Page 47 of Her Keeper
“The bigger problem is that we have someone embedded in the family. Monica Hart knows more than Penny could ever have given her. She knows almost everything. Someone high up is feeding her information, and I shouldn’t have to tell you how dangerous that is.”
Now my father did speak. He looked up at Joseph, bared his teeth, and said, “As dangerous as my sons falling for the first whores to throw themselves at them, regardless of what families they belonged to? I don’t have to tellyouthat your taste is highly questionable, Joseph. Yours and your brother’s.”
I could feel Joseph’s skin get hot, but he had a long history of dealing with my father’s insults.
He blew him off in a way I wasn’t sure I would have been able to.
“Brooks recognized this guy. She wouldn’t tell us who he was, but the fact that she recognized him told me enough to know that I needed to do some digging. We put some of our people on it and it turns out he belongs to the Massimo family. He’s one of the nephews.”
He paused to let that sink in—to see if my father finally showed some form of understanding—and I tensed. The Massimos were legends in New York. The oldest and most powerful family here, and the only family that didn’t take part in the leadership councils the rest of us attended. They acted like they were the only family in New York. Didn’t work with anyone else and didn’t involve anyone else in their schemes. They were richer than anyone else in town and though we didn’t know how large their family was—it was impossible to know when they never let anyone else in—rumors had been flying for years that they wanted to run the entire city on their own.
They wanted to eradicate all other families.
I had no idea how true that rumor was or where it would have come from, but that made them dangerous. The fact that they were ghosts made them even more threatening.
It’s awfully hard to fight someone when you don’t know who you’re fighting, where they might come from, or how big an army they can send at you.
And evidently that was all it took to get my father’s attention.
“What?” he asked, his voice hoarse.
“That’s right,” Joseph said. “Anthony Massimo, or that’s our best guess. A nephew. A musician and not usually involved in family business, but I’m betting that’s exactly why they used him for this job. He’s not known as part of their leadership, so he can’t be traced back to the family. I don’t know how Brooks knows him, but her hesitation tipped me off immediately. He doesn’t work for anyone but family. He must be taking orders from his uncle.”
“And if the rumors are correct, they more money than God,” I added. “Plenty of money to pay another family to do their dirty work.”
My father’s face went several shades paler at that, as the pieces started to fall into place. The Carusos. All the money they’d been throwing around. Joseph and me constantly wondering, aloud and in my father’s direction, how they were managing to pull off what they were pulling off.
And all the other things that had happened, that they couldn’t have pulled off at all.
“We think they’re using the Carusos to do their dirty work. Try to knock us down,” I said, just in case my father wasn’t smart enough to figure it all out. “Using someone else so we’re shadowboxing. As Joseph and I have been saying.”
Unfortunately, my statement brought his attention back to me, and his expression turned ugly again. “And I suppose you think throwing this in my way will make me forget what your little girlfriend did. She sold us out. She soldyouout. You think I’m just going to forgive that?”
“Yes,” I said sharply. “Because we have bigger problems. And because I love her. If you go after Penny, we’ll lose Alfonso. We’ll lose Sloane and Brooks. The Brennans will desert you. You’ll alienate me and Joseph, and potentially Dante. Half your men will leave with us. You’ll take your own family down before the Massimos can do it for you. Is that what you want? Is your need to maintain control so big that you’re going to destroy the family just to try to lord it over me? The Massimos are gunning for you, Father, and you need allies. Now is not the time to make enemies.”
It wasn’t the argument I wanted to make. I wanted to scream that he was being an ignorant bastard to even consider going after Penny when there were bigger problems. The Massimos. The spy in his own house.
But my father never reacted to emotion. He reacted to business. And telling him that he was going to kill the entire family meant speaking to him in the only language he understood. I’d always been better at that than Joseph, and though it was taking every ounce of my will power to do it, I knew that right now, it was the only way he’d listen.
He stared at me for a long time, looking as though he was thinking through my statement and trying to find a hole in my logic. He wouldn’t. I’d gone through that statement with a fine-toothed comb, workshopped it with Joseph on the way here.
It was solid. Every word of it was true.
Finally he nodded.
“That’s why I like you, Michael. You think with your head rather than your heart. Though your dick seems to be getting in the way. I’ll spare Penny for now, but only because she came through for me on the deal she made. If she fucks up again, I’ll slit her throat myself. In the meantime, I want to know what the Massimos and Carusos are after. I want to know what their next move is. And I want you two to find out for me. Now. Before they come after us again.”
21
PENNY
Iwas back at the window watching, trying desperately not to worry about Michael. He would be fine, I told myself. He was a grown man and far more used to things like secret meetings with the head of a major crime family than I was. He had his brother to protect him if anything went wrong, and Dante and Duca at the house, if it came to that.
And if I could survive going into the lion’s den, he could. I had complete faith in him to handle whatever needed to be handled.
Though my quick, nervous glances out the window would have said otherwise.
The truth was, I was trying very hard to override my natural instinct for panic at the slightest hint that something might be wrong. Penny from two weeks ago—from one week ago!—would have been running around like a chicken with her head cut off right now. She would have been screeching about the danger he was putting himself in and waiting for someone to step in and save the day.
