Page 73 of Deathless & Divided

Damian chuckled. “Theirs, anyway.”

“Something like that.”

“Could have been the East Side gang,” someone put in. “We’ve had a lot of issues with them.”

“No,” Dino said, jumping to the main conversation. “It wouldn’t be them. They’re the type of thugs that enjoy bragging about the shit they’ve done. We would have known already if they were the problem.”

“Very true,” Terrance said, his gaze on the tumbler glass of whiskey in his hand. The boss was another man in the place that seemed to be taking the entire scene in silence. He always had liked to observe more than participate. “We’ve cleared out a lot of those little problem gangs, anyway. I don’t think that’s where we should be looking.”

“It was white,” came a whisper from the far, shadowed corner.

Damian cringed at the pain in the man’s voice. Riley Conti didn’t even look away from the glass of rum in his hand as he spoke the words. He was still shaking and Damian had been counting. That was the man’s fourth glass in an hour. Riley was shitfaced and thoroughly working on forgetting what had happened.

It was going to hurt a hell of a lot more when he was sober again.

It always fucking did.

“The car was white,” Riley spat. “It’s not a fucking gang. This is … personal, right? I mean, if they wanted to go after the boss, why not just damn well do that, huh? S’not about the boss, you goddamn idiots.”

Terrance’s brow rose but for once, the Outfit’s leader didn’t correct his front boss’s ignorance and rudeness. Your wife getting killed was a pass on that shit, obviously.

“What, inside job, then?” Ben DeLuca asked.

Dino stiffened beside Damian.

“I didn’t say that,” Riley said, his words slurring at the end. “I said it’s personal, meaning someone pissed someone else off and they’re making a point.”

The thirty or so men chatting quietly in the strip club silenced instantly with that suggestion. While they had all been discussing back and forth for a good hour about possibilities and what needed to be done, the very whisper of an inside job stopped them all. Immediately, men glanced between one another in a hushed state, tension climbing higher with every passing second. Damian could see the unspoken questions, accusations, and suspicion in their eyes.

Terrance leaned back in his chair. “That’s a bold statement, Riley.”

“Makes better sense than a fucking gang,” the front boss replied in his drunken stupor. “Who’d you piss off, Terrance?”

The boss waved it off. “Laurent?”

“Yeah, Boss?” Laurent asked from where he sat at a booth with five other men. The bullet he took in his shoulder the day before didn’t seem to be causing him any issues. Then again, Damian’s uncle always did hide things well.

“I didn’t get the chance to say something what with the bullets and blood, but make damn sure your wife understands we’re not to have a repeat of yesterday.”

“Got it,” Damian’s uncle said quickly.

“What was that all about, anyway?” Dino asked Damian too low for anyone else to hear.

“I told you, she had a fucking spell,” Damian said, unaffected.

His cheek still hurt something awful, too. The nice row of scratches on his back that Lily had given him in the shower after their first round made up for that, though.

“About what?” Dino asked.

“Lily.”

Dino scowled. “Our father?”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking bitch. I suppose she forgets her father was the dirtiest cop that ever lived.”

Damian laughed darkly. “I know.”