by Tami Lund
Joe was leaning so far forward Phoebe held her breath, waiting for him to fall on his face.
Margot glanced over her shoulder at Phoebe and then said, “I have no idea who she was. People jog up and down this street all day long. I don’t know.” She paused and then shifted to stare at Joe as she said, “Oh really? Are you tapping the police scanners now, or do you have a mole on the inside?”
Joe cursed and Margot whipped up her hand to cover the speaker while smirking at him. Then she rolled her eyes and said into the phone, “I know the drill. All too well. Yes, Gino. I got it.”
She disconnected the call.
“When’s he sending your daughter back?” Joe asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied and then snapped her mouth shut, her lips forming a thin line.
“So he did kidnap her.”
“No. He just wants to spend the weekend with her, that’s all.”
“Gino Sarvilli doesn’t strike me as the fatherly type.”
“Ten years of obsessing over the guy and you don’t know jack squat about him.”
“I’d know a lot more if you’d cooperate once in a while.”
“Like I told Gino, I’m not an idiot. I know how to stay alive.”
Joe wagged a pen in her face. “See, it’s comments like that that encourage me to keep trying. And one of these days I’m gonna win. Mark my words, Marge.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“You’d think you’d want me to win. If I put Gino behind bars, you can finally be a free woman.”
Margot scowled. “First, you’ll never get a damn thing to stick. Second, even if you did, don’t think for one second he wouldn’t be able to run his empire from prison. I’d have to go to Mars to be free of him.”
Margot’s ex was a criminal? One who was apparently really good at evading the police, from the sounds of it. Yeah, Phoebe definitely should have passed on the jog this morning.
Something flickered across Joe’s face. Defeat, maybe? But he shook it off and said, “Come on, Kyle. Let’s put out an Amber Alert. And while we’re at it, let’s go pay a visit to the missing child’s father.”
“Goddamn you, Joseph Proctor.”
He tipped that invisible hat again, and then he and the other cop left. Phoebe watched Margot as she methodically cleared coffee cups, wiped a brown ring from the table, and cleaned off the counter before dumping the remaining contents of the pot down the sink. Then she grabbed a broom and began sweeping the floor.
Phoebe moved to the kitchen door but hesitated to leave. “Are you okay?”
Margot flung the broom away, and it clattered against the tile floor, causing Phoebe to wince. “Of course I’m not okay. That asshole is going to make this situation a hundred times worse, and he doesn’t even care.”
Her voice hitched and she sank into the chair Kyle had recently vacated. She sniffled, and Phoebe scanned the room, her gaze settling on the paper towels hanging underneath the cupboard to the left of the stove. She hurried over, grabbed a wad, and offered them to Margot as she sat down in the chair across from her.
Margot wiped her face and then blew her nose. “Thanks.”
“By asshole, do you mean the detective?”
“I suppose that’s a fair question. And yes, I’m referring to Joe Proctor, the giant pain in the ass.”
Phoebe paused and then asked, “Do you think they’ll find your daughter?”
She shook her head even as she said, “Probably, since they’re heading to Gino’s right now. But he won’t give her back until he’s ready to.”
“Gino’s your ex?” Phoebe needed the clarification. So much had happened in the last two hours, she wasn’t sure which way was up—or which asshole Margot hated more.
“Yes. And I’m sure Joe will antagonize him enough to stretch that out longer than it probably would be if he’d just get his nose out of my business.”
Phoebe shouldn’t ask; she shouldn’t ask, she shouldn’t ask. She didn’t need to get any more involved in whatever the hell was going on. She shouldn’t ask…
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
Chapter Three
NOT PART OF THE PLAN
Antonio Sarvilli’s plans didn’t involve a pit stop at his older brother’s monstrosity of a mansion. His plans ran more along the lines of a boat, a lake, a popular sandbar, some booze, and hopefully a hot date. Preferably with someone who was willing to take him home and be his date all night long.
