Menace (Scarlet Scars #1)(14)

“I thought you were going to bed?”

My brother’s still in the living room.

His girlfriend is still with him, too, the two of them on the couch together, cuddling. That’s all they ever seem to do. Kiss, and cuddle, and whisper, and f*ck, a lovey-dovey cycle, day in and day out, like an old married couple.

“I did,” I say, stalling in the doorway.

He blinks at me. “You did?”

“Yes.”

“It’s only been an hour, bro,” he says, “if even that long. There’s no way you went to sleep.”

“I didn’t say I went to sleep,” I point out. “I said I went to bed.”

“What’s the point of going to bed if you don’t sleep?” As soon as he asks that, he shakes his head. “Never mind.”

“Never mind what?” Melody asks, glancing between us. Nosey as shit.

“Don’t even ask,” Leo grumbles.

Her brow furrows. “Don’t ask what?”

“He doesn’t want you to ask about me tugging one out upstairs.”

“Tugging one—oh!” Her eyes widen. “Geez.”

Leo groans. “I told you not to ask.”

Shaking my head, I lean against the doorframe, my gaze going to the window. In the past hour, as I showered and dressed, waking up again, the snow slowed to a barely-present flurry, the conditions much more manageable. “So, how long do you think it should take to find someone in the city?”

“Uh, I don’t know,” Leo says. “Couple of days... weeks... maybe. How long did it take Ignazio to find who he was looking for?”

“Damn near twenty years,” I say.

“Well, there you go,” Leo says. “Two decades.”

Two decades.

In case you don’t know who Ignazio is, let me give you the Cliff Notes version of him: guy with a gun and a grudge looking for a girl to make him feel better. Took him way too long to catch up to her, and when he finally did, nothing went according to plan, which is reason number one-hundred and sixty-nine why I tend to work on the fly. I’m the kind of guy who will run into a burning building without thinking of the flames... especially since, you know, chances are I set the fire to begin with.

Am I making sense here?

I don’t know.

I’m still kind of tired.

Point being, I don’t have twenty years to wait. “I’ll give it twenty more minutes.”

Leo gives me a peculiar look as I pull out my car keys. “You’re not driving today, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Seriously? You? Driving?”

“Yes.”

“With everything being all white and icy?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling suicidal?”

I laugh at that question. He doesn’t want me to answer it. I seem to forever exist in a gray area of life, caught in a web somewhere between homicidal and suicidal, and he knows it, no matter how much I try to shove rose-colored glasses over the boy’s eyes. He’s not blind to reality.

“As titillating as this conversation has been, Pretty Boy, I’ve got to go,” I say, turning away. “Things won’t do themselves, you know.”

There’s a sex joke in there somewhere, I know, but get your mind out of the gutter. There’s still work to do.

“Good luck finding... whoever she is,” Leo calls out. “Don’t kill yourself! Or anybody else...”

He doesn’t mean that in the intentional sense. Don’t get it twisted. He just doesn’t want me to skid off the road or plow into somebody.

I’m already shivering by the time I make it to my car in the driveway. I start it up, cranking the heat full blast, before reaching into the glove box, where I stash a spare pair of glasses.

The drive into northern Brooklyn should take fifteen minutes, but damn near half an hour passes before I pull up in front of the brick townhouse. Strolling to the front door, I bang on it. I bang… and bang… and bang…

Why the hell isn’t anybody answering?

It takes a few minutes before the door is pulled open. Seven stands there, half asleep, dark hair a mess, wearing only a pair of red boxer shorts with elves on them.

Elves, Christmas ones, the pointy-eared little f*ckers that work for Santa. He’s got elves on his shorts, holding little packages, the words ‘Merry Elfin Christmas’ written all around them. I tilt my head to the side, staring at them.

Have I mentioned it’s nearing the end of January?

Seven blinks rapidly. “Boss? What’s going on?”

My gaze flickers to meet his as I shake it off. “Have you found her?”

His brow furrows. “Who?”

“The woman I told you to find.”

“I, uh... what?”

“Have you found the woman?” I ask again. “How much more clear do I need to make that?”

“Uh, no, not yet.”

“What’s taking so long?”

He gapes at me like maybe he thinks I’m crazy, but I’m not the one wearing elf boxers a month after Christmas. “It’s only been a few hours.”

“So?”

“So... I haven’t even had the chance to look yet.”