“You still there?” the hacker eventually asked.
Luca swallowed hard as his car came to a stop at a red light. “I ... I gotta go.”
He had to catch up to Penny.
Somehow.
And his day wasn’t over yet.
BEFORE NAZ HAD EVEN called Luca that day, he’d already been set on a task that needed his attention immediately. Time was running out for him to look into it when he’d gotten word about it that morning through a friend with connections to the journalist that had published the piece in the Times about Allegra’s history—using both her married name Dunsworth, and connecting it to her maiden name, Hatheway.
He didn’t have time to take his godson off Naz’s hands—even if it was just for a drive to drop him back off with his mother—but he also couldn’t say no. Not when he knew his friend was trying to get as much time with his son as possible while also dealing with the politics of family business as he took his father’s vacated seat for the business side of things.
And that was all before Keys called to drop his bomb.
Luca was pulling double-duty and doing so dangerously. He knew it as he leaned in the rear passenger door to hand his cell phone to his godson, telling Cross, “Play one of those games you like—I’ll be back in five minutes. Do not unlock the car for anybody. Got it, shithead?”
Cross gave him a look from the side. “Got it.”
“You better.”
“I do.”
All that attitude in such a small body. The kid just didn’t know what to do with it. A lot like his father, Luca supposed.
“Be good, buddy.”
Cross was already flipping through the pages of Luca’s phone when he closed the door and pulled out the fob to lock the car. Satisfied somebody wouldn’t be punching out the window of his car on a cool day when he was right across the street, he darted through slow moving traffic to the line of yellow police tape at the entrance of a large apartment building’s parking lot.
Beyond the line of police vehicles that had been parked inside the lot, Luca could see what movement remained at the scene. Which wasn’t very much. The lack of a coroner’s vehicle or an ambulance told him he had been too fucking late to catch someone—like maybe a reporter—that could confirm what he’d heard happened here in the early morning hours.
“Shitty thing, huh?”
The new voice at his left had Luca turning that way. The approaching security guard with a cigarette tucked between the same two fingers that he used to scratch his bulging midsection nodded toward the cops that were chatting at the rear of one police vehicle.
“They’re finally finishing up. It’s been a whole day thing. Don’t know why when they said it was just a suicide.”
Luca stuffed his hands in his pockets, deciding to lie because maybe he could get something. “Yeah, a friend of mine lives on the fifth floor. Guess she saw the body this morning. Jumped from the—”
“Twenty-fifth floor, yeah. Some reporter’s—or a journalist, maybe?—husband.”
“The one that wrote the article in the Times that got a lot of attention recently, right? About the senator’s fiancée. Crazy. Was she there?”
“Nah, they can’t find her. The thing about it ... people don’t usually jump headfirst, but hey, the cops said the place was quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary. And I’m just a fucking security guard, you know what I mean?”
Luca’s first thought?
Professionals.
But which ones?
The Elite?
The League?
Someone else?
Anything was possible.
“And sorry,” the guard told him, “but I can’t let anybody through until they cut the tape. Only residents of the building. Your friend will be here on another day.”
Shit, yeah.
Right.
“Thanks, man,” Luca said.
For more than he knew ...
By the time Luca returned to his car, his mind was already running a million miles a minute. He needed to stop trying to find Penny, and start thinking like her at this point. They were beyond the line of just finding her—time had run out for that.
Slipping inside the driver’s seat after he’d unlocked the car, Luca wasn’t surprised to find Cross had discarded his phone to the backseat. The kid never liked electronics as a distraction. At least he wasn’t longer than the five minutes he promised.
“We’re gonna go see your mom,” he told his godson, getting the car turned on and in gear.
Cross nodded. “Okay. You know she’s going to come back, don’t you?”
Luca’s check of traffic as he maneuvered out of the parking spot came to an abrupt stop as his gaze darted to the rearview mirror. His nephew watched him with the same calm demeanor he always had when he was doing ... that shit. He didn’t even know what to call it. Vibing, maybe. Feeling the aura of the people around him—reading the damn room.
All of it and more.
“Who?” Luca dared to ask.
But he thought he might already know.
“Penny,” Cross said. “That’s what you’re doing, right? You’re looking for her. I saw her—she promised. She’ll come back. But I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
Fucking hell.
Luca swallowed hard, realizing he was right—he needed to think like Penny—as he told little Cross, “Keep that promise—nobody but me, okay?”
“Okay.”
9.
Penny
THE rapid flicker of the overhead light setup in the busy, popular Brooklyn club moved to the beat of the same music that vibrated the floor under Penny’s combat boots. In black cargo pants and a tight long sleeve in the same color, she certainly didn’t fit in with the crowd around her, but that wasn’t the point. She wasn’t trying to blend in with the people when she didn’t intend to stay long enough to need to.
Not that it mattered.
She hadn’t even come through the front—instead, she used a knife and pick to bust out one of the older locks on a side exit door when the drunks stumbled out of the alleyway long enough for her to get the job done. It wasn’t like the security at the front would let her in looking like she did—guns and knives strapped into the holsters at her chest and thighs—and she thought the thirty-dollar entrance fee was a little steep.
But that was none of her business. She wasn’t here for any of that.
Penny could, however, see her current target on a platform that rested higher than the rest of the dancefloor. Metal stairs led up to where rope sectioned off the setup filled with red leather booths and black tables. Two men in suits waited at the velvet, braided rope. Their presence and posture was more than enough to tell her there were likely guns under their three-piece suits.
They wouldn’t be a problem.
Knowing better than to linger—with a live bounty on her head, even being in a packed club with hundreds of faces all around her was dangerous—Penny headed for the platform VIP section. Unsurprisingly, she caught the eye of the man sitting in the booth alone before she had even managed to reach the stairs.
He didn’t stand. His dark gaze didn’t show surprise. Almost like ... he expected to see her there.