That made her hesitate.
Only for a moment.
“Which means you found the details of the upcoming ... whatever, how?” she asked.
Marcel finally turned, leaning his back and hands against Dare’s desk while he eyed her with a cold stare. “How else, Penny? I traced back the messages, found where they were coming from, hacked into the accounts, and went from there. Shit you don’t understand, so let’s not waste time going too deep into it.”
Fine.
“What kind of transaction?”
She already knew the answer. There was only one thing they would bring to her attention in this case. She still wanted to hear one of them say it.
“A sale,” Dare admitted.
Penny grew cold all over.
“Looks like an eleven-year-old girl. Untraceable, practically,” Marcel added. “On her end, anyway. The details of the apparent meeting and final transaction, however—”
Penny held a hand up, quieting the hacker as her mind ran through the details she now had and what it might mean. She kept circling back to the same thing ... she couldn’t let the transaction happen at all.
“And,” Dare said, his tone harsh with his irritation, “the cold hits Marcel put through on the deal suggested we’re interested in continuing the transaction on behalf of Elijah as associates of The Elite.”
“They’re willing to see it through,” Marcel added quickly.
Dare shook his head, fists balled against the glass top of his desk. “Penny, it’s too dangerous to head back to New York right now where they want the transaction to take place. You were just there. You know how this works; we don’t go back to the same place twice in a row when you need to be a ghost that comes and goes.”
She heard none of that.
“If I’m not there to make the sale, then who will?” she asked quietly.
Dare didn’t reply.
Marcel just kept staring.
“Who was there to help me?”
Behind her, a new but familiar voice joined the conversation to say, “You can’t help them all, Penny.”
Cree had a point.
“Right,” she agreed, nodding, “but I can help this one.” Then, she pointed at Marcel, adding, “Make contact again—let them know someone will be there to see the deal through.”
“Penny—”
“It’s one girl, Dare,” Penny interjected sharply. “And since you apparently have nothing else better for me to do at the moment, then what’s the problem?”
“You know the problem.”
Sure, she did.
It was never just one girl. There would always be another. Penny would help that one, too, if the opportunity presented itself. It’s just what she did.
10.
Luca
SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning was way too early for a knock on Luca’s apartment door but especially considering he just rolled his ass out of bed. Not even bothering to do more than yank on a pair of sweats he’d been wearing the evening before while he downed a six-pack and watched the game, he made his way to the front hallway of his apartment.
He also didn’t bother to check the peephole, but he should have. Yanking the door open, he came face to face with his father. Standing damn near eye-level to one another, neither man said anything.
Luca wasn’t accustomed to his father showing up at his place unannounced. If he was being honest ... Zeke hadn’t visited in a couple of years. They typically had dinner at his parents’ home, or with the Donatis at their place. Maybe one of the family’s many restaurants in the city. Even his best friend and sister’s home.
Not here.
“You busy?” Zeke asked.
Luca shifted from foot to foot, scrubbing a hand down his unshaven jaw and feeling the prickly hairs tickle his palm while he tried to wake up. His brain was always slower first thing in the morning when he hadn’t even been able to guzzle a cup of black coffee. “Not really busy just—”
“Waking up, huh?”
He shrugged. “It’s seven-thirty, Dad. What else do people do first thing in the morning?”
That probably wasn’t the right question to ask considering his father stood on the other side of the threshold appearing as though he had been awake for hours already. Dressed smartly in one of his usual three-piece suits, hair coifed perfectly, and eyes alert. Nothing suggested Zeke was anything less than ready for the day.
Luca couldn’t say the same.
“Usually, they go to work,” his father replied.
He tried to let that go over his head; normally, it would fly right past, and he could brush it off like nothing. That time it hit him square in the chest, and he felt all of it.
Putting a hand up in the doorway to act as a barricade so that his father didn’t get the impression he was about to allow him entrance to his place, Luca said, “And I’ll be heading to work soon, too. I’ve got a ... thing today.” Yeah, that was as good as anything in regards to the meeting he planned to spy on later if he got the signal it was still happening from his contact who had been digging into Smithenson, the murder, and anything else that came up which Luca might find interesting. Something had finally come up. It was happening today. “What do you want?”
Zeke sighed, eyeing his son with a sympathy he hadn’t expected. “To talk. Or are you not in the mood?”
“Does it matter what I say?”
“Not particularly.”
Yeah.
Luca figured.
He could continue to be an ass, but he was quite aware that would only drag this nonsense on, and nobody had time for that. Especially not him. Not today.
“Come on in,” Luca muttered, stepping back from the apartment doorway to let his father enter with a wave to the darkened hallway. He hadn’t even turned the lights on yet. “I was just about to make coffee. You want one?”
Zeke stepped past the threshold and then Luca, not once taking in the changes to the place since the last time he visited. That was one of the first clues that told him it was very unlikely his father was there for a friendly visit to catch up. While he followed behind Zeke, he let his mind filter through the thoughts and emotions that he usually pushed down whenever he was in the presence of his dad.
They weren’t as close.
Not anymore.
Not like they used to be.
Luca tried not to be bitter about that fact, but it wasn’t always easy. He understood that his father came from an entirely different generation than him; that Zeke had been raised by men with different values than his own when it came to carrying on the family business and legacy. What was supposed to be important, he had shunned entirely.
At least, to his father.
“Perc or instant?” his father asked when they entered the kitchen.
Luca passed a look at the coffee maker that was only clean because of the three-day-a-week maid he kept well paid to look after his place but stay the fuck out of his shit while she was here. The percolator had been a gift from his sister when he moved into the place—his love of all things coffee meant he should have one, right?
He never used it.
Didn’t have the time to wait.
The stupid thing had a timer and everything to make coffee and have it hot and ready by the time he woke up. That would, of course, take time to learn how to program it, and he had little to no interest in wasting precious hours on that.