Star-Crossed(116)
“Now I’m starting to feel like I need a lawyer again,” Tino said and then groaned when his phone rang once more. He pulled it out of his pocket and answered angrily,
“What?”
After a few heated words in Italian, he held out the phone.
Wyatt took it and put it to his ear silently.
“I have an idea how to find them,” Nova ground out, sounding like just saying it went against everything in him. “But first you gotta promise you’ll keep the cops outta this. It’ll just create complications.”
“I am the cops,” Wyatt reminded him. “I’m not making that promise.”
“Fuck.” Nova groaned. “Romeo didn’t do anything.”
“I believe you,” Wyatt surprised himself by saying. “But I still ain’t making that promise.”
“He didn’t break any laws, Conner!”
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“I already said I believe that,” Wyatt repeated. “Are you gonna share your idea?
I’m going gray waiting.”
“I need some sorta insurance. Make it worth my while.” Wyatt looked back to Tino, unable to believe the nerve of these two brothers.
“Well, I ain’t got a lick of insurance to offer. Sorry.”
“Promise you won’t let your sister take Romeo’s kid away from him. We’d fight it.
We’d hire the best fucking lawyers in the country, but I don’t want him to go through the same shit he did with us.”
“Look, my sister does her own thing,” Wyatt admitted with a laugh of disbelief because that was more than obvious. “But if we work together to find them, I could be encouraged to forget that everything ’bout Romeo Wellings grates on my last nerve.”
“You’ll back off?”
Wyatt pulled a face of distaste. “Yup.”
“Even if they get married and spend the rest of their days having little redneck babies in Garnet?”
“Long as there ain’t any trouble and he makes my sister happy, then I ain’t got any sort of opinion on him, negative or otherwise.” Nova was quiet for another long moment before he said, “You sister carries a smartphone, right? One that can access e-mail and—”
“I know what a smartphone is,” Wyatt cut him off. “So what?”
“You can track them online,” Nova went on. “I already tracked Romeo’s, but it’s off.”
“Jules’s is off too.” Wyatt huffed. “I ain’t tracked it. I don’t even know how I’d do it, but—”
“All you need is her e-mail and account password.”
“It just kicks to voice mail. I know it’s off,” Wyatt argued, hoping for a better idea than that. “And they ain’t gonna turn ’em back on if they’re trying to stay hidden.”
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“Romeo does everything on his phone,” Nova said confidently. “He won’t be able to keep it off forever. No friggin’ way.”
Wyatt realized that was probably true for his sister too. “I think Jules keeps her brain in hers. She’s always using it.”
“So we keep tracking until one of them turns it on. They’ll get weak eventually.”
“Just check it over and over hoping they’ll turn ’em on for five minutes?” Wyatt huffed. “Day and night?”
“You gotta better idea?”
No, actually, he didn’t. That idea was sort of brilliant if not incredibly time-consuming. “I suppose we could text ’em too. Just in case they turn it on and we miss them. At least they’ll know ’bout the baby.”
“Absolutely,” Nova agreed. “I’ll give you my number. Call me when you get to a computer, and I’ll help you retrieve her password, unless you have it?”
“I don’t.” Wyatt cringed. “Jules does most everything with the computers. I ain’t that tech savvy.”
“I am not surprised by that,” Nova said with a bark of laughter. “But don’t worry about it. I am savvy. I can help you.”
Wyatt paused, having the insane urge to say thank you. He knew Nova Moretti was involved with the mafia. He shouldn’t be associating with him, let alone depending on him for something this important. There was a part of Wyatt that wanted to fight against it. Instead he pulled his phone out of his pocket and said, “Gimme your number. I’ll call ya as soon as I get home.”
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Chapter Twenty-One
Romeo didn’t fully wake up until Jules got too tired to drive and pulled into a motel sometime midday. Sleeping in the car after a fight meant his entire body was stiff and hurting. He didn’t even argue when Jules shoved a pill and a glass of water at him.