White Knight (Dirty Mafia Duet, #2)(19)

Memphis meets my gaze, her mouth falling open. “How could they chance taking that camera out without being filmed? Wouldn’t they have to know it was there?”

“Come on, let’s check out the inside before the cops get here.”

In the pit of my stomach, I know we’re dealing with a professional. Even with the boot print and obvious signs of forced entry, which would make someone think this was an amateur job, I make a different conclusion. Someone wanted it to look amateur, which is even more telling.

“Holy shit.” Memphis gasps when we walk into the living room. The entire place has been torn apart. Ballsy as fuck, given the fact that this apartment building could not have been empty when the break-in went down.

The couch cushions are slashed, erupting with stuffing. The drawers in the tables in front and beside the sofa are tossed on the oak floor, the limited contents spread out on the wood. The kitchen is the same. Every drawer and cupboard open. Food spilled everywhere. The fridge and freezer have been pawed through too.

Someone was looking for something specific. The only question is . . . did they find it?

Memphis charges toward what I assume is the bedroom, but I grab her hand. “Careful. I’m going first.”

“But—” She cuts off what she was going to say.

Even rattled, she’s braver than most men I know. Still, her safety is something I take seriously, even if she doesn’t sense the danger.

“You going first isn’t going to change anything. If they found what they were looking for, it’s gone regardless.”

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She curses but falls into step behind me.

The apartment’s walls are bare, which goes along with the rest of the place, as it hardly looks lived in. I recognize a crash pad when I see one. Not that I expected this place to be Memphis’s true home, and maybe that’s a really fucking positive thing right now. Because she’s just worried about what’s missing rather than feeling violated by her space being broken into.

At least, I hope so.

I reach the bedroom, and it’s a repeat of the kitchen. Every dresser drawer is open. Clothes all over the floor. Bedding and mattress slashed. Feathers from the pillows leave a dusting of white on top of it all. The walk-in closet is trashed, and so is the bathroom.

But thankfully, there’s no sign of anyone.

Sirens wail in the distance, and I jerk around to look at Memphis. “Cops are coming. What were they looking for, and did they find it?”

She snatches up something from the mess on the floor and rushes to the bed to climb atop the ruined mattress. Using a metal fingernail file, she unscrews the vent cover above the bed and tosses it onto the pile of fluff.

“They didn’t find it!” Triumph rings in her tone as she removes a file folder.

The sirens grow louder as I join her on the bed, taking the screws from her and replacing the vent cover as fast as I can.

“We’re running out of time. Grab a bag. Bury the file, preferably in a hidden compartment if you have anything like that, and fill it with whatever clothes aren’t trashed and whatever else you need. You’re not staying here.”

I offer her a hand to climb off the destroyed queen bed and tell her the plan. There’s no room for fuckups, and we need to be on the same page.

“It’ll take the cops hours to go through the place, but I want your shit out of here before they pull up. I’ll run your bag down to the car through the side door, which is probably how they came in, if they knew about your camera in the entryway. I doubt we’ll see a single face on your feed that’ll help. But first, give your statement to the cops and call the building super. As soon as the door is secured and the cops are out of here, we’re going to my place. Got it?”

Memphis nods and shoves the file at me. “Give me two minutes.”

True to her word, I’m walking out of the apartment building three minutes later with a suitcase. Yuri stows it in the trunk just as a squad car pulls up.





14





Memphis





I wait outside my apartment for Cannon to return, along with the cops, but something’s nagging at me. After taking a few steps down the hall, I knock on Randi’s door.

“Randi, can we just talk for thirty seconds before the cops get up here?”

I consider she might have left to avoid all the commotion, but then I hear her argue through the door.

“Why? So you can lie to me some more?”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I promise I had a good reason.” Although I’ll never tell her what it was.

Her door opens an inch, and the fastened chain blocks part of her face. “I thought we were friends, Drew. Or whoever you are. I don’t even know your goddamned name. That’s not how friendship works.” She shakes her head, sending her silver-and-black hair flying. “I told you everything about me, and you just lied.”

“I know. I know.”

Part of me wants to tell her why, but I’m not an idiot. The company she’s keeping means she can’t be trusted with the truth under any circumstances. But still, I like Randi, and I don’t want her to end up mixed up in something that’s as bad as the Rossetti family.

So instead, I ask, “That guy in the restaurant, he was the same guy from the bar?”