A Dirty Business (Kings of New York #1)(67)

“Stay put, shut up, and don’t do anything stupid. You got me?”

“Yeah.” She was sobbing, her voice hiccuping. “Trace, what did I do wrong, though? I don’t know what I did wrong.”

I swallowed a curse because fuck me for not making sure she’d been handled the right way before. Switching to my burner, I dialed Ashton.

He answered after the first ring. “She’s at Katya.”

“I just got off the phone with her. What did you tell her when she saw Jess at Katya the first time?”

“I drove her to the airport, put her on a plane for Vegas, and told her to forget that woman ever existed. I told her not to mess with Jess, and if she did, she’d be messing with family matters.”

“She say anything back? You used Jess’s name?”

“I didn’t use Jess’s name. That’d be throwing gasoline on the fire, and no, Remmi got quiet. She started crying, but she got on the plane. I watched her get on the plane, and I watched the plane take off.”

“Which meant she flew to Vegas, pissed and stewing, and probably turned around and got on a plane right back here.”

“Yeah,” he ground out. “I thought I handled it. Remmi is—”

“She’s my sister. I should’ve handled her, not you.”

“We handle each other’s families for the other all the time. Sometimes Remmi listens to me when she won’t hear you. We both know that. Your sister is just unpredictable. Who could’ve guessed she’d do something this extreme?”

“Find my father. Her going after Jess in the first place is suspect. If she’d been stewing about Jess’s mother since our mother died, we would’ve heard about it.”

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking someone’s putting shit in her head, someone who has reason to be angry at me.”

“That fucker, if he did that.”

“We handed him over to Uncle Steph. We cleaned up after him. I’m guessing he wasn’t too appreciative of how we handled his situation.”

“He should’ve been. That prick is too entitled. If you’re right and he did this, what the fuck are you going to do? Because he’s fucking with family business, and your family business is my family business. I can’t predict what Stephano will do, but I can tell you how my uncles will handle him. Especially since they’ve been treating him with kid gloves over the years because of you and me.”

My dad was dead if he’d plotted to hurt us, found out about Jess, and gone from there. That meant finding Remmi. Manipulating her, filling her head with whatever fucking lies he’d filled her head with, and now this was the end result. Jess was put on blast with her career.

He did all that, and that meant he knew about me and Jess.

My tone went real low. “He did this, I’ll kill him myself.”

I didn’t care what the consequences were.





CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE


JESS


“Val.” I called her as soon as I was on the elevator, as soon as I’d heard who was behind it. I was beyond the point of controlling myself. This little woman-child, blowing up my entire life? Goddamn their fucking family genes. I was done.

“Hey.” She sounded guarded. “Where are you?”

“Remmi West. That’s who put out the order.”

“What?” She laughed. “The Mafia princess. Doesn’t she reside in Vegas half the time? Why would she do that to you? She’s gotta know how that makes you look.”

“She knows. She’s got some crazy idea that our parents had an affair and that’s why her mom took her own life.”

“Whoa.”

The elevator doors opened, and I stepped out, ignoring anyone in my path and heading right for my state car. “Exactly.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I need to know where she is.” I was in the car and hit the speaker volume so it switched to the car phone.

“You want me to find her?”

“I want to find her before anyone finds her.”

“What are you going to do?”

I expelled a ragged breath, pulling into traffic. “I have no idea right now. Arrest her?”

“She’ll deny everything. And for what?”

“Putting my life in danger? Falsifying a report?”

She laughed, but it was cut off shortly. “I can’t tell if you’re being serious, but she did the order on the streets. Nothing’s official. And no one will testify against a West. You know that. Let’s run by option B.”

“I’m going to kick her ass.”

“I can stand behind that one.”

I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t so serious. “Val, I mean it. I want to find her first. Can you ask your cousin? He works in the organized crime unit.”

“And when he asks me why?”

“I’m betting that he’ll know exactly the reason when you ask, but when you have that conversation, can you please hold off judgment before hearing me out?”

There was a moment of silence before she asked, her tone dropping as she did. “Why are you asking for that now?”

“Because when you ask him, he’s going to turn the tables and ask what my relationship with Trace West is.”