Page 95 of The Woman in the Hollow
The boss man?
I mean, yes, Dante was technically the boss around here. But no one else would consider him that. The other employeesreferred to him as ‘the owner’ if they spoke of him at all. Domenico was the closest to being called the ‘boss man.’
There was just something about the inflection, though. In the phrasing.
He didn’t mean the boss of the garden center.
He meant the boss.
As in his boss.
His capo.
This was one of Dante’s men. One of the men he trusted with his own life. And, perhaps even more importantly to him, the lives of his mom, sister, cousins, and nieces and nephews.
Anger, hot and unexpected, burned through me, boiled in my blood.
I might not have known a lot about the Family business, but I did know that the thing that mattered most was loyalty. And this man betrayed that, betrayed Dante.
I wasn’t aware a growling sound escaped me until Ant’s gaze cut back to mine. I swear I saw a silent warning there.
I had to do something, say something.
Like he was reading my mind, Ant gave me a tiny head shake.
“I’m not… we’re not…”
“You think the whole fucking neighborhood didn’t hear you this morning?” he asked.
My blood went cold.
Not from being overheard, but from having my private business spread around. But from how deep the betrayal went.
Dante told me that he’d switched up the guards, making sure his most trusted soldiers were taking care of his family and his home.
Whoever this was, Dante trusted him implicitly. This news was going to cut deep. Provided I lived to tell him.
“I don’t even know who you are,” I told him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Information,” he said.
Information? What the heck could I possibly know that he wanted?
“I don’t know anything about the organization.”
To that, I got a snort.
“I know that. Tight-lipped fucks. But you do know the account number.”
The account number.
I did.
I did know that.
Once Domenico decided he trusted me, he started letting me do the drop at the bank. He’d empty out the register and safe, count it out, then put it in a bag for me to bring to the bank, where I’d grab a deposit slip, write out the account number and amount of money, then leave it with the people with the big safe and lots of security cameras and alarms.
I never really realized how valuable that information was. To anyone. But especially to someone who might be close enough to know how the business ran.
