Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 112382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 562(@200wpm)___ 450(@250wpm)___ 375(@300wpm)
“Men… Catalina, can I see you for a minute?” I maybe should stop calling her that shit because the shit’s beginning to stick in more ways than one. Nope, no guilt in the look she gave me when she lifted her head. Damn kid had the nerve to smile at me before walking over to me.
“Yes, daddy?”
“Let’s go somewhere and talk.” Once again, she slipped her hand into mine as we left the room. I found a quiet corner near a window and sat with her taking the chair beside me. “What do you want to talk about, daddy?” Was that a tinge of hope in her voice? Was she silently wishing for me not to bring this up? But how can I leave that shit alone like this?
Mancini seems to be plotting shit in his head, he’s even more fascinated with her mind now than ever, and the others are talking about her like she’s some new phenomenon, but she’s my kid, my little girl. “You can’t do what you did last night again.” She looked at me all innocent and shit like she was about to ask what I was talking about, but one look and she squelched that shit.
“Then you can’t do it either, daddy.”
“Come again!” I kept a straight face, barely daring to blink because the look she was giving me now didn’t seem that innocent. “Daddy, do you remember the flower?”
“What flower?” Oh good, she’s still a kid, her mind flitting from one thing to the next like an innocent. Or her hair-brained mother. Kat has the attention span of a gnat. Unless we’re fucking, then she’s all in.
“The flower I found you in grandma’s hedge.” Dafuq!
“What about it?” For some fucked up reason, she saw my question as an invitation to leave her chair and climb into my lap.
“Daddy, do you remember the bad man? The one who took me?” My gut went cold at the reminder. “How can I forget? It was the…wait, why are you bringing him up?” Fuck…me. I told Kat about this kid.
“What happened to him, daddy? I told Lily Anna, and Nia about him, but we couldn’t find any information on him. It’s like he just disappeared.” My ears started ringing, and I was having a hard time trusting the smile she was now giving me. “So, daddy, you can’t do it either, okay.” She clasped my cheeks the way she used to when she was younger and wanted to make sure she had my undivided attention.
While I was trying to formulate a good enough lie to get her off the scent, like that shit wasn’t a waste of time, the little shit climbed down off my lap and headed for the door, leaving me to look after her retreating back and wondering what dafuq had happened to my life. The kid had me by the short and curlies, and there was no point in even questioning how she’d drawn the conclusions she had. She didn’t even come right out and say it, but there is no mistaking the fact that she knows…and she’s holding it over my head.
I left my seat and bounded towards the elevator. I’d like to blame Mancini, the pothead, Kat, anyone else for her being whatever the hell she is, but that’s a dick move. I don’t know who she is or where dafuq she came from.
I found the guys upstairs deep in some shit. We’ve been taking turns coming up with a working plan for this squad shit Mancini had thrown at us. So far, everyone seemed to be leaning towards finding a place that’s big enough to hold all of us and still fly under the radar. Each of us has places that can hold maybe half of us, with wives and kids, but these freaks are looking for something that would house everyone. I’m staying out of it because I’m not sure that I’m sold on the idea.
I mean, I can see the benefits to it, and I guess we’ve been around each other enough to know that we get along, and the women all seem to have their shit together since there hasn’t been one catfight among the bunch. Maybe because their nosy asses are too busy getting into shit.
That reminds me of the coded message Mancini intercepted the night before from the Cali wives to our women. I’d been sidetracked by the little surprise he’d sprung on us afterward. Asshole has a three-story garage with bikes, cars, trucks, and even a few speed boats. Sun, surf, and the wheels of a Ducati Panigale twenty-fifth anniversary edition under me shit yeah. But I have more pressing shit to deal with.
“Listen up!” I’m not sure I like the way these assholes just keep stopping what they’re doing whenever I say something. I have the sneaky suspicion that Mancini has been working on them when I’m not around, asshole! I didn’t give them one of Kat’s eye rolls, but the sigh was hard to hold back. “What’s up, brother?”