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“You’re saying I need to be careful when dealing with Sebastian.”
“I just think you’re underestimating him,” he says. “He might not act like it, but he’s got resources. Valerio was always worried he’d lose his way. He held him back when he was alive. Plus, Sebastian genuinely cared about his best friend. But now that Valerio’s dead, there’s nothing holding him back.”
“Good. I want him to come at me. Maybe I can finally get rid of the son of a bitch.”
Dominic’s grey eyes study me for a couple of seconds.
“He would have been proud of you.”
“Who?”
“Valerio,” he answers simply. “Later, Ramirez.”
He walks away then, leaving me standing there to ponder his words.
“What do you think, Vlad?” I ask, turning to look at my senior guard.
He shrugs. “I couldn’t get much of a read on him, boss.”
“Yeah, me neither,” I mutter, placing my hand on the railing and staring off into the horizon.
“Do you want me to put a tail on him? Figure out where he lives or maybe who he is?”
I smirk. “I get the feeling a man that’s kept his identity hidden for so long won’t be found out so easily. Plus, you heard him—people get killed when they try to find out who he really is.”
“So we back off? He seems dangerous.”
“This is the Cosa Nostra, Vlad. We’re all dangerous. Dominic’s an asset. One that happens to work for me,” I state. “Instead of wasting time on him, I want you watching Sebastian.”
“What do you think he’s planning this time?”
“Something that’s going to get him killed.”
Aurora’s in a good mood when I pick her up later that day. She spends the entire car ride singing along to old pop songs playing on the radio. It would be nice if she wasn’t incredibly tone-deaf. She nudges my shoulder in the middle of belting out the bridge of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal.
“Come on, Nicky, sing along! You like MJ.”
I grin. “Sure I do, but I’m one of those normal people who can recognize their strengths. I don’t need to sing along when I can listen much better.”
“Boo,” she jeers. “You’re no fun, Nicky.”
“I’m lots of fun,” I say with confidence.
She rolls her eyes before facing forward and continuing to sing.
I wait until the song is over before ruining her good mood. I hate to do it, but I’ve got a couple of things I need to say.
“Baby, I need to tell you something,” I start.
She faces me again, eyebrows raised. “Does it have something to do with the flowers in the back?”
Before I picked her up, I stopped at the florist to buy three bouquets of white roses. They were my mom’s favorite flowers.
“We’ll get to that,” I say slowly. “First, I wanted to talk about our trip to New York this weekend.”
She grins. “It’ll be nice to see Lucia again. I miss her like hell, and she’s excited too.”
“I can’t come with you, Aurora.”
