Page 36 of The Woman with the Handcuffs

“I’m gonna need to hear more details. You were pretending to be restrained?”

“Yep.”

“While she… went to get a cast. Then came back to… what?”

“Eat Chinese food mostly. Then fall asleep from her pain meds.”

Which were still sitting on my table.

Her wrist had to be throbbing.

“How the fuck long has she been here?”

“Thirty-six hours. Give or take. She gave herself a panic attack, threw up, and passed out the first night.”

Leo was taking the whole thing a lot more seriously than I had, but a snorting laugh escaped him at that.

“So, not a pro, we can assume.”

“Her name’s Caitlin Hall. She’s the missing trucker’s kid.”

“Oh, shit,” he said, exhaling hard. “She thinks we have her dad.”

“Yep.”

“You gotta be a whole other level of desperate to hold a Made member of our Family captive.”

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Still don’t see why you played along for so long.”

“I knew I had a text out to you in case shit went south.”

“Still.”

“I dunno,” I admitted, grabbing the bag of bagels. “It was interesting.”

I could feel him watching me, probably seeing way more than I wanted him to. That was the problem with siblings, wasn’t it? They could read the lines you didn’t think they could even see.

“You were having fun.”

“‘Fun’ might be pushing it. But I was entertained, at least.”

I grabbed a sesame bagel.

“There’s butter and cream cheese in the bag. I know your ass doesn’t keep shit in the fridge.”

I grabbed the butter and made my way to the kitchen. Leo grabbed an everything bagel and the cream cheese and followed me.

I still believed the only reason all my siblings and I didn’t end up in all-out brawls all the time was because we all liked different food. And, as we got older, had different tastes in women.

“So what now?” he asked.

“Now,” I said, taking a bite of the bagel. “I get Zeno to give me her address.”

“Because now you’re locked in.”

“That sums it up, yeah.”