Step Bride: A Bad Boy Mob Roman(64)
“Not really, no.”
I paged through it, laughing to myself. Most of it was in some damn Russian writing, but there were a few names and numbers that I recognized. There was the amount of olive oil in the stolen shipment, plus the time and date of the exchange. There were also a few other names of guys in the mob, plus at least one Russian name I recognized.
“Remember Franklin?” I asked.
“How could I forget?” she mumbled.
“This is his notebook. I’m sure of it.”
“Okay. Well, how?”
“That was his car we grabbed on the way out.”
“So this is important?”
I grabbed her face and kissed her hard. “Very,” I said when I was done.
She smiled. “Good. I’m glad.”
“I think this is the proof that I need. I think Franklin was a part of a group inside both us and the Russians.”
“And they stole the shipment?”
“At least, yeah.” I laughed, paging through the book. “But there are numbers and dates in here that I vaguely recognize. They could have been stealing from us for a while without anyone noticing.”
“This doesn’t change the fact that Camille cheated on your dad.”
“No,” I said, “it doesn’t. But Camille can tell me where Franklin is. Then maybe I can convince Arturo that you two are worth keeping alive.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“At the very least he’ll be distracted and I’ll be able to get you two out of the city.”
“What happens then?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But no matter what, I won’t leave you.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
I stood up, pocketing the notebook. “Now, let’s go talk to your mother.”
Natalie followed me downstairs. With every new step I took, the plan in my mind slowly began to come together.
Somehow Franklin was at the center of this. I had been right to be suspicious, but he clearly had been careful. We hadn’t followed him to any secret stash of treasure or anything like that. From what Vince and his people could tell, Franklin was a model employee.
That was, until he started fucking Camille.
Truth was, Franklin may have gotten away with everything had he not stuck his dick in Camille. If we had never gotten in that car that night, and Natalie hadn’t found his notebook, we would probably have moved on eventually.
Instead, fucking a married woman was coming back to really bite him in the ass.
We found Camille sitting on the couch, looking miserable. She glanced up at us.
“Came to yell at me some more?” she asked me.
“Not if you decide to be helpful,” I said.
She crossed her arms. “What do you want, Lucas?”
“Where is Franklin?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know.”
“You saw him last night. You warned him.”
“So? He didn’t say where he was going.”
I sighed, sitting down on the coffee table in front of her. “I don’t believe you.”
“I don’t care,” she snapped. “I don’t answer to you.”
“Actually, Camille, you do. See, I’m keeping you safe. If my father’s people found out where you were hiding, they’d probably cut your throat and dump your body in an alley.”
I watched the color drain from her face.
“They would never. Artie would never.”
I laughed. “Artie? My father is a violent businessman. He’d cut your body to pieces without a second thought. You’re nothing to him now.”
She looked away. “You won’t let that happen. You care too much about my daughter.”
I looked over at Natalie. “Would you mind if your mother disappeared?”
“No,” she said. “I’m finished trying to protect you, Camille. You can deal with the consequences yourself from now on.”
She gaped at Natalie. “You wouldn’t let these men kill me?”
“I wouldn’t do anything,” Natalie said. “This is your choice.”
Camille looked back at me. “This is insane.”
“This is what happens when you treat being married to a mobster like it’s some fucking game,” I said to her.
“I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Where is Franklin?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“Listen to me carefully, Camille,” I said softly, leaning in closer to her. “In a minute I’m going to ask Natalie to go upstairs, close her door, and put her head under a pillow.”
“You don’t scare me,” Camille said.
“After that,” I continued, “I’m going to take this knife”—I lifted up my shirt to show her my blade—“and I’m going to start hurting you until you tell me what I want to know.”