Page 49 of Broken Pieces
“Checkmate,” Matteo says with a grin as he moves his bishop, cornering Enzo’s king.
Enzo slaps the table and murmurs, “Bullshit.”
“You’ve always sucked at chess,cugino,” I taunt, gaining a glare from Enzo as he flips me off.
To be honest, no one can beat Matteo. Even I can admit that, and I’m really good at chess. The man is a fucking genius; too smart for his own good. One of these days he’s going to get himself in some serious shit, because he’s one reckless motherfucker too.
Enzo smirks, his eyes haunting with amusement as he asks, “How’s thatcuteemployee of yours?”
This little fucker.
I glare at him without giving a response. And he just laughs as his eyes flicker with amusement, knowing damn well what he’s doing.
I’m not going to play his games.
“It’s alright, Enzo. At least you can beat me in poker.” Matteo grins.
He points a finger at Matteo. “Yeah, because I don’t let you fucking card count. If I did, you would win and you know it.”
Matteo shrugs as he leans back on the couch with his arms behind his head, closing his eyes and humming.
“Why in such a good mood, Carter?” I ask.
“Well, if you must know, Romano—”
I snap my hand up, interrupting him. “You know what? I actually don’t care. Let’s get this shit on the road. I have places to be.”
More like I can’t get back to work fast enough to see a particular redhead. I haven’t been able to get Aria out of my head since I helped her through her panic attack.
I wonder how often she gets them.
I researched how to help someone through one, and thankfully, the tips worked. Something strange possessed me and before I knew it, I was knees-deep in research. I wonder what triggered it. From what I found, it said that if you ask too many questions too fast, another one can be triggered and I just wasn’t willing to risk her safety like that. Also, it’s really none of my fucking business—even though, deep down, for some unknown reason, I want to very much make it my business.
“I have one of the guys that broke into the gallery in custody,” Matteo says.
I raise an eyebrow, intrigued. “Okay, tell me more.”
“I have my guys trying to break him, but he’s a tough fucker.” Matteo shakes his head in disbelief.
“Do we know who hired him? Or why he targeted me for that matter?”
Matteo taps his temple with his index finger twice. “We found a foreign bank account under one of his aliases that has two million dollars in it. And it has one single transaction, dated around the time it happened.”
“Damn, Damian, who the hell did you piss off that they were willing to pay two million dollars to break into your gallery?” Enzo asks, laughing.
That’s the thing—I have no fucking idea who would do this. And that’s what irritates me the most. Who the fuck is targeting me? Where do I even start looking? I have the feeling this person is right under my nose, but they are covering their tracks well.
Matteo nods, agreeing with Enzo. “That’s what I’m trying to find out. It doesn’t make sense.” He shakes his head. “How much was the painting they stole worth again?”
“Only thirty grand,” I confirm and murmur, “I wonder why they paid him so much.”
“I don’t think this was a solo job. He’s sharing that money with other people. But I haven’t been able to find anyone else,” Matteo points out.
I close my eyes, massaging my temples, trying not to lose my shit.
Matteo grips my shoulder and squeezes it. “Don’t worry too much about it. We’ll get to the bottom of it,” he says confidently.
I thin my lips, contemplating my actions. I’m so fucking close to saying fuck it, get involved, and punch the answers out of him myself. But this is why I pay people to do things for me. Being thirty-five, I’ve learned a thing or two in business, one of them is to always have people around you, because you can’t do it all.