While Gino’s outrageously pretentious home was large enough to house a lake, it didn’t actually contain one. Nor did it contain the boat or sandbar. Or even the women, at least not the kind Antonio was interested in. If there were any women here, they were likely hookers, and while his brother had an affinity for them, Antonio wasn’t into paying for the goods. Nor was he into goods that had been around the block a few million times. Gino probably had a doctor on call to check him out every Monday morning, make sure he was still clean—or to clear up anything that had developed over the weekend.
The only part of Antonio’s plan that could be enacted at the moment was finding the booze, but he’d forego that in hopes that whatever the hell Gino wanted, it wouldn’t take long and he could still get out to the lake and pick up one of those hotties before all those younger studs swept in and cleaned house. Lucky twenty-year-old bastards.
Of course, if Antonio hit on women who were closer to his own age, maybe he’d get lucky on a more frequent basis. But thirty-five-year-old women did not hang out at the sandbar, unless they were doing so with their kids and husbands. Since he wasn’t really into cheating and he doubted those couples were interested in threesomes, he didn’t have a choice but to hit on twenty-year-olds.
He rounded a corner and his steps stuttered when he saw a miniature, dark-haired girl standing in the middle of the hall, head tilted as she studied a not entirely abstract black-and-white portrait of two nude women doing things this child probably didn’t need to know about just yet. He had no idea who she was or where she came from, but he stepped between her and the picture. Whoever her parents were, they’d appreciate his interference.
Although, who the hell would leave their child unattended in his brother’s mansion? Christ, he hoped she didn’t belong to one of the hookers.
The kid shifted her focus to him, and her giant blue eyes widened while her tiny pink mouth formed an O. She wore a yellow dress and had a purple backpack slung over her shoulders, and someone had worked a small braid into her hair. She’s gonna be a knockout someday.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Who are you?” she countered.
“Antonio,” he said, and he offered his hand to shake before he realized he was speaking to a child and she probably didn’t know what the action meant. But she surprised him by sliding her tiny hand into his, shaking it once and then releasing it.
“Nina. Pleased to meet you.”
“Wow, those are some manners.”
She lifted one shoulder, let it drop again. “My mom says manners are important.”
“Your mom’s pretty smart. Which raises the question: Why are you here? I don’t think many smart women hang out in this place. Gino’s not very fond of them.”
“What’s raise the question mean?”
Out of everything she could have picked from that little diatribe…
“It means pointing out something obvious that hasn’t been dealt with.” He canted his head. “Why do you look so familiar?”
She shrugged.
“Nina. There you are. I told you not to… Oh, Antonio. Hi. Hey. Um…”
Zelda. The blonde, twenty-something Gino had imported from Sweden to play nanny to his daughter, back when he was married and pretending like he was actually a dad. Because raising his kid himself would be asking far too much. Although, the last thing that child needed was to learn anything at all from her own father. Not unless she intended to be a career criminal.
Zelda was as perky and fit and smoki
n’ hot and tight as any twenty-year-old ought to be. Antonio should know, since he’d had a sample within the first week of meeting her. That had been a few years ago. Three or four, maybe.
Problem was, her second week on the job, he walked in on her servicing Gino’s favorite bodyguard. For some reason he still couldn’t explain, Antonio had gone to Gino with that information, and his brother had laughed at him for expecting monogamy.
Since a man’s injured pride was serious business, Antonio decided hot, tight Zelda was off-limits, even if the whole thing happened years ago. Unfortunately, it was a concept she didn’t seem to understand.
“You are going to the lake?” she asked, nodding at his blue-and-white Hawaiian print swim trunks. Her gaze was riveted to something south of his bellybutton, and he fought the urge to adjust his junk.
“It’s unusually warm for early June. Figured I’d take advantage.”
“Oh.” She pouted and trailed her fingers along the edge of her exposed cleavage. A lot of skin was showing. He struggled, tried, and failed to look away as she moved those digits up, up, and into her mouth.
