Joey: A brother’s best friend, standalone dark mafia romance (Chicago Ruthless Book 2)
Joey: Chapter 7

Anger bubbles beneath my skin and the ache in my forearms reminds me to unclench my fists. I have no fucking right at all to be pissed about who Joey spends time with, but I want to cut that little fucker Toby’s throat with a rusty hacksaw.

“Hey.” Dante walks up beside me. “Everything okay?”

“Hmm,” I mumble as we head to his study together.

When we’re both seated in his office, he eyes me with concern. “So, Dmitri?”

“He still hasn’t found Pushkin, and although he assures me he’s doing all he can—”

“It’s not enough,” Dante says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“He knows that. I told him as much last night.”

“We need him found, Max, before …” he shakes his head in annoyance.

“He’s kept your father’s name out of it. He alerted the other families to what Pushkin was doing without implicating Sal in any way. Nobody’s going to replace out, D.”

Dante nods, but worry etches his brow.

“We’ll take care of it,” I assure him. “And if Dmitri hasn’t found Pushkin by the end of the month, then I’ll just fucking replace him myself.”

“No. I need you here. Lorenzo needs us.”

“I know.” I nod in agreement. Lorenzo is spending as much time as he can with his sick wife right now.

Dante sits straighter in his chair, running a hand over his beard. “Besides, this is a Bratva problem. That was the whole fucking point of pinning my father’s murder on Pushkin and backing Dmitri, so he could sort this mess out for us.”

“Maybe he just needs a timely reminder of who he’s dealing with?” I suggest, and not only because I believe that’s true, but also because I need to do something with all this pent-up rage bubbling inside me. I could happily tear someone’s head off their shoulders right about now.

Dante stands and grabs his suit jacket. “You’re right. I think we should pay our friend a visit.”

“You know Toby Fiore was at your house last night? With Joey?”

Dante’s driving, but he takes his eyes off the road for a second to give me a wry look. “Of course I do.”

“And you’re okay with that?”

“They were eating waffles in the kitchen, Max. What do you expect me not to be okay with?”

“It starts with waffles in the kitchen.” I say with a frown. The image of her sitting with him—laughing, flirting, smiling—burns an imprint in my brain. Did he touch her? Kiss her? She said he didn’t, but would she tell me?

“And it goes where?” He laughs. “As she reminds us almost every damn day, she’s an adult. She’s going to date, Max, and Toby is …”

“He’s what?” I scowl at him. Toby Fiore is an asshole. And he’s nowhere near good enough for Joey Moretti.

“He comes from a good, loyal family. He’s the same age as her. He’s got brains. He’s respectful. From what Ash said, he didn’t make any moves. They’re friends.”

“So, you’d be happy with your sister dating him?”

He frowns at me. “He’s not the worst guy she could date, Max. Actually, I think he could be good for her.”

I grind my teeth together and keep my mouth shut. If I disagree with him, he might see right through me.

Dmitri’s surprised to see us when we pull up at the gates of his house, but he welcomes us inside. A few moments later, we’re seated opposite him and his younger brother, Kyzen, in the study.

“I wasn’t expecting you, Dante,” Dmitri says with a frown. “Is something wrong?”

“Just want to know where things are at with your former boss,” Dante replies.

Dmitri glances at me before he looks back to Dante. “As I told Maximo last night, it is proving more difficult than I’d hoped to replace Pushkin. He has a lot of friends.”

“Even after everything they’ve found out about what he was involved in?”

“The tide is turning against him, slowly. People have accepted that I’ve taken over, but Pushkin has many allies. He was their leader for over twenty years,” he reminds us in his slight Russian accent.

“It’s turning too slowly,” Dante says.

“We are doing everything we can,” Kyzen pipes up.

“Did I fucking ask your opinion?” Dante asks, a deep scowl furrowing his brow.

“We can only work with what we know,” Dmitri interrupts, shooting his brother a warning glance. He’s always been much more levelheaded than his younger sibling. “I promise you that we will deliver him to you soon. Everyone knows he is the man in the frame for killing your father,” he says pointedly.

