Page 70 of Driftwood Daffodil

“Careful Little Brother,” his brow arched. “I’m your underboss.”

Unfortunately he was right. Like it or not, if I took this job, that would make Romeo my boss. The mob had rules, and if I wanted in, I had to follow them. But he was still my brother, meaning I could still hit him if I wanted to.

“So,” he took a sip of his coffee then casually asked, “does your bad mood have anything to do with the Ford girl?”

“What the fuck do you think.”

That was the dumbest question I’d ever heard. Why would seeing her face every day piss me off? It wasn’t as if her brother killed ours.

“Dad was right, you know. She didn’t do anything to us.”

My face dropped into a deadpan glance, “and?”

“Do you want to fuck her?”

What the…

“No. It’s called revenge, Romeo.”

That should be a concept he was well versed in. My brother wasn’t all sunshine and forgiveness. I’d seen him do some sick shit in the name of vengeance. When I was eight-years-old he and Atlas broke some kid’s arm because he pushed me off the swing.

He lifted the mug to his lips and said, “could you?”

Could I what? Fuck her? What kind of question was that? “I guess.”

She wasn’t hideous. Actually Novalee was kind of hot. Had I thought about bending her over and taking my anger out on her ass, sure? That didn’t mean I had any desire to do it.

“What does that have to do with the job?”

“We need you to get close to her.”

My face dropped as he swallowed down a mouthful of caffeine. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Sounded more like a punishment than a job to me.

Romeo set his mug down on the counter and explained, “her sister’s a maid and we need to know if she saw something in the Fiore house.”

“So, go to the source.” That seemed like the easier solution.

“It’s not that simple,” Romeo leaned back against the counter and kicked his ankles crossed. “She’s paranoid. Shuts down every time I get close.”

Sounded like a personal problem to me. “How’s getting close to Nova supposed to help with that?”

“She’s her sister. And…”

“Girls talk.” I finished for him.

God damnit. I was starting to wonder if the Ford family was put on this earth just to fuck up my day. Don’t get mewrong, I understood his logic. Sometimes it was easier to get information from someone close to a person than from the person themselves. And girls did tell each other everything. That didn’t mean it would work in this case. Or that I wanted to do it. It all depended on how important it was.

“What did she see?”

“Dad and I kill a man.”

Fuck. That was pretty damn important.

If Nova’s sister did see something, then she could ID them to the cops. Normally witnesses were just taken care of, but given our past connection, taking her out could bring the cops to our door. Not an ideal situation in any circumstance. There was only one problem with my brother’s plan.

“Nova fucking hates me,” and I hated her. “She’ll never let me get close to her.”

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