The Family Business 3(28)

“You sure this is going to work?” she asked nervously.

“It’s going to work. Trust me,” I replied, heading for the desk.

“I do trust you, honey. I’m just scared.”

The desk clerk glanced up, and seeing us approach, he handed me my room key, just like I had instructed him earlier. Who said you needed to be at a five-star hotel to get first class service? This place was about to meet all of my expectations and more.

Taking a quick visual inventory of the lobby, I spotted a few obvious tourists: Asians with expensive cameras hanging around their necks; badly-dressed, pale Europeans; a few Africans; and some locals, no doubt doing their dirty business where they wouldn’t get caught. The coast was basically clear of interference, at least inside.

“Is it working?” Sonya asked, and I nodded in response, letting her know that I planned to honor my word to keep her safe. This woman was my life, and that meant protecting her the same way I would myself.

As we walked to the elevator bank, I turned to smile at Sonya. What I was really doing was looking through the large windows to make sure Brother X’s man in the van hadn’t followed us inside yet. He may have thought that he was slick, staying a few car lengths behind us, but he didn’t know that by following us, he was simply following my plan.

We traveled up the elevator to the seventh floor and hustled into our room. Once inside, we threw open the suitcases and quickly changed clothing. In fact, the clothes we were changing into were the only outfits in the nearly empty suitcases. Even Sonya’s big-ass suitcase was just for show, because we needed X and his men to think that we were leaving town. The best way to make them believe that was to check in to the largest hotel near the airport. I was sure X figured we’d be easy targets, but he would be surprised, and pissed, when he found out what we had planned.

Seeing Sonya half naked as she changed into muted colors, I had to take a deep breath and try to control my urges.

“Stop,” she warned, catching me leering at her. “If you’re really, really good and get us out of here safe, I may have something a little extra for you later, though,” she teased.

“I’m going to hold you to that,” I crooned, patting her on the ass. Damn, I loved all that ass in my hands, but it would have to wait. Timing was everything tonight. “Girl, you are distracting as hell.”

“Good.” She laughed as she finished dressing and picked up her purse.

“Wait.” I stopped her at the door. “Give me your phone.” I held out my hand.

“But all of my numbers are in there,” she said with a pout.

“If we’re going to do this, we have to leave our pasts behind. They can track us with our phones.” I took out mine, waited a few more seconds until she reluctantly handed hers over, and tossed them both onto the bed. “Now, let’s go start our lives anew.”

I grabbed her hand and led her down the hallway in the opposite direction from the elevators. We’d just gotten into the stairwell when I heard the elevator ping. Damn, we were cutting it close. When we reached the main floor, we turned left and slipped into the kitchen, where a full staff hurried about, handling the needs of the large clientele. We were greeted by José, a professional waiter who used to work at one of my favorite spots in Queens before it shut down a year ago. I’d helped him get this job at the hotel, so he was repaying the favor.

“Junior, this way.” He led us through a maze of activity, past a whole bunch of people too busy doing their jobs to care what the hell we were doing. When we got to the end of a long hallway, he opened the door to an alley outside.

Before we left him, I reached into my pocket and handed him a nice little bundle of cash.

“Nah, I can’t take this,” he insisted.

“You earned it. Just keep your mouth shut and we’re good,” I said, reminding him of my cardinal rule.

“You got it. Good luck.” He pocketed the cash.

A yellow cab sat waiting outside the door. As José left us to go back to work, I opened the back door and let Sonya slide into the cab first.

“Where to, Mr. Sutton?” the driver asked.

“Corner of Patchen and Jefferson in Brooklyn,” I answered. We weren’t actually staying in Brooklyn, but I’d stashed a car near there a couple of days ago.





We were actually staying in a safe house that I kept at the residences at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Battery Park. By the time I’d parked the car in the garage and led Sonya into the private elevator, I could see the stress on her face. It had been a long and difficult day as we made moves to throw X off our trail. I could see that she was in serious need of some stress relief, which was why I’d had room service deliver food and champagne.

“I’ve never stayed anyplace this nice,” Sonya said as we sat down to eat. She was staring out the window at the Statue of Liberty across the water.

“Yeah, it’s beautiful. Just like you,” I said, reaching for her hand.

We ate in silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts about the ordeal we were enduring. I, for one, felt confident that X and his men were still scratching their heads, wondering when we were coming out of our hotel room. Even if they’d figured out that we were gone, there was no way for them to pick up our trail again. I’d had the cab driver drop us off in front of a small bodega, and we didn’t get into my car until long after he was gone. If anything, they might guess that we were hiding in one of the apartments above the store.