Dmitri doesn’t know Dante murdered his own father, but I suspect he knows that Pushkin didn’t do it either. The two men were in business together for years. Still, he’s never pushed for more of an explanation than the one Dante gave him months ago. He was already preparing to orchestrate the takeover and having the Morettis’ backing to do so escalated and fortified his plans.

“And this is why I can’t sit back while you chase your fucking tail trying to replace him, Dmitri,” Dante snaps. “I cannot put my father’s death to rest until we have vengeance on the man who killed him.” Dante and Lorenzo have played the dutiful role of mourning sons perfectly and managed to convince the entire world that Pushkin killed Sal, but there’s only so long his death can appear to go unpunished.

“I understand,” Dmitri says with a solemn nod. “But I swear to you that I am doing all I can.”

“Do more,” Dante says calmly, but the threat in his tone is implicit.

“It would be a hell of a lot easier if we could have blown the whole trafficking ring wide open from the start,” Kyzen retorts. “But instead we had to protect your family name.”

Dante turns in his seat, but he doesn’t have time to respond before I’m on my feet. I grab Kyzen by the throat, pull him up, and squeeze until he struggles to breathe.

Dmitri stands too, but Dante signals him to sit his ass back down and he does.

“You ever speak to Mr. Moretti like that again, you piece of shit, your brother will be cleaning your tongue off his carpet. You got that?”

He glares at me even as his face turns purple, but he nods his understanding, and I drop him back into his seat.

“We’ve been friends for a long time, Dmitri,” Dante reminds him. “There’s no reason to waste this opportunity to strengthen our alliance, but if you don’t deliver some results soon, I’ll be forced to take matters into my own hands.”

Dmitri bristles. He knows that could make him look weak after he openly challenged Pushkin for leadership. “I will replace him.”

“See that you do.” Dante stands, and I follow him out of the study. There’s nothing left to say.

“You going to stick around when we get back to the house?” he asks me as we reach his car.

“I wasn’t planning on it.” I promised Kristin I’d do more to look for her father today.

“I haven’t seen much of you this past week.”

“I know. The new casino deal is keeping me busy.” That isn’t a complete lie. We’re in the process of buying our own casino, and it’s occupied a fair bit of my time, partly because the current owners, Ralf and Micah Strauss, are resistant to selling outright. They want to form a partnership, but that shit isn’t gonna happen.

“It should settle down soon,” he says, opening the car door. “I got a Skype meeting with Ralf later tonight to discuss final terms. Until then, you just keep putting the pressure on where you can.”

“Gladly.” I’m happy to put pressure on anyone at any time if it might help relieve some of the tension that’s plagued me lately.

I press my boot against the neck of the man on the ground until his cries for mercy are cut off by his desperate gasps for breath. I train my eyes on the man in front of me instead—the one who’s currently pissing his pants—and wrap a hand around his throat.

“Do not make me ask you again, fuckface. When was the last time you saw Vito DiMarco?”

Tears run down his cheeks. Pathetic asshole. “I-I don’t know any Vito—” I squeeze harder and he wheezes. He’s lying. Kristin gave me his name. Or at least the nickname he goes by—Monty. She told me he was from Chicago but used to occasionally visit them in New Jersey. A little digging led me to this guy—a lawyer named Montgomery Lincoln; he’s married with four kids but has a penchant for men with tattoos and shaved heads. Much like the one writhing beneath my boot.

“If you lie to me again, I will snap your friend’s neck and then you’ll have a hell of a job explaining his naked corpse to your wife when she gets home. Now tell me when you saw Vito.”

“I-it w-was over a year ago.”

“Where?”

“New Jersey. At his house.” He glances down at his lover who’s turned a mottled shade of dark purple beneath my boot. Loverboy is running out of time, and Monty knows it. “I don’t have it. I swear. I don’t even know where it is.”

Now I’m getting somewhere. “Have what?”

“The recording. Isn’t that what you’re looking for?”

What fucking recording? “Who does have it?”

“Vito. He keeps it in a safe in a storage locker somewhere. I don’t even know where. If anything happens to him and he doesn’t check in with the storage company on the first of every month, they send it to me. That’s the deal.”

