Page 100 of A Dirty Business
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking someone’s putting shit in her head, someone who has reason to be angry at me.”
“That fucker, if he did that.”
“We handed him over to Uncle Steph. We cleaned up after him. I’m guessing he wasn’t too appreciative of how we handled his situation.”
“He should’ve been. That prick is too entitled. If you’re right and he did this, what the fuck are you going to do? Because he’s fucking with family business, and your family business is my family business. I can’t predict what Stephano will do, but I can tell you how my uncles will handle him. Especially since they’ve been treating him with kid gloves over the years because of you and me.”
My dad was dead if he’d plotted to hurt us, found out about Jess, and gone from there. That meant finding Remmi. Manipulating her, filling her head with whatever fucking lies he’d filled her head with, and now this was the end result. Jess was put on blast with her career.
He did all that, and that meant he knew about me and Jess.
My tone went real low. “He did this, I’ll kill him myself.”
I didn’t care what the consequences were.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
JESS
“Val.” I called her as soon as I was on the elevator, as soon as I’d heard who was behind it. I was beyond the point of controlling myself. This little woman-child, blowing up my entire life? Goddamn their fucking family genes. I was done.
“Hey.” She sounded guarded. “Where are you?”
“Remmi West. That’s who put out the order.”
“What?” She laughed. “The Mafia princess. Doesn’t she reside in Vegas half the time? Why would she do that to you? She’s gotta know how that makes you look.”
“She knows. She’s got some crazy idea that our parents had an affair and that’s why her mom took her own life.”
“Whoa.”
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out, ignoring anyone in my path and heading right for my state car. “Exactly.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I need to know where she is.” I was in the car and hit the speaker volume so it switched to the car phone.
“You want me to find her?”
“I want to find her before anyone finds her.”
“What are you going to do?”
I expelled a ragged breath, pulling into traffic. “I have no idea right now. Arrest her?”
“She’ll deny everything. And for what?”
“Putting my life in danger? Falsifying a report?”
She laughed, but it was cut off shortly. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious, but she did the order on the streets. Nothing’s official. And no one will testify against a West. You know that. Let’s run by option B.”
“I’m going to kick her ass.”
“I can stand behind that one.”
I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so serious. “Val, I mean it. I want to find her first. Can you ask your cousin? He works in the organized crime unit.”
