The Heart of a Killer. Jaci Burton
He took a seat next to Gabe and picked up the other remote, started punching buttons. It was a war game. Piece of cake.
“What exactly do you do now, Gabe?”
He lifted a shoulder. “This and that.”
Which was the same answer Dante had given Anna—totally vague. “Which means what, exactly? That you’re a fry cook at the local burger joint, or that you’re an ax murderer?”
Gabe leaned to his left, punched a few buttons and knocked out Dante’s player on the game. “No, I prefer guns. You don’t have to get as close to the victim that way.”
Dante laughed. “Funny. But these condos are upscale, so you must be doing something.”
“Yeah, I’m doing something. Mostly freelance.”
Gabe killed Dante’s last player. Dante cursed. “Freelance sounds like illegal. What are you into?”
“You sound like Anna, always asking questions.”
“I’m not a cop, though. And you’re working for the Bertuccis now?”
Gabe started the next game. “Yeah. Paolo Bertucci. He runs the mob here in the city.”
“Your boss?”
“Yeah.”
Not the line of work Dante expected Gabe to get into. “For how long?”
“About two years.”
“Good work I guess.”
“It pays the bills.”
Working with the mob could be lucrative business. It could also get someone killed. “What do you do for Paolo Bertucci?”
Gabe was focused on the game, his fingers flying on the controller. Dante was trying to keep up, but Gabe was kicking his ass.
“Jack-of-all-trades. Anything from running errands to enforcer duty.”
“You like the job?”
“Like I said…it pays the bills.”
Working for the mob also meant you kept your mouth shut, and Gabe wasn’t stupid. Still…
“You think Bertucci’s connections in drugs had anything to do with George’s death?”
Gabe paused the game, shifted his gaze to Dante. “I don’t know. He moves drugs in this city. Doesn’t mean he’s directly involved. He leaves that to the peons.”
“Like you?”
Gabe laughed. “I’m not a drug dealer, man.”
Which meant Gabe was higher up on the Bertucci food chain than just a peon.
They used to be as tight as brothers. Real brothers, not the foster brothers they had been. There had been no secrets between them. They’d known everything about each other, had spent many nights up in their room in the Clemons house where they’d been fostered sharing all the shit they’d been through as kids. It had bonded them because their hells of abuse and shitty childhoods had been so similar.
And now they were strangers circling each other, neither of them willing to divulge their secrets.
Dante leaned back on the sofa and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Not much like the old days, is it?”
“Guess not.”
“You into something big?” Dante knew he had no right to ask, especially since he hadn’t told Gabe shit about himself.
“Just stuff I don’t want to talk about. With you, particularly, since I don’t know where the hell you’ve been the past twelve years.”
“You’ve been here the whole time?”
“No. Left right after…right after the thing went down with Anna. I had to get the hell out. That whole scene freaked me out.”
Damn. Gabe had skipped town the same time he had. “I didn’t know you’d left, too.”
Gabe slanted him a look. “I didn’t know about you, either, until after I came back. Where’d you go?”
“Dallas first. Big city, easy to get lost in. Figured I should get out of here, give Anna some space. I thought if I wasn’t around that whole mess would just disappear. Guess you must have had the same thought. How long did you stay gone?”
“I’ve been back here two years. I guess we all need to come home eventually, huh?”
Dante smiled at that. “Ellen asked me to come back for her and George’s anniversary.”
“Man, that shit sucks for her.”
“It does.” He didn’t even want to think about it. “Anyway, I agreed to come back because I figured it was time anyway.”
Gabe nodded. “So we both left right after the attack.”
“Looks like it. Roman and Jeff never left, though?”
“No, they both stayed.”
“Nothing is like I expected it to be,” he said.
“Why? Because you didn’t get a big welcome-home party?”
He shot Gabe a look. “No. I don’t know what I expected. Sure as hell didn’t expect to find out Anna was a detective. And, Roman, too. That’s a shocker. And you—look at you. All tatted up and gone biker. A real badass now.”
Gabe laughed and stretched his legs out in front of him, then popped his black shit-kicker boots up on the table. “The one thing I found out when I came back? The world around here didn’t stop turning just because I left.”
It sure as hell didn’t. Didn’t make Dante feel any better, but he’d done what he’d been asked to do, and he’d done it for Anna’s sake. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do.
It had been the right thing to do.
But at the time he’d thought Gabe would be around to watch over her. The others had been younger, not as well equipped to be her protectors.
“I didn’t know you were leaving,” Dante said. “I might have stuck around otherwise.”
“I didn’t know you had left, either. Sorry, man.”
Dante shrugged. “Not your responsibility. Anna managed okay, though. She had her dad to take care of her. How’s she seemed the past couple years since you’ve been back?”
Gabe grinned. “Feisty. Driven. She’s out to get the bad guys in a big way.”
In the short time he’d seen her at the crime scene, he could see that about her.
“Which means what, exactly? That the two of you meet up more often than not?”
“You might say that.” Gabe chuckled.
Curious, Dante leaned forward. “Something else going on with you and Anna I should know about?”
“Like what?”
He didn’t want to ask. But he needed to know. “You have something going on with her?”
Gabe frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“You showed up at her house this morning.”
Gabe let out a soft laugh and shook his head. “You dumbass. It’s not like that. I look out for her.”
“Maybe you’re not the right person to be doing that, considering what kind of business you’re in.”
“Yeah, and you think you’re better equipped to do it, mystery man?”
“Hell, I don’t know.” Dante stood and walked