Page 36 of Dirty Pool

“You know everything, that’s what you like to say.”

“Why not tell me the next day when I asked you about your evening, then?”

“I told you—”

“You didn’t want me to worry. Utter shite, that is. Try again.”

Gabbie looked Michel’s way again, but not for long. Just enough that she could see he still wasn’t relaxed, and the men around him had not backed off at all. “I didn’t think you would approve, and I didn’t want a lecture.”

“I see.”

“Please, don’t hurt him.”

Charles cleared his throat, but didn’t look away from Gabbie. She knew, then, that she was going to get what she wanted from her father if only because she asked him for it. He wasn’t able to deny her a thing, not when she truly wanted something.

“This could cause a problem, boss,” Timothy said next to Michel—he was the one holding the fucking gun. “The Italians won’t take kindly to us picking up one of their people, and smacking him around a bit.”

“I’ll make sure they don’t retaliate for it,” Michel spoke up, his voice hoarse.

“You think they’ll listen to you?” Charles glanced over his shoulder with a scoff. “I know all about you, Michel Marcello. Here, you are not worth very much, are you? But it may be just enough to cause me a lot of problems.”

Gabbie’s heart picked up speed again, just enough to make her feel like she couldn’t breathe. Maybe this wasn’t going to go the way she hoped for it to. She didn’t know how else to help Michel, though.

“Da, please,” Gabbie whispered. “He helped me. Can’t you give him one more chance for that?”

Charles scowled as he turned back on her, and something she didn’t recognize flashed in his eyes before he nodded once. “Take the young man to the Italians, and drop him off where they will see him, and can tend to him. Drop him off alive, lads. We’ll see if he can keep his word on the rest.”

Then, her father waved a hand and arched a brow. “Fair, or no?”

“Thank you,” she was quick to say.

Charles pointed at the stairs. “Now go.”

She did.

And she didn’t look back, either.

Just in case …

Gabbie did all she could.

SEVEN

“Boss said he needed to be alive!”

“Aye, but he’s still a piece of Italian shite, Kevin.”

That was the last thing Michel remembered hearing before something hit the back of his head, and everything went black. He didn’t even get the chance to cover his head—not that he would have done that when his hands were important tools to becoming a surgeon.

The next thing he knew, he was staring up at darkness. It took Michel entirely too long to realize what was happening, or where he even was. It was the muffled sound of an engine revving, and the slight swaying in the tight, cramped space that told him exactly what was going on, and where he found himself.

In the trunk of a vehicle.

Perfetto.

Michel was seriously starting to regret taking on the agreement to hustle for Sal over the summer, but he knew he was fucked now. He gave the man his word, and he would be expected to follow it through regardless if he wanted to or not.

That’s just how it worked.