19. Chapter 19
Chapter nineteen
Dax
Ispent the last hour at home avoiding Lucy before we left for the restaurant.
She was so goddamned stubborn. Even after our long talk, there was so much she didn’t understand about CIPHER, or how shady people like Wrangler and their organizations worked.
I still wasn’t clear on what they did. There wasn’t enough time to explain everything to her, but I tried my best to convey how malicious they could be.
I scheduled a time with Emile to videochat with him as the restaurant was closing.
I wanted to be as transparent with Lucy as I could, but I didn’t think she needed to know about the gory details regarding my visit with Marty, or the fact I burned that ramshackle crack house where we found Teddy’s body to the ground this morning.
When she asked me about the guns I had, I lightly explained they were a necessity.
She didn’t ask me to elaborate, and I didn’t say more.
We arrived at Bellissima in the middle of the dinner service. I shuffled Lucy through the kitchen as stealthily as I could, through the hallway and straight to my office.
I hustled back to the kitchen and met one of CIPHER’s drivers at the utility door.
He passed me an inconspicuous-looking car key, which I slid into my pocket, trading him the keys to my Pagani.
As much as I loved the car, I knew I would need something less flashy to get Lucy out of San Francisco unnoticed tonight.
I returned to the kitchen to check with everyone that the dinner service was going alright. I had bigger things to worry about, but I needed to hear it.
“We got it all covered here, boss.” Mateo looked up at me briefly from the plate of prawns searing in his pan.
He was sweating profusely, which was a little unusual, but it always was stifling above the open flame.
I knew I should be able to leave Bellissima in his hands.
He had spent countless mornings, afternoons, and nights setting this place up and tearing it down with me each night.
However, I couldn’t ignore the tingling sensation at the back of my neck that told me something was wrong.
I had never left Bellissima for more than a day or two at a time, and I didn’t know when I’d be back.
It didn’t matter. I needed to get Lucy out of this city tonight, and the restaurant would have to take a backseat in my mind for the time being.
She was my priority. I gave Mateo a nod of gratitude.
I had to let it be.
“Ricky!” I called out from the other side of the line as I watched him stroll past, stopping him in his tracks. “Have you seen Bianca anywhere?” Ricky turned around to meet me at the edge of the counter, his neon yellow eyeshadow glowing under the kitchen lamps.
“Oh, hey there, Mr. Hot Stuff, I didn’t see you there.” He plucked a tube of lip gloss out of his pocket and coated his mouth in a shiny layer of fuchsia. “I’m not sure where she is. Where’s Lucy?" He frowned toward the dish-pit, where a line cook was taking a shift for the evening.
“The cooks are covering dishes for the next few days while I’m gone. Mateo’s in charge.” I watched over my shoulder as a pastry chef pulled a hot rack of focaccia out of the oven.
“What about Lucy?”
God, he was fucking relentless.
“She’s gonna be gone for a few days too,” I mumbled, avoiding eye contact.
“So both of you are going to be gone? At the same time?” He wagged his eyebrows at me.
“Don’t you have a job to do?” I rolled my eyes defensively, and Ricky threw his manicured hands in the air with a mock bow as he backed out of the kitchen.
“Long live the King and Queen!” he chanted as I pointedly looked away.
I inspected the restaurant as it was finishing up its Friday night dinner service.
Only a few patrons remained, sipping on the last drops of their wine and desserts.
Normally I lived for this moment. The quiet peace that settled into the restaurant after a busy shift.
The relief and satisfaction of another successful day.
Tonight was different. I hated having Lucy here, where anybody could have tracked her at this point. She was so goddamn persistent, it was infuriating. I couldn’t resist her. Couldn’t deny her.
Fuck, who was I kidding? I couldn’t stand to be far away from her for more than ten minutes.
Finally, I spotted Bianca hurriedly skating between her last two tables with the grace of a ballerina. I stopped her as she tried to slip past me toward the kitchen.
“I need to talk to you about Phoebe,” I told her in a harsh whisper.
Bianca gave me a bored stare, her red lips curled with annoyance.
“No. Dax, I don’t know what you two are up to but you need to be careful.
I told Phoebe when she started working at The Wire it was a shady place, and I was right.
You don’t need to be getting involved with dangerous people just because you’re trying to do right by Lucy. She’s not your responsibility.”