He cleared his throat and finally managed to shift his focus to the kid. And that’s when it clicked into place. “Nina?”
“Uh-huh.”
He stabbed his thumb into his chest. “It’s Uncle Antonio. Remember me?”
Her face lit up like Christmas. How had he not realized she was his favorite—okay, his only, but if he had more, she’d definitely be the fave—niece?
Probably because she hadn’t been around for more than two years and kids her age changed a lot.
“Wait. Why are you here?” he asked the little girl.
Unless he was trying to piss off his ex-wife, Antonio was pretty certain Gino had zero interest in spending quality time with his protégé. Which meant this wasn’t good. Hopefully, his being summoned was not remotely connected to bumping into his niece in the hall.
Margot had gotten a raw deal by ending up on Gino’s radar, and as poor luck would have it, ultimately marrying him. It was a deal she’d have to suffer for the rest of her life. While she’d somehow managed to convince him to grant her a divorce, everybody knew that meant nothing other than she could live in her own house instead of this place. Other than that, she was still one hundred percent under Gino’s thumb, and she damn well knew it.
“Visiting my dad,” Nina replied, reminding him that he’d asked her a question.
Zelda reached for her hand. “We’re going to the park. You could join us,” she suggested, eyeing his shorts again.
“Can’t,” Antonio said distractedly. “Got a meeting with Gino. See ya.” He escaped before Zelda could do something crazy like flash her tits. Just because he told himself she was off-limits didn’t mean his body didn’t still desire her. The one night they’d spent together had been pretty damn memorable.
But something wasn’t adding up, and considering Antonio was the numbers guy, when that happened, he became determined to find out why. It was in his genetic makeup.
Gino’s home office was the size of an opulent apartment in New York City. Why the hell one man needed so much space was beyond Antonio, who rapped his knuckles twice against the wooden door before stepping inside. He strolled across the plush carpet, deliberately twirling his key ring around his finger so Gino could see that he was in a hurry to be somewhere.
His brother spoke in low tones into the phone he held to his ear while he watched Antonio’s progress into the room. They were five years apart in age, though Gino looked ten, maybe fifteen years older. He’d played and worked far too hard for almost his entire life, and Mother Nature had begun to let him know.
His hair, along with the goatee he maintained to hide his weak chin, were speckled with gray. There were crow’s feet next to his eyes and lines around his mouth. While his arms were huge and Antonio would still not willingly challenge him to hand-to-hand combat, Gino was definitely going soft around the middle. Maybe he needed to start banging a dietician instead of those hookers.
But despite the signs of age, when he disconnected the call and sat back in his chair, steepling his fingers and giving Antonio that steady, unblinking gaze, he still reeked of power, control, dominance.
Just like he had for basically Antonio’s entire life.
Gino had started his own dry cleaning business only a few months out of high school. Today, he owned two-thirds of the dry cleaners in the metro Detroit area and bullied the other third so they wouldn’t encroach on his territory. An impartial observer could easily get the impression he owned the goddamn world. In his mind, he probably did. Antonio couldn’t recall the last time someone had crossed his brother. Probably not since sixth grade, when he’d already been a boy in a man’s body.
“Antonio,” he said. “I need you to do a job for me.”
Antonio shook his head. “Already did my job today. Made you a cool half mil. You’re welcome.”
On paper, Gino’s dry cleaning empire made half a mil a year. Everybody—including the cops—knew he was worth far more than that. But they couldn’t prove it. Nor were they aware that his younger brother was the money man; a fucking genius when it came to investing Gino’s substantial assets. Yeah, yeah, most of the money Antonio grew was dirty—really, really dirty—but Gino paid him a lot of greenbacks to ignore that fact.
Gino slid a piece of paper across the smooth surface of the desk. It looked like somebody had taken a screenshot of a video off the computer screen. A woman took up most of the grainy pic, a decent-looking blonde, frozen in the process of talking to, based on the microphone shoved in her face, a television reporter from one of the local networks.
