Vincent stood at the head of it. He smiled and gestured toward us. “Glad you could make it on such short notice.”
I stood in the doorway and crossed my arms over my chest. Reid stayed next to me, head cocked slightly, a little smile on his face as Dante walked over to the conference table and sat down, spinning side to side in his seat. I hated being back in this house, hated being in this room in particular. It used to be Don Leone’s office and I didn’t have a single good memory of the place. My father would disappear in here sometimes when I was younger and I’d be stuck in a side room with the cousins. They’d be playing some game I hated and would treat me like shit for being a girl, and I’d have to stand up to them to get any respect at all. I remembered Vincent in particular was a nasty little shit—always smiling, acting like he owned the place because his father was the Don. Then after that was all over, my father would come out in a horrible mood, drag me by the arm back to the car, and proceeded to berate me all the way back to his little kingdom.
The whole place reeked of bad memories. I wished I could tear up the carpeting and burn down the bookshelves, or maybe drop a nuke on the whole building. I’d love to see it all burn down—and it almost did once, though unfortunately they rebuilt.
“What do you want, Vincent?” I cocked my head and did my best to give him an annoyed stare. “It’s late. We were in the middle of dinner.”
“Cute,” Dante said. “Man and wife dining together. Almost like you’re for real.”
Reid’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything.
“We need to talk about what happened.” Vincent gestured at the table. “Please, come sit down.”
Reid looked at me and I didn’t move.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“I disagree.” His jaw flexed. “Come sit, Cora.”
“I’m not a dog. I don’t sit on command.”
He sighed and rubbed his temple. “You always were a contrarian. If someone told you to do something, you’d make sure to do the opposite.”
“Thing is, you mafia guys all think you can just command someone to do whatever you want, and you actually expect them to do it.” I shook my head. “Unfortunately, that’s not how this works. You need my help, so quit acting like you control me and start showing some respect.”
I glanced at Reid, expecting him to be pissed—but instead, he had a strange smile on his face, like he was impressed. I felt myself flush, though I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like I cared if he was interested in anything I did, and I wasn’t speaking up for his amusement. Vincent thought he could push me around and make me do whatever he wanted just because he was paying me. I had to make sure he was disabused of that notion as soon as possible or else the orders would never stop.
“All right. Fine. Please, Cora. Come sit and tell me what happened so we can come up with a plan moving forward.”
I didn’t move and I could feel Vincent getting more and more annoyed, but finally I walked forward and took a seat. Reid followed and sat down next to me, grinning at the two men like he just watched them get kicked in the nuts by a girl.
Which they sort of did, at least metaphorically. I couldn’t help but feel a little proud.
Vincent sighed and sat back. “I heard about the attack, but it was secondhand. I hoped you could fill in some blanks.”
I looked at Reid and he leaned forward. “The man that attacked us is named Jarvis. He runs some two-bit Irish gang out of West Philly, but that’s all I know about his crew right now. I have some guys looking into it.”
“You don’t even know where he’s at?” Dante asked. “And he got the drop on you?”
“I haven’t been too worried about that sort of thing.” Reid shook his head and balled his hands into fists. “Fact is, I didn’t expect some little nothing like Jarvis to make a big move.”
“And yet he did.” Vincent frowned and tapped a finger on the table. “What makes you think it won’t happen again?”
“I’m going to handle him.”
“How, exactly?”
“However I damn well please.” There was an edge in Reid’s voice that surprised me and sent a small chill down my spine.
“That’s not good enough,” Dante said.
Reid sat back in his chair and gestured at them. “Please, by all means, if you two have a better idea then speak up.”
“You’re supposed to be calming the city down, not getting into gunfights in the damn street,” Vincent said
“I know what I’m supposed to do, and I told you that I’m going to handle it.” Reid sat forward again, palms flat on the table. “I hope you realize that I don’t work for you.”
“You don’t?” Vincent tilted his head and smiled. “My mistake. I thought you did, since you married my cousin, and since your boss has had his tongue halfway up my asshole for the past few months.”
Reid went stock-still and his body clenched with tension. I sucked in a breath and my eyes went wide as I looked from him to Vincent. I could tell Vincent was trying to provoke Reid, but I didn’t know why. It made no sense, not really—they should be trying work together to figure out how to handle Jarvis and get the city back into some semblance of order. Instead, they were having a stupid pissing match.
“Reid,” I said. “Don’t.” On impulse, I reached out and put my hand on his thigh. He was trembling anger, but a strange thing happened.
As soon as I touched him, he turned to me, looked into my eyes—and seemed to calm down. Not entirely, not enough that his body relaxed, but he stopped trembling with the effort of holding himself back.
“I understand you think you own this city,” Reid said, keeping his voice steady, despite the stupid grin Vincent wore. “I understand you think you don’t need us, not really. The politicians, they won’t turn on you. But there’s something you don’t understand.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“We don’t give a fuck about the politicians, or the police, or the rich tech assholes or the marketers or the CEOs or the state senators. We’ve been working on the streets for years, and we just took down one of the most powerful crime syndicates on the East Coast. You think you really want to fuck with us right now with your family split between two cities?”
Vincent’s jaw worked but he said nothing for a few long beats. I rubbed my eyes and pushed back my frustration. I should have known this would turn into a pissing match, but I hoped they could set that ego stuff aside for a little while at least. Clearly, I was wrong.
“Enough,” I said, holding up my hands. “We’re all in this right now. So can we please figure out how to take care of the problems in front of us instead of trying to decide who’s the tougher mafia dickhead?”
Vincent grunted and let out a breath. “Fine. I want to be involved in whatever you do with this Jarvis asshole.”
“How do you think that’ll work?” Reid asked.
“I’ll send a guy with you. He’ll work recon and report back to me.”
Reid shook his head. “That won’t fly.”
“Look, you little—”