“And then you?”

“I send it to the press.”

“The press? Not the police?”

He wheezes, and I decrease the pressure on his throat. “Vito said the police would bury it. The guy on the recording is a big deal.”

“What is on the recording, Monty? And you got about forty-five seconds before his neck snaps under my foot.”

“A murder,” he blurts out, glancing at his lover and then back at me. “I don’t know who’s on it though, I swear.”

I lift my boot off the throat of the man on the floor. “Do not fucking move,” I warn him.

He rubs at his raw skin and nods his understanding.

“So Vito has evidence of a murder. But you don’t know who it involves?”

“No. I swear to you. He said it was safer if I didn’t know. I just know the guy involved is big. I was just going to be the middleman.”

“You know who the victim is?”

“No.”

“Was Vito blackmailing this guy? The killer?”

“No. Well, not for money. To keep his family safe.”

I let go of Monty’s neck and push him back on the bed. “You have any idea at all who’s on that recording?”

“Given who Vito is and who his brother worked for, my best guess would be a Moretti.”

Who his brother worked for. The reminder of my father feels like a punch to my gut.

“His brother has been dead for eighteen years. Vito left Chicago before that. How long has he been sitting on this recording?”

“Ten or eleven years.”

“Why do you think it has something to do with the Morettis?”

“Because he was in Chicago the night it happened and there was nobody bigger in this city than Salvatore Moretti. And now his sons too.” Monty shudders. It’s obvious he has no idea who I am. “Do you work for them? Is that why you’re looking for the recording? Have they found out? Have they taken him?”

I shake my head. So many questions. I should just shoot Monty and his naked lover right now. Let his wife come home and replace the pair of them in each other’s arms. “No. I don’t work for the Morettis. How are you involved in this?”

“I used to be Vito’s lawyer. He came to me that night. Rambling about how he was going to show his nephew who the real traitor was.”

“His nephew?”

Monty nods.

Me.

Monty Lincoln just bought himself and his buddy a reprieve.

“If that recording ever replaces its way to you, you contact me and only me. You got that?”

“I d-don’t have your number,” he stammers. “Or your name,”

“I have yours. I’ll send you a number you can reach me on later. Someone has taken Vito, and right now you’re the only man I know who can help me. But if that recording ends up in the press, Monty”—I take a threatening step forward—“I will make you watch while I murder your wife. Then I will carve out your heart while it’s still beating and feed it to your orphan children for dinner. You understand me?”

His face turns gray, and he puts a hand over his mouth, gagging. “You … you won’t tell her about this, will you?” He looks at the guy on the floor.

“I have no interest in the fact that you’re fucking around behind your wife’s back, but I am very interested in anything to do with Vito DiMarco. That’s all you need to be concerned about right now.”

I walk out, leaving Monty to help his friend off the floor. I have more questions now than I did when I got here, and I’m wound tighter than I was a few hours ago.

What the fuck is on that video? Why did Uncle Vito tell Monty he wanted to show me who the real traitor was? And how could my uncle possibly think he isn’t the traitor to the DiMarco name when he screwed around with his brother’s wife and then fucked off to New Jersey when shit got hard? Vito was always good at blaming other people for his failings. Salvatore Moretti might have been a cruel and twisted piece of shit, but he always had my back when I needed him.

Walking to my bike, I dial Kristin.

She answers on the first ring.

“Hey, how are you doing?”

“Good, I guess,” she says. “Did you replace out anything about my dad yet?”

“Maybe. Do you know anything about a storage locker he has?”

“No. Why?”

“Did he ever mention a video recording of someone?”

“No, Max. Is that why someone took him? A recording?”

“I don’t know. I’m still looking into it.” I sigh, scrubbing a hand through my hair.

“When will you be home?”

I shake my head. I’m too wired and pumped up to go home right now. I need to do something about all the rage burning up inside of me before I explode. And I need to see her. I can’t get her out of my fucking head.

“I’ll be a few more hours yet. Don’t wait up for me, okay?”

She sighs. “Okay.”

“You’re safe there, Kristin,” I remind her.

“I know.”

“I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Bye, Max.”