Page 96 of Contempt

Cree.

Yeah.

Just his fucking luck.

Today couldn’t get any worse.

Renzo was quick to jump into the Benz, and shut the door. He pulled back onto the road, and did a U-turn right there before heading back out onto the main drag as he answered his handler’s call. It’d been a while since Cree had called him, so Renzo didn’t think he would be able to get away with ignoring the man’s call today. He’d backed off a little after sending Corrado with his warning, and Renzo respected that.

Appreciated it, too.

He wasn’t about to test the man’s line.

“Ren here,” he said into the phone.

“I need a report, New York,” Cree said.

“On what?”

Cree let out a dry laugh. “The only thing you’re supposed to be doing, Ren. I don’t know if you’ve been so busy elsewhere that you forgot, but your job right now is to be following a certain mark, and reporting back when I call about it.”

“Actually, my reports are supposed to be once a week, thanks.”

“So, this week, it’s two.”

Renzo’s molars ached from how fiercely he was clenching his jaw. It wasn’t even Cree, but just this whole fucking day. “There’s nothing to report—nothing any different from the usual shit I’ve been reporting about Christian Savino. Pass the message along to my boss. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

For whatever reason …

Cree hummed under his breath. “Really, nothing?”

“No.”

Christian was still doing the same shit he had been doing since he arrived in New York. He went to the same places, and met up with the same people. He was doing business with the Marcellos, or rather, now he was forcing them in to doing business with him. That was all the same shit Renzo had already been reporting to Cree to tell M over and over again.

It wasn’t anything new.

“Same shit, different day,” Renzo said.

“You’re sure?”

“Cree, I said—”

“Your boss … M, I mean, has it on very good authority that Christian had a meeting today. He has good reason to suspect you would have been in attendance at that meeting, or that you might have information to pass onto him about it. Are you telling me there was no meeting?”

Renzo stilled in the driver’s seat, and his fingers tightened around the steering wheel. Maybe it was something John had said in the restaurant that finally made shit click in his head, or it could have been Cree basically helping him out here.

He’d assumed Lucian Marcello knew about Christian, and the shit happening in the city because of the man’s presence. He thought that because he was sure things had been said in passing that suggested Lucian knew. Didn’t Lucia talk to her dad about it when she was with him during his chemo?

Renzo couldn’t be sure.

But John …

John had said not to tell Lucian. That he didn’t know—he didn’t want him worried when he should be focusing on his health.

The thing was, Renzo’s boss—the elusive M—had been watching this whole thing play out from afar through Renzo, in a way. He’d been getting regular updates; the kind of information that would be passed along to any member of the Marcello family when it came to Christian’s involvement in their business and life.

M didn’t have interest in hurting Christian. He didn’t seem to care about the fact that the man had meetings with other people; he just wanted the basics of his work, and behavior. Where he was, what he was doing, and who he was doing it with. And then the Marcello thing …