Page 68 of Iron Heart

“Antony. What’s up? Anything wrong?”

He chuckles. “Can’t a guy call his brother just for the hell of it?”

“A guy? Sure. A D’Agostino brother? Not likely.”

“Well, yeah. I guess you got me there, in a way. I do have something to talk to you about. But first things first. How are you doin’? Everything good?”

“Sure. You?”

“Yeah. Okay.”

That’s what counts as an in depth, emotional conversation for us. “So, what’s up?” I ask again, cutting to the chase.

“So…” he begins trailing off for a second. “You hear anything from Dominic lately?” I open my mouth to reply, but he continues. “On second thought, maybe I don’t wanna know the answer to that.”

“Why not? What’s up?”

“Well, here’s the thing.” I hear rustling noises on the other end, then the burr and click of a lighter being fired up. Antony inhales, then blows out. “Word on the street here in Cleveland is that Dom fucked up with an ‘organization’ up here. I’m not exactly sure what went down, but my source told me there was money involved. The story is, Dom owed money to them, he skipped town, and they’ve been looking for him ever since.”

“Fuck.” Goddamnit, I knew I should have pushed Dom harder when he showed up here in Ironwood. I should have tried harder to find out the real reason he came here. If Antony’s right, Dom must have come back to town to hide out.

In my fuckin’ house. In my club’s fuckin’ territory.

“Yeah.” Antony’s voice is wry. “I just heard about this, by the way. Dom and me, we ain’t been in touch much in a while. But I thought I should call the rest of the brothers to let you know what’s goin’ on. Just in case he shows up on your doorstep.”

I consider his words. “But you ain’t askin’ whether hehasshowed up on my doorstep.”

Antony pauses. “No. I’m not,” he says, slowly and deliberately.

“Okay. Then I ain’t answering.”

“Okay. You take care of yourself, brother.”

“You, too.”

I hang up and stare off into space for a few moments. The fact that Dom’s been incommunicado for a couple of days now seems like it might mean something’s up. I wonder if I should be worried.

Frowning, I stare down at the screen and hit Dom’s number. It goes straight to voicemail.

“Dom,” I bark into the receiver. “Call me as soon as you get this. I mean it.” I send him a text with the same message. After waiting a couple minutes, there’s no response, and no indication he’s seen it.

“Goddamnit.” I shove my phone into my pocket and go inside. I stomp through the kitchen, then down the hall to Dom’s room. The door is shut, because I hate looking at his goddamn pigsty, but I don’t hesitate to shove it open and go in.

There’s shit all over the place, as usual — a small mountain of dirty laundry in one corner, bed tossed all to shit, every dresser drawer half-open. You’d think a goddamn teenager lived in here. Christ. Every available surface has shit piled up on top of it.

Except one.

The small desk under the window is completely free of clutter. The surface is pristine, except for one object placed squarely in the middle of it.

It’s a burner phone. Plugged into a charger cord.

And it’s in such a prominent position — right out in the damn open — it seems like there has to be a reason Dom left it here. Some reason he made it so visible by being on the only clean surface in the room.

I pick it up and press the button for the home screen. It’s locked.

I don’t get it. Maybe Dom didn’t mean for the thing to be found after all. Why would he have locked it if he had?

Unless…

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