One Step After Another (The After Another Trilogy Book 1)

by Bethany-Kris

  “Does my playing bother you?”

  Cree tipped his head her way. “Penny.”

  She knew it didn’t bother them.

  They gave her the room.

  “This entire conversation would go faster—and easier—if Dare just said what he wanted to say instead of trying to dance around it like I’ll willingly offer it.”

  “Why won’t you?” Dare asked.

  Like Cree, her other handler was approaching a later age in his life. Gray had started to color his hair, though, and the lines on his face gave him a visual sense that he had learned many things in his life. But the same way Cree could just look at Penny and know things, so did Dare. She wasn’t sure if that was because she wore her truths on her sleeve or if it was something else. Something about them.

  Either way, she hated it.

  “Because it wasn’t an issue,” Penny said.

  “A man that has been tracking you for years finally catches up to you while you’re on a job, causes a problem during the—”

  “After, Dare. The hit was done.”

  “Fact remains. He is an issue.”

  “Luca Puzza is just a man who knows my face,” Penny said firmly. “You’re right, he’s been chasing my trail for years, and this is the first time he got close. A stroke of luck, nothing more. It’s not something we need to act on. I handled it. Get your people on the reason why he found me, and work to make sure that doesn’t happen again. There’s no reason to make it bigger than it is.”

  Dare’s jaw tightened. A sure sign he was pissed.

  And didn’t believe her.

  He shouldn’t.

  Not that Penny would willingly say that out loud. Seeing her past right in front of her eyes had been a frank reminder of things—and people—she had been running away from for years. That didn’t mean she planned to do anything with the complication he posed.

  “He could be a problem to the grander plan, especially now that you’re slightly easier to track being in the states more often while we infiltrate and dismantle The Elite,” Dare explained. “I’m giving you the option now to allow me to correct the problem before I make the choice on my own because you leave me nothing else to work with. You know the deal, Penny. To make this work, nothing else exists ... nothing from your past, your present, or your future.”

  She understood.

  All too well.

  She also wouldn’t give the okay for Dare to make a call that would effectively end any hope that Luca would live to see the end of the week simply because he was doing what he had always done. He was only trying to find her ... she knew why, too.

  Because people loved her. She was also here because she loved them.

  It didn’t seem fair to hurt those people again by removing someone else from their life just because it might make this plan of Dare’s for The Elite a little harder to see through. That was not her problem; she just did the killing.

  It’s what they wanted.

  “Are we done?” Penny asked.

  Dare’s gaze drifted to his partner at Penny’s side with a glint she recognized. He wanted to push; to question and ask more but that had never been his MO with her. He liked Cree to do that dirty work for him ... just like the show downstairs. It wasn’t by accident that Cree knew exactly where to find Penny or that he was the only person within the large complex that had been able to reach the music room despite all the locked doors. No one got anywhere in this place without Dare allowing it to happen through his security system.

  In that moment, Cree was silent.

  He wouldn’t indulge whatever Dare was silently asking. Maybe because he didn’t care to or, perhaps, he agreed with Penny. It didn’t matter to her if they left the conversation—and Luca—alone.

  Dare gave her a pointed look. “Don’t play any games, got it?”

  “What game?” Penny widened her arms, adding, “Call me when you can tell me the next move I need to make. You know where to find me.”

  7.

  Luca

  LUCA had long become accustomed to chasing people down—his best friend included. Naz’s need to keep moving from one thing to another was only a by-product of his heavy hand in the family business. The mafia always liked to keep a man on his feet and running.

  Sometimes, it meant Luca couldn’t get a meeting in with his friend at all. Other times, it just meant he had to fit one in whenever he could. Even if that time was during a family breakfast at a restaurant in Brooklyn when they weren’t supposed to be talking any kind of business at all. Not that it ever mattered to him.

  It did, however, matter to the man who demanded the breakfast between the Donati family and Luca’s.

  He figured ...

  Rules were meant, and made, to be broken.

  Right?

  Even if breaking it meant risking the wrath of the family boss currently sitting at the head of the table and eyeing Luca from his spot as he slid into the chair beside Naz’s after entering the restaurant. Cross Donati was a lot of things. Luca had grown up calling the man his uncle even if he wasn’t related by blood. One of his father’s very best friends, he had learned to appreciate the softer, family side, of the mafia boss before anything else.

  Then, life got in the way.

  Business, too.

  He was given an entirely different kind of perspective on the man Cross could be when the situation and time called for it as Luca grew older and started to dabble in the family business. And it was that lack of ignorance about Cross that kept Luca quiet as the man continued watching him instead of going back to his previous conversation with his wife, Catherine, at the end of the breakfast table.

  He didn’t mind breaking a rule. He simply didn’t want to do it brazenly. Therein lied the difference. Or at least, it was a good enough one for Luca when it came to Cross. There were some men he knew better than to provoke.

  Cross Donati was one of those.

  “Good to see you showing your face this weekend,” came the familiar voice of his father from the other side of the table. “I figured you would still be chasing after someone’s—”

  “Zeke.”

