Page 86 of Waste of Worth

“If you’re asking if I have recently gained the same affliction our father had and turned informant for the police, I haven’t.”

“That’s not—”

Dino stepped away from his brother, not willing to hear whatever it was Theo planned to say to him. “Later, man.”

Theo cursed under his breath, but instead of saying something else, he wisely chose to head back inside the club. Of course, not without tossing another look over his shoulder at the men still casually leaning against the car.

Now, unfortunately, those men had turned their gazes on Dino.

He made every effort to avoid the police on a good day, but being involved with the Outfit meant he always had someone watching him—usually FBI. He was almost positive they had a damn board dedicated to just him, and everything they knew about him and his position within the Outfit. Any made man got that sort of attention from the officials, and even those who weren’t made, but liked to make a fucking spectacle about their affiliation to the mob probably had their own special place in the cops’ hearts, too. If nothing else, because cops had a habit of building cases over a period of time, and then using what they had as a threat of sorts against the man to frighten them with serious jail time, or … turning rat.

Dino was not immune to that tactic simply because he had a Capo title.

Especially considering his uncle was the underboss of the operation, and Dino’s own father had once been a rat for the officials, it all swirled around to leave him with a big, fat bullseye on his back. He wasn’t sure if they thought he was the weak link in the chain that made up the Chicago mob, or what it was, but over the years, Dino had been approached more times than he cared to admit by police. They almost always approached him under the pretense that they just wanted to talk.

Nothing else.

Talk.

Dino wasn’t up to talking with police, so like he had all the times before, he kept his head down and focused on getting the hell out of their presence as soon as he possibly could. Apparently, it wasn’t going to work with these men, not that he thought it would.

“DeLuca, got a minute?” the shorter of the two detectives shouted at him.

Glancing up at the overcast sky, Dino blew out a heavy breath and silently told whoever was supposed to be looking out for him up above that they could take a flying fucking leap off the closest high wall.

“Not today,” Dino said never once giving the men his attention. “Busy day; call my lawyer and he’ll set up a time.”

Dino was even kind enough to rattle off the number to his lawyer for the fools, hoping to God that they would take the hint and run with it.

Run far away from him.

“It’s not the sort of thing you need a lawyer for, DeLuca,” the other detective said.

The two detectives crossed the few parking spaces between their car and Dino’s, putting less space between them until there was nothing left but a couple of feet. It instantly made Dino nervous, setting him on an edge that forced him to balance carefully between publicly acceptable behavior with police that wouldn’t get him arrested, and privately acceptable behavior for the Outfit that wouldn’t get him fucking killed.

It was the kind of edge no man in the Outfit wanted to be put on.

It was exactly why they all avoided cops like the plague.

It only took one single whisper from one person to another that someone else had been seen talking to cops like they were friendly and there the man would be—fucked.

He might as well have signed his own death warrant.

Dino did not want to be that man.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Dino slightly turned his shoulder and back to the detectives, letting them know he wasn’t open to talking while also making his body language clear for anyone else who might see that he didn’t want or invite this attention. It was a game he had learned to play well, especially after seeing other men—men like his own father—be slaughtered for their mistakes with police.

“Are you deaf?” Dino asked, his gaze sweeping the parking lot as he spoke. “Or did you not understand when I said I’ve got a busy day?”

“We understand.”

“Then take a hint and get lost.”

“We’re good. Agents Stanley and Courtly from—”

“Fuck,” Dino uttered, pulling his keys out and hitting the unlock button on the fob.

Yeah, he’d messed up.