Page 11 of Tristano

I look down at the cuffs and smile. It’s an oddly thoughtful gift. One that only someone on the other side of the law would think of. I hate what Tristano does, and I know I should stay away, but I can’t. Because if he’s bad, then I am too after what we did together.

“Thank you.”

“Good luck getting out of those. I’ve been trying for days. They’re solid metal,” Mandy says, pulling me out of the past. “Whoever these guys are, they’re smart too. I had some bobby pins in my hair when I was taken, and when I woke up, they were gone.”

“Lovely.” I sigh.

I had noticed that I had been stripped of my weapons but didn’t even think about what might be in my hair.

A young girl next to me starts to wake up.

“Daddy…” she cries out softly.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” I say as I reach out to touch her back.

The girl flinches away from me, and I have to fight back the urge to scream.

“My name is Sabrina, what’s yours?”

“A-addie.”

I take in her dirty, tear-streaked face as my heart breaks. This isn’t fucking right. Nothing about this is okay.

“We’ll get out of here soon, okay? As soon as we do, we’ll find your daddy,” I say softly.

“Y-you mean that?”

“I do.”

The lie feels heavy on my tongue.

I just hope that my team doesn’t make a liar out of me.

* * *

Leaning back in my chair,I look around the conference room.

If you would have told me two years ago that I would be in this room waiting for the Don of the Catalini crime family and the head of the Westies to show up, I for sure would have thought you were lying. I don’t know what Don Bastiano Catalini saw in me when I was doing lower-level shit for him, but when he offered me the job to shadow his sister, I couldn’t pass it up. I mean, who wouldn’t want to work with a beautiful woman? There was always a chance she might give a wise guy like me a shot.

Quickly, it became apparent she had eyes for the leader of the Westies, Killian O’Reilly, which crushed those dreams. Really, who would blame the woman, though? I’m straighter than a nail, and even I’d fuck him. If he wasn’t happily married to my boss, of course.

It must be the Irish blood in him. Somehow it makes him seem majestic. Otherworldly even. I wonder if…

“Are you here?” Enzo snaps his fingers in front of my face.

“I’m sitting right next to you,” I deadpan.

“Yet you are spacing out like a cadet. Focus. They will be here any minute. Do you have everything ready?”

“Of course.” I scoff. “What do you take me for? Some kind of rookie?”

Enzo shoots me a knowing look as he sits.

So I may have fucked shit up a time or two. I’ve learned. I think.

I mentally check off the list of things I need to do as I change the subject.

“How are V and Danica doing?” I ask, diverting the conversation to his wife and child.

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