  The quiet murmur crawled down the table from the boss’s seat to Luca’s father’s all the way at the end. It silenced everyone as it passed, his mother, sister, and best friend included. When Cross said no business at family functions—even if it was just a simple breakfast—then that was exactly what he meant. Regardless of who sat at the table.

  Luca tipped his head to the side, smiling at his ma and then nodding to his father. “Hey to you, too, Dad.”

  Zeke’s jaw tightened but that was the only sign of his irritation otherwise. “Busy week?”

  Luca lifted his leather-covered shoulders, happy to be back in his staple black jacket and hoodie for the time being. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to slap on another suit and tie for a while if he was lucky. But one never knew what the future held, either. “Busy life, Papa.”

  “Right, right.”

  “Are we eating or what?” asked Cross from down the way. “I’m starved.”

  The confirmative noise from the other Puzzas and Donatis at the table sent the boss clapping his hands and calling for the servers. Another benefit of this restaurant—the Donatis owned it. Which meant whenever a recognizable face from the family came through the front door, the employees jumped through hoops to make sure everything was perfect.

  Luca decided to put the flood of servers coming into the private dining section to his benefit while everyone else around him was distracted. The servers came in with a choice of breakfast foods on platters, stopped at every person with a choice in coffee, juice, or water, and did their job. Quiet chatter bounced from person to person.

  He turned to his friend.

  “Guess what I got?” he asked Naz.

  Naz thanked the woman pouring his coffee and blocking the view of the boss down the way before asking Luca, “What? And make it quick, you know how my father gets when we discuss any kind of business at
a dinner table with family present.”

  “A reporter ...”

  It had taken Luca an entire week after the hellish fundraiser dinner that went to complete shit to pull together a decent amount of information about what exactly went on ... but he did it. There could be only one reason why Penny had been there that night—to murder the son of the prominent politician who had been busy shaking hands downstairs while his son got a bullet between his eyes eight floors up.

  The real question was why?

  Why did she do that? Why Elijah Smithsenson?

  Why that night—when the spotlight on the Smithenson was shining brighter than ever as they rallied funds from wealthy donors?

  Why, why, why.

  He hated whys.

  And since the dead couldn’t talk—and neither could the ghost he hadn’t been able to catch—and the media had been mum on the details about the murder otherwise, Luca was left with only a few options at his disposal. He needed as much information on the murder, and the political family, as he could get his hands on. Something there would lead him to the whys he didn’t have answers for about Penny’s involvement in the murder.

  He was sure of it.

  It was the only thing that happened in the hotel that night—she was on Elijah Smithenson’s floor. The media’s lack of discussion on the murder told him that the family was trying to keep the details out of the spotlight for whatever reason.

  Police were crawling all over it.

  It had to be Penny.

  Luca figured if he could find the answers to his questions, then it might be one more thing he could use to lead him back to her. To find her.

  “One I think is willing to talk about the Smithenson family and the murder,” Luca added after a moment.

  That had Naz raising a brow. “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Or at least, the contact I spoke to said he seemed open and willing to do it. Guess the guy was on to something. He apparently had a story ready to print and everything before it ended up pulled for whatever reason.”

  Luca would really like to know that reason.

  “The Smithenson family probably didn’t like what he wrote. It’s not like it would be the first time a political family had an arm of control in the media. Shit, that’s half the fucking job there, right?”

  “What are you two talking about?”

  The question from Luca’s sister who sat on the otherside of Naz at the table had the two men growing quiet. His friend had been clear—Roz couldn’t know anything. Not about Luca’s job, the things he had found, or the shit he might find in the future. Not until they could get her solid answers and a connection to Penny.

  She felt bad enough.

  Why add to it?

  “Nothing, babe,” Naz said, leaning into his wife to kiss her on the top of her head.

  It was that moment that one of Luca’s favorite people decided to make his little presence known at the table. His godson, Cross, named after his grandfather with the attitude to match his namesake. The five-year-old picked up a slice of French toast from his plate where he sat next to his mother, Luca’s sister, and whistled so loud that he shocked the server pouring him a glass of orange juice. His laughter as the juice stained the white tablecloth said the kid had done exactly what he meant to do, especially when he smirked at his father.

  “Whoops,” little Cross said.

  “Cross,” Naz said, his sharp tone melting away the boy’s smirk.

  “Sorry, Papa.”

  “My fault,” the server was quick to say, dabbing at the tablecloth with the white towel she had previously slung over her shoulder.

  “No, it wasn’t. Someone was just being a pest,” Naz muttered.

  “Apologize to her,” Roz told her son.

  The kid sighed.

  Always dramatic.

  “Sorry,” the boy told the server.

  Not very sincerely, however.

  Win some, lose some.

  Luca kind of loved it—little Cross was a bit of a shit when he wanted to be, but the kid got it honestly whether anybody wanted to admit it or not. He was just like his father and grandfather. They had their quirks, and he had his.

  The whistling at a pitch loud enough to burst eardrums was his newest thing to do. He liked learning things and once he had mastered the action—like whistling—he did it every chance he could. Luca also taught him how to do it. Naz didn’t let him forget it, either.

