Page 50 of Bought By the Mafia

“You had a meeting with Mr. Lewis. He is coming over.”

“Schedule it for tomorrow and everything else I have today.”

Her mouth gaped. She could not hide her shock. I rarely left the office during the day. It felt odd for me to leave this early as well. “You’re leaving for the day?” she asked.

“Yes. Is that surprising?”

“N-no,” she stammered.

The elevator dinged, the doors opened, and Lewis came through. My assistant glanced between the two of us, unsure what to do. She looked like a petrified bird. I took her out of her misery and said to Lewis. “I was heading out. Let’s reschedule.”

“I have found out some information you might want to know,” he said.

My heart skipped a bit. “About Simona?”

He shook his head. “But I think you might want to hear it.”

“Fine,” I said. I went over to the elevator and pressed the button. “Tell me on the way down.”

“It’s about Allison,” he said as soon as we entered the elevator.

“What did you find out?”

“It’s not good. Remember the boyfriend she was running away from? Turns out she doesn’t have one. It’s a friend.”

“Her friend beat her up?”

“No. Well yes.”

“You’re not making any sense. Lewis.”

Lewis turned to face me. “It’s a long story, but basically my guys had been trying to track down this Carter guy you told us of. He was pretty elusive. Turns out, dude never existed.”

“She made him up?”

“Yes, and no.” He raised a finger. “Carter does not exist, but a friend who beat her up does. I can’t prove it definitively, but I think her friend beat her as part of a rouse.”

“Whatever for?”

“That part I don’t know, but she came to your place battered and bruised, didn’t she?”

If he was suggesting that Allison got herself beat up to in order to gain sympathy from me, then he must have missed something or gotten something wrong. For all of Allison’s faults, deceit wasn’t one of them. She was up front about everything. Hell, my last night with Allison was proof of that. “She did, but I don’t think she was making it up. What would be the point?”

Lewis tilted his head to the side as if to say I was wrong. “We also found out she has been stalking your wife.”

“The fuck?” The elevator came to a halt at that moment and the doors opened, but I made no move to get out. Lewis, who was less shaken than me stepped out. I followed him as we made the way to my car. Johnny was already standing by the door.

“Allison has been seen near your apartment and your wife’s store by my men several times.”

“That doesn’t mean she’s stalking Simona. They’re friends.”

“I personally saw her several times, spending hours at a time in a car parked directly across the street from where Mrs. Morelli’s shop is not bothering to interact with her. She had binoculars. She would also follow Mrs. Morelli’s car.”

I still could not believe what he was saying. Stalking. Creeping from afar. It did not sound like the sophisticated and aloof Allison I knew. She’s never cared about the people I’ve been with before. Was it because of what I said? “Do you have any idea when this started?”

“From what I can find, immediately after you got married.”

We had reached the car by now, and Johnny was opening the door. I stopped, shocked at what he was saying and the implications behind that statement. Had I missed something when it came to Allison? I had taken Johnny and removed him from Simona’s retinue. She had complained about having two men following her around. She said it made her feel like a mobster. I wanted to please her, so I had relented, but I insisted she keep Mickey. I prayed I had not made a fatal mistake.

---