Page 12 of Isaac

Cracking a smug smile, he retrieves a manila envelope from the top drawer of his desk. "I had my guys do some digging into that asswipe who's been bringing girls to my high rollers." Georgie pauses and takes a deep breath. "Turns out he's one of Tony Morelli's errand boys."

Georgie's words drop like stones into the pit of my stomach as he hands me the envelope.

The name of Morelli is enough to make anyone who has crossed paths with the city's criminal underground tremble in fear.

But an underage prostitution ring?

And on our property.

Tony's too classy for that.

"Morelli, huh?" I mutter, looking through some mug shots of the guys with the goatee. Peter Tucci. Small-time criminal. A nobody in the famous Italian operation in this city.

"From what my boys could gather," Georgie rambles on, "this asswipe's got a whole network of girls and boys working for him. A well-oiled machine, cuz."

I would give anything for this fucktard to stop calling mecuz. "Has he been back since the night of the footage? The one you showed me."

"Twice. He has a woman working with him too."

"You have her info?" I ask, looking through the pages in my hands.

"Not yet."

"Dig it up."

The room is silent for a long moment, the only sound the rustling of Tucci's revealing file under my fingers. And as I do so, I swear I can hear Georgie fucking sweat.

"Should we have one of my guys talk to him?" he supplies, but his voice falters at the edges a little.

Of course, he wouldn't know to use his brain before acting.

I click my tongue, thoughts racing on an adrenaline-fueled speedway that's my mind. "We can't make any moves against Morelli just yet. Not without more information. Keep watching this tool, but be discreet. I'm going to see what's up."

"Bold move on Morelli's part," Georgie huffs out, crossing his sausage-like arms on his chest.

But The Fat Fuck is too dumb and is way out of his depth here; thrown in without the floats into this whirlpool of power dynamics swirling around our godforsaken city's underworld.

That's why that's his brightest moment.

It's going to be downhill for him from this point on.

I'll make sure of it.

I call Jeremy's burner and return to my own office where he's already sitting behind my desk, eyes flicking between the security monitors and some paperwork spread out in front of him.

I drop the folder Georgie gave me on top of the pile and say, "I need you to put someone on that guy. He's bringing his business to Eclipse without anyone's blessing. He could be working for Morelli but I don't trust Georgie's sources. Even if it's the case, there's something going on Tony may not know about."

Jeremy peeks into the folder and nods once. "You got it."

"Get someone who knows how not to get spotted."

Jeremy nods again. "Alright." He pauses, studying me for a second before venturing, "You don't really think this is linked to Morelli?"

"No, but better check it."

We are quiet, exchanging glances.

"How's the new guy working out?" I ask out of the blue. I immediately want to take the question back but it's too late.

---