  “Seriously,” Naz said at Luca’s side. “Thanks, again, for teaching him that shit, man.”

  “Language,” came the warning of the boss’s wife where she sat beside the man at the head of the table. “There are children here, guys.”

  “Right,” Naz told his mother. “Like I didn’t grow up hearing Dad call every other person a motherfucker just because he could.”

  Light chuckles filtered down at the table. At the very end where Cross sat watching the scene with mild amusement tugging at the corner of his lips, the man only shrugged when he said, “He’s not wrong.”

  “Cross!”

  Little Cross whistled again, silencing the rest of his family. This time, it was because a pretty—younger—server walked into the room, and the kid’s eyes followed her every step. He might have been only five, but the kid already had a preference. Usually blonde.

  Luca was to be blamed for that, too.

  Hey.

  They wanted him as a godfather. Could he really be blamed for passing things on to the kid when they spent time together? Besides, this shit was funny. He had to get his amusement from somewhere.

  “Cross!” came the collective shouts from his parents.

  And grandparents.

  That was Luca’s cue. He was quick to stand from the table, snapping his fingers at his godson and pointing at the doorway. “Let’s go get that orange juice out of your pants, buddy.”

  The kid glanced down but pushed out of his chair to stand when Luca came up behind him anyway. “My pants are dr—”

  “Bathroom, kid. Now.”

  “Fine.”

  Luca followed little Cross to the doorway, hearing the quiet thanks from Naz at the table. He only waved a hand over his shoulder in reply. His silent reply of, not a problem, man. Sometimes, his games with his godson got out of hand. He knew how to correct it.

  “You know better than that, shithead,” Luca told the kid who walked a few feet ahead of him in kid’s Doc Martens and a leather jacket that reminded him of his own. “And she was too old for you, anyway.”

  Little Cross turned to say something to Luca but when his gaze flicked behind Luca, he raised a brow instead. “Hey, Grandpapa.”

  “Kiddo. Head to the bathroom, yeah?”

  The voice of his godfather—the older Cross in the family— had Luca tensing a bit. There was really only one reason the boss would follow him and his godson to the bathroom, and he doubted it was to pat the two of them on the back for the kid’s antics.

  Luca nodded toward the back hallway. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

  Once little Cross had disappeared into the hallway, Luca turned to face the boss, an apology already on the tip of his tongue. Like his father would always say, it was the respect of the matter. “Sorry, I didn’t teach him that to make a scene every chance he could.”

  Cross rubbed a hand over his mouth, but it did little to hide the smirk forming on his mouth when he replied, “And yet, he does.”

  “He’s just a kid.”

  In his three-piece suit, the boss looked perfectly fit for his position with his dark stare leveled on Luca. Calm, unbothered, and cold. Luca knew that wasn’t really who Cross was under the demeanor he put forth, but he held onto it nonetheless. Anything else was bad for business.

  “And he’s not what I wanted to chat with you about,” Cross said. “He’s Naz’s kid—his problem. Besides, it’s not like he’s giving his father any less shit than Naz gave me as a kid, right? Fair is fair, and I do like to be fair.”

  Luca raised a brow, only hearing one thing t
hat interested him. “What do you want to talk to me about, then?”

  “Business. Or the business you were discussing with Naz at the table.”

  Shit.

  Nothing got past the boss.

  “I was just updating him on something he has me—”

  “Ah, he has you on a job, then. You’re still ... finding the unfindable, yeah?”

  Luca folded his arms over his chest. “It’s what I do best.”

  Cross tipped his chin down, a half nod. “Hmm. You don’t want to tell me what?”

  “Do I need to?”

  “No, of course not. You should be careful, though. Especially when looking for things that don’t want to be found, Luca. You might not like everything you uncover.”

  What in the hell did that mean?

  Cross didn’t give him the chance to ask before the man pointed at the hallway, saying, “Go get my grandson, give him an appropriate discussion about behavior while dining, and don’t discuss business at the table again. Understood?”

  Luca swallowed hard, forgetting that he was a thirty-year-old man who didn’t work for Cross Donati’s crime family. He didn’t have to be. A boss was a boss ... anyone with two brain cells knew it, too.

  “Understood,” Luca murmured.

  THE ONLY HITCH IN LUCA’S plan to meet with the reporter he believed had information on the Smithenson family and murder was the fact that the man didn’t know they had a meeting at all. Luca wasn’t really the whole set-a-date-and-time type. He much preferred to just show up and get shit done because taking people off guard usually ended better for him.

  In different ways.

  His contact that first brought the reporter to his attention was the same person that ended up giving Luca the information of where to find him, too. The shitty bar in Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t much to look at and wasn’t one Luca had visited before because when he needed to drink himself into oblivion, a place like this wasn’t where he liked to do it.

  But it didn’t matter what he liked.

  William Doley liked the place just fine by the looks of the half-empty glass of whiskey sitting in front of him at the bar beside an almost drained bottle of Jack Daniels. The pill bottle two inches to the left of the man’s glass was a little concerning once Luca was close enough to read the name of the anti-anxiety meds.