“That tank!” Dante said, laughing when Maggie shook her head.
No matter what my kid brother said, Maggie was proud of her car. She’d learned her lesson since I’d convinced her to ditch the shit bucket she’d landed here in. It had given out on her a couple months back. The tires on the Subaru were new, the back windshield and paint job I had replaced, without her knowing, before she picked it up. She made the note every month with no one’s help, something I knew she was proud of.
“What about it?” I asked.
“It needs an oil change.”
“I’ll have Dino bring it into the shop and…”
“No, I don’t want to do that,” she said, the smile lowering. “Toni said you used to work at your cousin’s garage when you were in high school.”
“He mopped the floor. They wouldn’t let him near an engine.” Dante’s laugh died on his lips when me and Maggie both looked at him and I nodded toward the other side of the table, dismissing him with one jerk of my head.
“I can change the oil for you if you don’t trust a shop…”
“It’s not that.” Maggie shrugged, scratching the underside of her chin, and I folded my arms, trying to keep myself from touching her face when her cheeks brightened. “I can remember, when I was a kid, all my aunties and Grandma knowing how to take care of their vehicles. They were proud, actually, that they didn’t have to get any of their boyfriends or brothers to do it for them.” She fiddled with one of the wrinkled napkins on the table, not looking at me. Maggie hadn’t given much away about herself. There wasn’t much I knew about the childhood she had, except that it had been rough and lonely.
“So you want to learn, like them,” I said, filling in the blanks when she didn’t elaborate. She shot her gaze to me, her smile slow to come, but then the woman I knew seemed to jump to the surface, and she nodded, brushing the hair from her shoulder.
“Yeah. Can you teach me? When you get a chance?”
Nodding once, I winked at Maggie, already rearranging my schedule in my head. “I’ll come by this afternoon and bring you to O’Bryant’s. They’ve got all the filters you need for the Outback.”
“Good,” she said, standing again, grabbing the empty plates. “Thanks, Smoke. I appreciate it.”
“Anything for you, bella,” I told her, not missing how her grin slid up higher and higher as she walked away from me.
“You should let me teach her,” Dante said, slumping in the chair next to me.
“And you, little brother,” I said through a sigh, “should learn to keep your mouth shut.”
To my left, I caught sight of Dino’s large shape and stood, nodding at my man when he met me at the back of the dining room. His face was shadowed, eyes sunken, so I moved quicker, that twisting in my chest churning now for a reason that had nothing to do with Maggie or her kid.
“Boss,” he said, moving his head down, facing away from the front of the room where my family sat.
“Tell me.” I grabbed the man by the shoulder, turning him toward the balcony at the front of the den, my gaze still on the table and on Maggie as she looked from my parents, still playing with her boy, to me.
Dino scrubbed his stubbled chin, letting out a sigh. “Nobody knows where Kat is.”
I stepped back, dropping my hand off his shoulder. “What do you mean nobody knows?”
“I’m saying. I called Alphie and Mickey. All the guys from Pfizer who worked with her before she went independent.” He rubbed a knuckle into his eye, then shrugged. “I’m telling you, she’s a ghost. There’s zero chatter. Last anyone heard is that she worked some gig for a tech company in the city, but that was only a two-week job and then…nothing.”
“You contacted the…”
“All the dummy numbers and the email addresses with the draft folders. All empty.”
Kat Harrel had been my go-to tech whiz anytime I needed anything handled that went beyond muscle and street smarts. The woman could bypass any program, any security protocol. She was a genius, and she was tough. I liked her. She knew that. She also knew I had her back. Kat would never take off without at least dropping hints that she had to leave.
“I don’t like this,” I told Dino, moving to the window, my face away from the dining room, my gaze unfocused as the lunch crowd started to make their way into the restaurant.
“Didn’t think you would, boss.” He folded his arms, the muscles around his mouth twitching. “Don’t much like this shit either.”
One glance at Dino and I got that this bothered the man more than he’d ever admit. He was tough. He did his job but that didn’t mean he was a robot.
“I know you don’t.”
“Dimitri,” I heard, frowning when my mother called me. I turned, dropping the expression from my face. She moved toward me, Mateo squirming in her arms. “That Paris girl is gonna be late again. Maggie is going to get the lunch shift started and I’ve got to clean up. Take the baby, yeah?”
I didn’t hesitate. Didn’t blink. Mateo came to me. Ma left, patting Dino on the shoulder once in greeting before she moved back toward the table and I held the kid to my side, letting him mess with the crucifix on my chain, something that always seemed to make him happy.
“Call Benny,” I told Dino, picking up the conversation like we hadn’t been interrupted. “He’s got a few guys in the city that know what they’re doing. If Benny can’t find Kat, then no one can. I’ll put some calls in with Wilson. He owes me more than a few favors and that tap on the bakery is not gonna lead anywhere.” Mateo yawned, rubbing his face against my shoulder before he leaned his head down and I took the hint, settling the kid against my chest with my hand on his back. When he was tired, he like to be held, wanted a little comfort, and I could respect that. Sometimes a man needs a little reassurance. Didn’t bother me, so I patted the kid’s back, still trying to think of where Kat could have gotten off to before I noticed Dino’s cocked eyebrow and how the man glanced at my hand on Mateo’s back and then the slow, soft snores coming from his nose.
“What?”
Dino didn’t answer me. Instead, my man looked away, glancing to the kid, then over my head, toward the dining room where Dario and Dante stood, their attention on me. Dante grinned like an idiot and I doubted that look was just about the mimosas he’d downed at brunch. Dario, though, held his cell in his hand, his thumb hovering over the screen, but his gaze was locked on me as Mateo stirred and I rocked the kid up my shoulder to be more comfortable.
“What?” I mouthed, not appreciating the stares those assholes gave me.
It wasn’t until I caught my father’s narrowed eyes and my mother’s smug, satisfied smile that I realized what an idiot I was and how this shit probably looked to all of them.
“Oh, look how cute,” I heard, my attention shooting to the three women moving through the dining room. Two of them I knew—Mrs. Lulling, the librarian and her sister-in-law Mrs. Williams, the other one, a good twenty years younger than them, I’d never seen before.
“Ladies,” I greeted, stilling my hand on Mateo’s back.
“Mr. Carelli,” Mrs. Williams said, resting a hand on her chest. “How are you today…and the baby?”