get him to give up the old piece of furniture.
He would always say it’s finally ‘broken in.’ Imagining him in his spot, nursing a coffee half-filled with creamer, brought a little smile to my lips despite the shit morning I’ve had.
“Sorry,” I cleared the lump of emotion from my throat. “It’s been a crap day.”
“And it’s only…” The chair squeaked again like he was leaning back to check the wall clock.
Like he didn’t have the time on his cell phone pressed to his ear.
Reggie was still getting with modern technology after living a long time off-grid.
“Seven in the morning my time. What’s goin’ on, kid? Where are you?”
I scoffed. “You know I can’t tell you anything.”
“Ain’t your phone one of them special ones? No one can eavesdrop or whatever?”
“Again, it’s more than that and you know it. You’re out of the mob life. It’s not your business anymore, is it?”
Why couldn’t he understand what I sacrificed to keep it that way? What I continuously dealt with and gave up, so Andrea would leave Reggie and his family alone. Surely, he knew when he signed me over to the Lupi that he was cut out entirely. And by association, I was cut out from his family.
“Grant,” Reggie’s voice sounded old beyond his fifty-two years.
“I… We tried to do what we thought was best by you, you know that, right? Andrea offered an education, a paid position, protection… all things we couldn’t give you.
Felicity and I… we loved your parents. You were like a son to us before we ever adopted you.
And Andrea is… not the same man I knew ten years ago. ”
“I know you did.”
“So you know that, even though I’m not a made man anymore, that don’t mean I’m not worried about you all the time. And maybe, if you opened up a little, I could help with whatever has you all twisted up.”
The offer was tempting. Reggie was a good man, despite his dabbling in the shifter underworld.
He was middle management, not someone particularly close to Andrea, so I doubted he would know anything about his uneasy alliance with Lore.
However… “Did you ever hear Andrea associate with someone named Elio? I’m assuming he’s also a mobster. ”
A stiff silence fell between us, so much so that I had to pull the phone from my ear to check I was still connected.
Reggie’s breath shuddered out, almost like he was…
afraid. “Heard of him, yeah. He’s a fuckin’ psychopath.
Runs in the same circles as the Heathens’ boss, Ryan McGregor, who’s another piece of shitty work.
If karma really is a bitch, I hope she hits him with her car then puts it in reverse. ”
Unease began to wind its way through my veins in chilling tendrils, and I stiffened in my chair at Reggie’s uncharacteristic aggression. “What did he do?”
“Beyond the usual?” Reggie sniffed. “That dick runs the largest skin trade in Europe.
Almost all of the trafficking crimes are by him; I can almost guarantee it.
Even sold off his own fucking daughter! Andrea wanted nothing to do with his ass until Elio offered a sweet deal between the three of them for an international trafficking ring. “
I almost bit my tongue hard enough to taste blood.
He couldn’t know I was with said daughter.
The further he was away from this shitstorm the better.
“Yeah, sounds like a real piece of work,” I answered in a tight voice.
So much for not being suspicious. “Hey listen, I gotta go, Reg. Tell Felicity I said hey.”
“Grant.”
Reggie was rarely a serious person. I don’t know how he survived in the mob with his goofy sense of humor and happy-go-lucky attitude, but I could count on one hand how many times the man actually seemed anxious about something. The low tremor of his voice now stilled me.
He continued. “Just… be careful. I know I’m not a part of that life anymore, and I know I’m partially responsible for pushing you into that world.
It’s something I will regret for the rest of my life.
But I hope you know, Felicity and I just wanted to give you the best chance to use your skills in a way that wouldn’t put you in a jail cell.
Andrea Caruso may be a lot of things, but he wouldn’t let you rot in prison if you’re useful to him.
Just… stay useful, okay? Don’t get yourself into shit you can’t get out of. ”
I wasn’t dumb. Back in my hacking years as Bloodhound, I got into my fair share of trouble with the law.
And I’m sure Andrea was the reason I didn’t get caught by greasing some palms to close investigations against me.
But this was the first time Reggie showed concern for me in Andrea's service.
Was it some acute instinct for my well-being, or was this something Andrea put him up to?
“I know, Reggie. You did the best you could. I need to go now, I’ll call you again soon.”