I brushed that off immediately. Lucy was more than my responsibility.
She was mine.
I’m not sure where that sudden thought came from, but it rang true in my head, even though it wasn’t.
“What do you know about Teddy Griffin?”
Bianca’s cold features went still. “What do you know about him?” she spat back venomously.
“Well, for one, I know he’s dead.” She inhaled sharply as I stared back at her in challenge. “And I know he had some kind of connection to your friend.”
“How on earth would you know something like that?” Her tone remained defiant, but I saw something flash behind her eyes. Something that spooked her.
I pulled the receipt paper from my back pocket and unfolded it before handing it to her.
Her eyes cast down and I watched her lips quiver as she read it.
She stared at the note in her fingers for a few more seconds before folding it along the already-creased lines and handing it back to me.
“Where did you find this?” she whispered.
I ignored her question. “Bianca, please. I don’t know what they did to her, but I promise I will try to help her. I just need to know what kind of connections she had when she worked at that club.”
She shook her head and stepped out of the way as a busser carried away a tray full of glasses from a table of restaurant guests who had just left. “I can’t help you. I haven’t heard from her. She could be dead for all I know. And the cops won’t do anything about it.”
“Of course they won’t. I don’t understand why you didn’t come to me about this.” I clenched my hand around the receipt paper.
Bianca brought her tray up from where it had been positioned in her armpit, placing it steady across her palm.
“Why would I go to you? You’re just a chef, as far as I know.
” She gestured at the note. “I can’t say anything else, I promised her.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish up with these last few tables—”
I reached out and grabbed the tray in her hand, stilling her. “Please, Bianca. I want to help her. Tell me what you know.” I tried to keep my stance from seeming intimidating. I wanted her to know I was sincere, even though I was gritting my teeth.
She sized me up with her watchful glare before letting out a small sigh.
“Teddy is—was Phoebe’s brother. He was kind of a piece of shit.
Always on and off drugs, in and out of jail.
Anyway, he got involved with some shady people at that club.
It was the entire reason she started working there, to help him pay off some kind of debt.
Things had been getting bad there for a while, and then…
" I watched a cloud of worry brew beneath Bianca’s harsh stare.
“She disappeared,” I finished for her.
“Yep.” She shook her head. “She made me promise not to tell anyone about Teddy. I know she was scared. They tried to pimp her out, but she refused.” She pulled the tray firmly against my grip. “That’s all I know. Now, can I please return to my job?”
“I’m gonna try my best to find her, Bianca.” I knew it was a stupid promise to make, but I needed her to know I’d try. She only gave me a brief nod in response and then went back to work.
Back in the office, I sat down next to Lucy with my laptop in front of us for our video call with Emile.
I knew there’d be a lot to talk about. Now Teddy was dead, that meant someone else would be taking his place.
Likely someone with more experience and harsher intentions.
I also needed to find a way to track down Wrangler.
The burner I took from Marty had remained silent, and I was worried Wrangler already knew I went to see him.
“So, Lucy,” Emile’s subtle New York accent drawled through the speaker of my laptop, “I’ve been wondering when I’d finally get the chance to meet you.” He glanced at me in the camera, with an unsubtle wink.
“Hi, Emile. I guess I should be thanking you for everything you’ve done to help with this.”
“No thanks needed, this is what I do.”
Lucy nodded. After our discussion about CIPHER earlier, she seemed to understand what he meant.
“What do you have for us?”
“Buckle in, kids.” Emile began by showing us camera feed from several weeks ago outside of The Wire. He slowed down the footage and zoomed in toward the front doors.
“Holy shit!” Lucy’s hand gripped mine under the desk.
It was them. The two pricks who started this whole mess in the first place.
Behind them was none other than Teddy Griffin.
His ghost memorialized on the grainy screen in a dark hoodie and sly walk.
A skinny-looking figure with a cowboy hat and a bandana that covered his face held the door open, and a few other men I didn’t recognize strolled in after him.
It was hard to see much beyond the fuzzy grain on the video.
“These faces probably look familiar.” Emile paused the playback, circling Chad and Gabe with his cursor. Rage blistered through my veins as he zoomed into their faces.
“Chad and fucking Gabe,” she confirmed.