Luca swallowed hard, forgetting that he was a thirty-year-old man who didn’t work for Cross Donati’s crime family. He didn’t have to be. A boss was a boss ... anyone with two brain cells knew it, too.
“Understood,” Luca murmured.
THE ONLY HITCH IN LUCA’S plan to meet with the reporter he believed had information on the Smithenson family and murder was the fact that the man didn’t know they had a meeting at all. Luca wasn’t really the whole set-a-date-and-time type. He much preferred to just show up and get shit done because taking people off guard usually ended better for him.
In different ways.
His contact that first brought the reporter to his attention was the same person that ended up giving Luca the information of where to find him, too. The shitty bar in Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t much to look at and wasn’t one Luca had visited before because when he needed to drink himself into oblivion, a place like this wasn’t where he liked to do it.
But it didn’t matter what he liked.
William Doley liked the place just fine by the looks of the half-empty glass of whiskey sitting in front of him at the bar beside an almost drained bottle of Jack Daniels. The pill bottle two inches to the left of the man’s glass was a little concerning once Luca was close enough to read the name of the anti-anxiety meds.
Would the guy even be sober enough to talk?
Luca was about to find out.
Sliding onto a barstool beside the man—he had set himself all the way at the end of the bar in a shadow far away from anyone else—Luca waved at the bartender. “A beer—draft is fine.”
He really didn’t intend to drink. Driving, and all. The speed of his Ducati never mixed well with even the tiniest amount of liquor, and he wouldn’t put his mother through the hell of burying her adult son because he was foolish.
“Sit somewhere else,” the guy to his left muttered.
Luca eyed the reporter, his wrinkled shirt and stained, striped red tie. The stain had a yellow tinge, and the first thing that came out of his mouth was, “Did you puke on yourself? That looks like bile.”
William didn’t even glance down. “At some point. Go away.”
“No can do. Why did you delete your social media posts? Apparently, you were going to publish a story about the Smithenson murder last week but then your posts went away ... and no story came out.”
That had the drunk—and probably high, depending on how many of those pills he had taken from his med bottle—man glancing up. His head bobbed and swayed as he eyed Luca on the stool next to his. The hazy gleam in his gaze said there were probably two of Luca in the man’s vision. Maybe this wasn’t the best time for a conversation, all things considered, but what choice did he have in the matter?
He needed answers.
This man could possibly give them to him. Given the murder of Elijah Smithenson was the first thing Luca had been able to definitively tie back to Penny in a real way that wasn’t some bread crumb he found online in the dark web ... well, he wasn’t about to back down. Even if that meant having a conversation with a drunk.
“Who the fuck are you?” William asked.
Why was that always someone’s first question?
Luca shook his head, watching the bartender, and keeping quiet until the man had dropped his glass of beer off and headed back down the bar to tend to someone else. “Don’t ask about me. I’m not important here. Not to you or what I want to know, anyway.”
William sniffed, reaching for the pill bottle, his hand trembling so much that the pills rattled as he pulled them closer to his chest like it would give him some sense of comfort. That wasn’t a good sign. He also didn’t answer Luca’s question.
So, Luca talked instead.
“It’s interesting how much effort the media is going through to not talk about the fact it was a murder. Instead, Elijah is being painted as a hero for his family—a bright political career cut short since everyone knew he was going to follow in his father’s footsteps. Charitable. Honorable. Kind. Most stories this week have barely even mentioned the fact he was murdered. Except you, right? You were going to—”
“Boss made me pull down the posts.”
“Are they hiding something?” Luca asked. “The Smithenson family, I mean. I ask about them because if the police knew why he was murdered by now, I’m almost certain I would have been able to pull that information with a few hundred bucks in the right hand. I’ve got nothing.”
“And you won’t,” William slurred, reaching for his glass after he burped a putrid smell. He downed what remained of his whiskey before his hand went for the bottle to pour some more. “You won’t find anything because that’s the point. They don’t want you to.”
“They don’t know about me.”
“Anyone.” William waved a wild, trembling hand over his head. “The whole, wide world. Can’t stain the image—might cost a donor or two.”
“So, they are controlling the media.”
“Who are you?” the drunk reporter asked again. “Why do you care?”
Luca considered how he wanted to answer that, and if doing so might help his case here. He just needed ... something. Anything that could lead to another hole for him to dig into where Penny was concerned. A lot of the time, they were pointless rabbit holes. Considering how close he had come to her at the hotel, he wasn’t sure this would be the same.
“I’m just a guy looking for a girl,” Luca muttered under his breath.
William blinked, smacking his lips as he replied, “Yeah, I bet. Listen, I got nothing to say. Couldn’t confirm anything on Elijah ... just anonymous sources with information that got me in a lot of shit. The Smithensons, they’re everywhere. They watch everything. You start finding their secrets, and they start coming for you.”
He surveyed the man at his left again, the liquor and pills ... all of it.
“They came after you?”
William laughed dryly. “Can’t stain the image.”
And what exactly would do that?
The reporter proceeded to pop open the top of the pill bottle before dropping three little pills into his palm. He tossed them back before Luca could attempt to stop him and then reached for the glass he had just poured to wash them down. He wouldn’t get more from the man.
That much was clear.
Not having touched his beer, Luca stood from the stool and gestured at the bartender again to gain the man’s attention. He slapped down a five-dollar bill, knowing the drink couldn’t possibly be worth more than that in a place like this. He pointed at William, tipping his head in the guy’s direction as he said to the bartender, “Call an ambulance before he kills himself, huh? There’s a reason he’s drinking alone in the dark.”
He just didn’t care about those reasons. Why should he? He had secrets to search for now.
8.
Penny
THE only good thing Penny truly liked about the hotel on the Vegas strip where The League kept her a room, was the view. Add on the small balcony where she could sit and chain smoke while she became lost in her thoughts, and the Bellagio suite basically had it all.
Oh, there was a bed, bathroom, and whatever else she needed was just a phone call to the concierge away. The three-room suite had all the comforts and amenities that a furnished apartment might, too. The decor was modern, expensive, and gave a sense of good taste. Even the artwork on the walls was nice to look at, she supposed.