“I need you to befriend this woman. Find out what she knows.”
Antonio glanced from the picture to Gino. “What, like how smart she is? Like can she count to ten or something?”
“Don’t be obtuse. I want you to find out what she knows about me.”
Antonio looked at the picture again. The woman was dressed in a tank top and running shorts, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. It was hard to tell from the image, but it didn’t look like she was wearing makeup, or at least not as much as Gino’s usual taste in women wore. Take away the blonde hair and she reminded him a little of Gino’s ex-wife, Margot, actually.
“I don’t mean to bring up a sore spot, but you didn’t have much luck with good-looking, presumably smart women the first time around.”
Gino’s forehead developed deep grooves as he frowned, giving Antonio that look that told him he was in danger of crossing the line between being an irritant and truly pissing off his really scary brother. “I am not interested in her like that, you nimrod.” He sucked in a breath through his nose, took his time exhaling. “She may have, um, witnessed something this morning. Something that naturally didn’t quite happen the way she saw it.”
“Do I want to know what this something is?” Probably not. Antonio was quite content to stay as oblivious as possible to Gino’s business dealings. It was easier to enjoy the far-more-than-comfortable lifestyle his paychecks afforded him if he didn’t look too closely at the root of all that income.
That’s why no one really knew about him; he hid in the shadows, tucked away in the background, managed the money from behind his secure-as-Fort-Knox laptop, and otherwise stayed out of Gino’s day-to-day dealings. He didn’t even come to his brother’s house all that often, and they almost never went out in public together.
When Dad died, they hadn’t had any sort of burial or memorial service. Gino’d had him cremated and shipped the remains back to Italy to be buried in a small, nondescript cemetery there. Then he’d set Mom up in an assisted living facility where she’d wasted away from Alzheimer’s, and then he’d given her the same treatment as Dad. Hell, half the goons on Gino’s payroll probably thought he had no parents, had been born via immaculate conception. Not sure how they figured Antonio came along. Or maybe they weren’t even aware they were brothers.
Antonio di
dn’t mind. Pretending he wasn’t really part of Gino’s life was easier on his conscience.
“Frankie stopped by to pick up Nina, and this woman saw him. She seems to be under the impression I kidnapped my own daughter. Which, of course, isn’t true.”
Isn’t it? Antonio glanced at the closed door to Gino’s office. Today was Friday. Early June. Here in the Detroit area, most schools were still in session, at least for another week or so. “So what’s Nina doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t she be in school?”
Gino waved dismissively. “I’m letting her have a day off. Everybody deserves a day off once in a while.”
Right. “And does her mom know she’s taking the day off school?”
Gino scowled and spat out, “Margot had a date last night.”
“Good for her. Although I’m not sure what that has to do with Nina skipping school.”
Gino’s fist slammed onto his desk, rattling the sturdy, wooden contraption and sending his pencil holder skittering off the edge. “No, that isn’t good for her. She knows the rules. If she didn’t want to stay with me, she can’t be with anybody.”
“O-o-okay. I see you haven’t gotten any less psychotic over your ex. Look, I’m in a bit of a hurry here, so if you’ll excuse me…”
But before he could take a step toward the door, Gino stabbed his finger at the printout.
“Her name is Phoebe Cavanaugh. She apparently doesn’t live too far from Margot. Go introduce yourself to her, do what you do best.”
“What’s that? Make money for her?”
“Idiot. Charm her. For some damn reason, women love you. I want you to get friendly with her, find out what she knows about me, and then convince her to stop talking to the police and the media about this alleged kidnapping issue. Got it?”
Antonio shook his head. “Nope. Don’t got it. I think you’re confusing me with one of the other guys on your payroll. I don’t do front-end work for you. I’m the greenbacks guy. I make your capital grow, period. That’s the extent of my services for hire.”