Page 34 of Deal with the Devil
He falls silent again, though I can sense his discontent. Adagio’s more expressive than Maurizio ever could be, even when he’s not trying to be.
A scowl spreads onto my face. “Speak your mind, goombah. What is it? What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing just… you know…” He gives a shrug, turning his face toward the car window to watch the skyscrapers go by. “I’ve known you a long time, Rafael. Almost as long as anybody, right? You know, considering nobody really knows you from before. But I’ve just been noticing some… differences.”
“What sort of differences?”
I’m genuinely curious despite my short-tempered tone.
“You’re usually on top of things. Punctual. Strategic. Always a step ahead of everybody. And lately…”
I can’t even counter the criticism. He’s correct that lately I’ve been a mess. More than a mess, I’ve been forgetting things and spacing out for long periods of time. Being the prideful man I am, it’s difficult to admit.
I scratch at the scruff that’s supposed to be my beard, but it’s overgrown and not as trim as I usually keep it.
“You’re right. I’ve been off. It’s this thing with Portia’s disappearance,” I sigh. “We’re coming up on a week and we’re no closer to finding her.”
“Jayla says she can’t stall with the parents much longer. We need to decide how we’ll handle the situation if it gets out.”
My head throbs at the thought.
I haven’t even begun to think about how to handle what seems like the inevitable—the public discovering investigative journalist Portia James has gone missing. She’s now known to a national audience. It’ll be news across the country, and given her track record reporting on organized crime, it’ll ignite a thousand different whodunnit theories…
“You hear about the dead body the DC police found?” Adagio asks.
My head snaps away from the window, my tone sharper. “What dead body?”
“It’s been all over the news—Chuck Whitmore was found dead. Authorities think his body was dumped into a landfill about a week ago. He was bludgeoned to death. He’s been missing since…”
“Since when? Spit it out.”
“The same night as Portia. It’s odd, isn’t it? Didn’t she work under him at ANC?”
Yes.
And he was the asshole who had upset her at the Dominion Gala.
I think back to the bloody shirt in my hotel room the morning after. Had I gone and murdered Whitmore without realizing it? But that still didn’t explain what happened to Portia, and she had been in the hotel room with me…
We arrive at the new warehouse where we’ll be housing some of our product. Some of my associates are waiting outside to greet us. They’re visibly anxious, casting nervous smiles and holding out shaky hands for a handshake.
“Show me the premises,” I say, my tone flat and bored.
We begin the tour of the facility, my mind immediately wandering. The tour guides prattle on and on about how the warehouse is big enough to store weeks’ worth of product and how it will be temperature controlled to ensure the Nectar will be preserved at all times, no matter the weather outside.
“We have security cameras that cover the entire floor,” he boasts, then shoots me another one of his nervous, toothy smiles. “And that obviously doesn’t even account for your men, which I’m sure will be on top of guarding the product as well.”
From the ground floor we head into another area that will serve as an armory for my men. This is in case there’s any trouble without warning. You can never be too safe when warring with another family.
The fidgety tour guide draws open the door and steps aside for me to walk through first. I step inside and find myself in the cell with Joseph Tuco.
He’s battered and bruised in his chair, leaking blood like a faucet. I’m standing over him, brass knuckles strapped to the back of my hand.
I’ve been beating the shit out of him. The boy’s in hysterics. He’s sobbing,beggingfor his mother.
Air heaves out of me from how exerted I am and how hard I’ve been swinging. I stumble half a step back and then turn away from him altogether, reaching up at my face. My palmslides over the familiar contours of the leather mask I’ve worn so many times before.
That I don’t even remember putting on.
