Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 102394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
“Hi, Dad.”
“Glad I’m not having a heart attack, or I’d be dead waiting for you to answer the damn phone.”
I steadied myself. “I’m glad you’re not having a heart attack, too. What can I do for you?”
“For starters, you could move back to New York where you belong.”
I was not about to have this conversation again. So I closed my eyes, counted to three, then opened them and shifted the car into drive. Pulling away from the curb, I attempted to redirect the bad start to our conversation. “How’s your sciatica? Feeling any better than last week?”
But Dad ignored my question. “I’m having some trouble at the pizzeria.”
Oh Jesus. This was going to be one of those calls, the kind where I had to decipher what the heck we were talking about. My father really did own a pizzeria back in Mill Basin, but when he talked about trouble at the pizzeria, it was never really about a broken oven or a bad batch of dough. Gino’s Pizza was a front for the crooked Ginocassi family, one of the infamous five families.
“The oven is running really hot,” he said. “So hot that I’m going to need to keep an eye on it. You know how it goes—too much heat and boom! The place can explode.”
I shook my head. Even the feds could figure out my father was telling me a war was heating up between him and his rivals. I was never sure how to respond to his cryptic messages, so I stuck with the oven storyline. “I’m sorry to hear that. You know me… I like my pizza better the second day, when it’s cold.”
“There’s also a sauce problem.”
I had absolutely no clue what that meant. “Oh?”
“Yeah. The competition really wants to get our sauce recipe. But you know my sauce means everything to me. I don’t even want anyone looking at my recipe, much less touching my sauce.”
Still clueless, I kept up the charade. “Umm… Yeah. You make good sauce, Dad.”
“I’m glad you agree. One of my men will be there today.”
“Your men? Where?”
“In LA, to protect the sauce.”
Oh no! I’m the sauce! “No, Dad. The sauce is good. No one knows the…” I was about to say no one knows the sauce’s last name—I’d stopped using Ginocassi and started using Grecco, my mother’s maiden name, when I’d moved out to California—but that sentence made no sense if someone was actually listening in on our call. “Dad, you don’t need to worry about the sauce. It’s very secure where it is. No one even knows where you keep the sauce recipe.”
“Juliette!” my father barked, and I instantly felt like I was seven years old instead of twenty-seven. He’d always had a way of silencing a room with a single stern word, and growing up, that word had often been my name. “You will not give me a hard time about this. I have enough going on to worry about.”
“But, Dad—”
“It’s not up for discussion.” He stopped with the cryptic talk. “You might call yourself by another name, but you will always be Juliette Ginocassi. And it’s my job to make sure you’re always safe.”
“But—”
“Enough!” I heard a loud bang and knew he’d just pounded his fist on the table. “It’s done.”
Before I could say another word, the line went dead. I pulled my cell from my ear and stared at the screen. Call Ended.
No, we were not done. I didn’t want one of his goons hanging around. I’d worked too hard to make a new life out here in California—one where no one knew who my father was. My heart pounded in my chest as I hit the button to call him back. But the call went straight to voicemail. When it happened a second time, I waited until I got to a red light and thumbed off a text. I stared down at my phone, waiting as the message went from Delivered to Read. Eventually the car behind me honked because I hadn’t noticed the light change, so I drove the rest of the way to Robeks. Just as I was getting out of the car, my cell buzzed with an incoming message.
Arlo: Triple shot matcha mega-charged power surge smoothie. Sub coconut for water and oat milk for half and half. Add a scoop of bee pollen, a half scoop of probiotic blend, and one pump of agave, and blend it with half a banana and only two ice cubes.
Fury surged through my veins; I felt like a pot ready to blow its lid. I didn’t even get a chance to calm myself before a second text came in.
Arlo: Don’t ask me how, but if they blend it with more than two cubes, he’ll know.
My fingers clenched around my iPhone. With each second that ticked by, a slow burn of heat spread across my cheeks and behind my eyes. Bradley Wilson was annoying, but my father was impossible. Totally impossible to deal with. Yet I made one more attempt to call him. Of course, I went right to voicemail.