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Some of those fans could get overzealous.
“I’ve got to do this. You know that. And this is the first chance we’ve had to get close to De Leon.” With that, she ended the call.
Alejandro De Leon.
She’d wanted to go after him as soon as she’d learned he might have something to do with her dad’s death. The night she’d heard his name mentioned by Elsie and Jake, she’d raced up to her bedroom to call the others.
Thankfully, they’d managed to talk her out of her stupid idea. Getting close to De Leon took some finesse and work. If she’d tried before everything was set up, then she’d have failed.
Or worse, gotten his attention and ended up dead.
De Leon was a bad guy. Isaiah’s research into him had built a picture of a dangerous, smart, and powerful man.
No. This was much smarter. Even if it had been hard as hell to wait and plot. He was the only lead he had for how her Dad died. And maybe why Mama had taken off the way she had.
Abandoning her.
Still, he might not have any answers, though. This could all be for naught. Years of planning, and she might end up no further ahead than she was now.
Maybe Mama left because she got sick of taking care of you.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. That wasn’t what happened. Alejandro De Leon had to know something about her dad’s death. Isaiah had tried to find answers down other avenues, but they couldn’t just go around asking people if they knew how he’d died. Isaiah had tried to get hold of any police or coroner reports, but there was nothing.
De Leon was the only clue she had.
She was going to move forward with the plan. Get close to Alejandro De Leon and find out what he knew.
Or die trying.
As soon as she walked through the doors of the upscale restaurant, the manager was on her in a flash. She’d worked here for close to a year now. She’d needed experience to get a job at a place this upmarket.
Gaining Martin’s trust had been slow going. She’d wanted to bulldoze ahead with the plan. But the others had cautioned her to go slow.
If they took Starla, the usual back room server out of the picture too early, then Martin would just give the job to someone else who’d worked there longer.
So she’d worked hard like a good little employee, taking every shift offered, even when she’d felt dead on her feet with exhaustion and the effort of smiling and taking customers’ bullshit had started to take its toll on her temper.
Cat wasn’t known for her patience or her control. So these last few months had been hell.
But tonight was the night.
De Leon was due to come into the restaurant for a poker game out back. An illegal poker game. With some of the worst criminals in the city.
Cat had someone slip something into Starla’s coffee this morning. She got the same coffee from the same shop every morning at eleven.
Yeah, Cat kind of felt bad about making the other woman sick. But . . . Starla was also a bitch. Cat couldn’t prove it, but she was certain that she’d stolen her tips from her handbag one night.
And she looked down on everyone.
So if anyone deserved to spend a few miserable hours on the toilet, it was her.
And really . . . she should change up her routine. Cat was doing her a favor.
“Cat!” Martin said in his fake French accent. She didn’t know how people thought that was real. “Cat, thank God you are here!”
Cat gave him a feigned wide-eyed look of shock. “Martin, what’s wrong? You look worried.”
“Starla is ill.”
Cat frowned slightly. “Gee, that’s too bad.”
Crap. That sounded so fake. She didn’t want Martin to suspect that she hated that bitch’s guts.
Luckily, he just nodded. “I know. I know. Poor Starla.”
Okay, that sounded off. Maybe Martin didn’t like the other woman that much either. Or perhaps he was worried about the high-rolling illegal poker game being played in the back room.
The one that she wasn’t supposed to know about.
“Here’s the thing.” Martin looked around. Then he grabbed her arm and dragged her out to a back room. She wanted to twist her arm free and teach him not to touch her without permission.
Patience.
It wasn’t like Martin meant anything by it, anyway.
But Cat didn’t really like to be touched. Not by anyone except her closest friends and Jake and Elsie.
Just some left-over trauma from the Deity and his Sentinels. May the Devil torture their souls for eternity.
Push that back. Focus.
“What is it?”
“We have a, um, a private function in the back room and Starla was meant to be their server.”
“Oh, right. And you need someone to cover? Do you need me to get one of the others?” Damn, she was a good actress.
