Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71908 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“Really?” I check the time.
“She just took off through the gates. I was calling you as I got your text.” We have alerts when anyone enters or leaves those gates.
It’s as close as we can get without being detected. The Marinos aren’t all old-school. They are progressive in every way and staying up on technology while many let themselves get left behind is one of those ways.
It can be difficult to get old-timers to change; but if you don’t move with everyone else, you’ll not only get left behind, in their world, you could get killed or have your territory slowly taken over. There is no manpower out there that can match the information you can collect from tech.
Arturo sent me over the images of Naomi pulling out of the gates. Where are you going? I grab my wallet and keys to be ready to leave if need be.
I expect her to go to Eros or the warehouse they all share; she’d been there earlier today.
“I’m tailing her but pretty sure she’s headed to the warehouse.” When Eros left the family dinner early, he went in the opposite direction and had Bonte with him. There is only one person that is always at that warehouse: Mac.
If this was work-related, at least work that put them in the field, Eros would be in on it too. She’s going there to see Mac. It’s not her normal pattern. Yes, she often goes there, but there is often a pattern to the things people do even when they don’t realize it.
I have spent a lot of my life trying to understand this and applying it to almost everything. You get as much information as you can on a person or business and then dig deep into it all and find those patterns. It’s very much how I believe I have gotten so far in life.
It’s almost a way of knowing the answers before you ask them. Not always do you have enough to be able to do this, but I track as much as possible when it comes to Naomi, and this on a Sunday is not her normal. That means today’s events are likely the cause. I could be way off, but often when it comes to this, I’m not.
I hope the wink didn’t set her off… Or maybe I hope it did.
Chapter Four
NAOMI
“You know what I love most about you?” Mac asks, sitting on her desk, her legs swinging back and forth.
“That I know over two hundred ways to kill a man.”
“Only two hundred? Nomi, don’t disappoint me.” She still calls me by the same nickname as she did when we were little kids. I both love and hate it.
“I’m sure I could come up with a strange one, like putting someone’s head in a box with hungry rats.” Mac blinks at me a few times. I don’t even understand why I seem to think differently than other people. The word “strange” is always hanging over my head.
“How do you come up with this shit?”
“I think of what would freak me out.”
“Then why didn’t you say a box of—”
“Don’t.” I cringe. I don’t even care for the S word. I have the biggest irrational fear of spiders. It is a phobia I cannot overcome. “I don’t care for where this conversation has gone.”
“You made it weird first.” I just keep shaking my head no. “Okay, I was going to say that I love how predictable you can often be with things, but just as predictable as you can be, you will sideline me with the most unpredictable things. Like right now.”
“I’m a young, single girl. I am not sure why you find this off.” This is what most females my age would be doing.
“I didn’t say it was off. The rat comment is a little out there, but I expect nothing less. So?” she asks, wanting to know why I want to do this at all.
“Well, for one, I haven’t gone out dressed up yet.” A while back, I thought I should up my skill sets. Getting in and out of places is often easier when a woman is all dolled up. Men think with their dicks, while I think of ways to use that against them.
I see the way men look at Bonte. She’s not the classic pretty that society sells you. I’d call her more seductive. Now Mac, Aunt Cosima, and her daughter Nix are what I’d call gorgeous in that classic sense.
“You have gotten good in heels.” Bonte taught me. I didn’t tell anyone, but when I put them on, I did get this sense of power, and for once, I felt feminine and pretty. “But there is more; hit me with it.”
“The wink.”
“I say we just cut those eyes out, and we’ll be done with all this.” Mac leans back on her hands to support her, still swinging her legs back and forth.