Page 45 of Stolen Kisses
“I know. But we want the help.” Claudius returned his smile.
Vinny returned his focus to me. “I suppose it comes down to a few things really. One, what you do with the information, and two, if you can figure the rest out for yourselves. Come on spill it. I want to hear it from you?” He pointed at me.
“I think the man my sister was seeing killed her. I found her dead in a penthouse suite. She’d been seen with Donny Manello at the Crowthorne Society and we have intel that suggests she was in with someone important at Crowthorne hall.”
“Hmmmm.” Was all he said.
We all looked at him waiting with expectancy for him to elaborate or do something more than the nothing he was doing.
“Well?” I prodded. “Any of that mean anything to you?”
“Of course it does. I’m just thinking.”
Jesus, my damn nerves. I didn’t know how much more I could actually take.
“Tell me more about what happened when you found her,” he stated.
“She was surrounded by roses, stabbed multiple times and had a note on her. it said …” I had to stop, because it was hard to continue. Every time I thought of the words that motherfucker had put on my sister I felt like killing. “It said: whore this is what you get.”
Vinny stared at me. “That sounds like she had dirt on him, serious dirt,”
“She was pregnant,” I offered.
“Wow, that’s heavy stuff, but not heavy enough. That kind of thing happens on the regular in those circles. Often times they just pay the women off to keep their secrets. I’m thinking it had to be more serious than that. Also … that there must have been two of them. Two guys.”
I straightened up. “What do you mean? Why two?” I glanced at Claudius and then to Gio and Alex.
“Doesn’t fit the M.O. One killed out of anger, the other maybe lured her there. He’s the crazy. He scattered the roses. That’s the work of a psychopath who gets off on watching evil at work. The killer though he flipped out, that’s your multiple stabbings. He was enraged with your sister, that part is the note. She had dirt on him.”
Fucking hell. This was hard. “What kind of dirt do you think it was?”
“The guy you’re looking for would have been a government official. That’s the kind of guys we worked with. The secret was. If they belonged to the Crowthorne, they were in our protected circle. If she was there, then this guy was getting protection from the Antonellas and still is. It’s protection for life. That’s the pact made.”
“What about names. I just need a name.” All I needed was a fucking name.
“That’s going to be the hard part. I can get you a list, but no one is ever listed just like that. It’s initials only for protection purposes. The oath is signed in blood. I can get you a list of names from that time, but you’ll have to do the rest. The searching.”
“Thank you.” It sounded like hard work, going through a list of initials sounded like it would take forever, but it was a hell of a lot more to go on than what I’d had even five minutes ago.
Government official with a potential accomplice. Christina had dirt on him, and he killed her for it.
Another step in a direction for me. It felt like some element of triumph and made me less testy.
We left Vinny with the agreement to get the list by Monday. Monday couldn’t come quick enough for me, this had been going on for far too long.
It frustrated me that I had to wait. Frustration however, dissipated the minute Maria walked into my bar.
I was standing on the balcony looking over at the crowd. Sometimes I did that just to check there was no trouble.
I saw her come in and she got my attention big time. She looked more like what she used to look like.
Like walking perfection. She was the kind of woman who could command attention in a crowd.
20% angel, 80% devil, the temptress knew she was queen and didn’t give a flying fuck at the admiring glances that were cast her way. She knew she looked good.
Hair flowing down her back, that tight top showing off her gorgeous breasts, a mini skirt that gave me a great view of her long legs, her perfect ass, and those fuck me heels.
I’d allow her to keep those on. Everything else I’d take off nice and slow like I was unwrapping a present.
