Hold Him Like Gravity (Lombardi Family #4)

Chapter Twenty-One

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rico

I could look past one week where the books weren’t right. But the second week of a few grand missing had alarms going off in my mind.

“What’s going on?” Bass asked as he walked into the office at the meat shop after hours.

“I think I got a problem,” I admitted as he dropped into the seat across from the desk.

“What kind of problem?” he asked, leaning back.

“A problem where my books aren’t balancing right,” I told him.

“How imbalanced are they?” he asked, leaning forward.

“Couple grand last week and this week.”

“You’re sure it’s the books, not the calculator?”

“You got something to say?” I asked, tone going cold.

“Look, I’m happy to see you distracted. Kick’s been good for you. But if your head isn’t completely on the books when you’re working on them, you could fuck up the math.”

“Been counting since I was five. Been balancing books since I was in my teens. I didn’t fuck this up twice in a row,” I said, pushing the books across the desk to him. “But go over ‘em yourself. Let me know if I fucked something up. Because if I didn’t, I have a big fucking problem.”

I sat there waiting as Bass went over the books line by line. Starting at the most recent week, then working backward.

He sucked in a deep breath, looking up at me.

“You’ve never misplaced a dollar before,” he concluded. “Until the past two weeks. It looks like seven grand total.”

“Fuck,” I sighed, leaning back in my chair.

“No one is new, right?” he asked, closing the notebooks and passing them back to me.

“No.”

“Makes no sense. Why would someone be here for months, or longer, never stealing a dime, only to turn around and start taking thousands?”

“That’s what I want to know,” I agreed.

“Timing-wise, this started not long after the robbery, right?”

“Right.”

“Maybe someone found out and thought it was a sign of weakness?” Bastian suggested. “Decided to take advantage of the situation?”

“If that’s the case, I need to find the fuck and make him see that I’m not someone who can be taken advantage of.”

To that, Bass nodded. “How well do you know everyone who works here?”

“I dunno, man. Know Ricky better than anyone. Know some basic facts about everyone else. But they’re just… employees. Not part of the family. I didn’t do background checks on any of ‘em.”

“Who has access to the register?”

“Everyone,” I admitted, suddenly seeing what a flaw that was now. “There’s only one. And when shit is busy, they all share it.”

“Do they all cash out the drawer?”

“Usually Ricky. But the cash-out is just taking out the excess, putting it in a sealed bag with the receipts, and putting them in the drop box right outside of the office. Then I deal with it from there.”

“But that’s a great time to skim some cash,” Bass said.

“I hope it’s not Ricky,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I trust him.”

“Could he be pissed off about getting his face bashed in?”

“Anything is possible. I paid him to stay home. Gave him a stack of cash as an apology. He seems… normal, though,” I added. “Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“Could just be a good liar.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, even if I was still hoping it wasn’t him. The man practically ran the shop. Having to find someone else to step into his shoes would be a nightmare. Worse than that, he had a loving wife and kids. I couldn’t imagine putting an end to him the way I would if it was anyone else fucking me over.

“Alright, look. How about I look into this? Finished my job with Cinna and Dav. Got nothing on my plate right now. I can review security footage, see if I can catch who is doing it in the act.”

“Gonna be a lot of footage,” I warned. “Got cameras everywhere.”

“Eh, I don’t mind. Better me than you. Sure you’d rather be spending your free time with Kick.”

He wasn’t wrong.

The more I spent time with her, the more I wanted to spend time with her. It was strange and new. But I don’t know… unexpectedly comforting.

I held myself back on occasion, not letting myself go over to her place every single night. But, fuck, the nights when I didn’t, it took everything I had not to show up.

The crazy thing was, it wasn’t just the sex. It was the moments after, just holding her, just feeling the way her fingers traced absentmindedly over my skin, how her body went lax as she drifted off to sleep.

It was the moments before things made their way to the bedroom. Sharing food, watching shows, talking about our pasts. We had crummy childhoods in common. While my parents were, you know, present—abusive, but present—her father was in and out of their lives, leaving their mom to work, pay bills, and raise her kids herself. Which, it seemed, turned her mean and bitter.

It sounded like Kick got out of there as soon as she could and cut all ties with her mom.

Having needed to cut my own parents off, I understood what it was like to be without a family.

She didn’t talk much about her brother. And when she did, she looked visibly upset, so I decided not to push.

She’d told me once that she had no one.

It seemed that was true.

That part, I couldn’t relate to.

I had my found family and a few blood relatives like Bass who hadn’t turned out to be like our parents. If I needed help, I had a dozen or more places to go to find it.

I couldn’t imagine being and feeling completely alone. To have no one to lean on.

And, suddenly, I found I wanted to be that person for her. To share my people with her. I was pretty sure it was too early to say shit like that. Though, who the fuck knew? I had no idea what the hell I was doing.

“I appreciate it, man,” I said as I slid open one of my desk drawers, producing my laptop and passing it to Bass. I gave him my passcodes to everything, then trusted him to figure this shit out for me.

While I spent more time with Kick.

Though, when I showed up at her place, she didn’t answer the door. For someone who claimed she was a homebody, she was out a lot late at night.

The third time it happened, I felt jealousy rear its ugly head, worried she was off with some other guy. But when she came in, cheeks flushed red from the cold, her eyes worried, I figured that it was impossible she’d been with a guy. If how she was after time with me was anything to go by, that is.

“You’re far away,” I said when we were in bed together later, having felt her drifting away from me minute by minute.

“Hm? No. I was just thinking about, you know, the holidays,” she said, but the lie wasn’t exactly convincing.

“What about them?”

“What do you do?” she asked, sliding her leg across my hips.

“Depends on the year. Back before the guys started settling down, we usually just hung out together. Had some drinks, some food. Not traditional holiday shit. Don’t think any of us ever even put up a tree,” I added. “Now, though, there’s usually someone doing something.

“Last year, I went to Cinna and Dav’s place for Thanksgiving. Neither of ‘em cook, but they had a full traditional Thanksgiving meal delivered.”

“They’re the two with the adopted kids, right?”

“Yeah. Teenagers.” One had been the kid in Cinna’s old apartment building who needed out of his shitty home life. The other was homeless and living on the street.

None of us ever imagined Cinna having kids. But I guess there was something different about raising teens than babies, and she seemed to speak their language. They were all an unexpected family that just… clicked.

“What about Christmas?” she asked, fingers tracing over my chest, writing things, but I couldn’t quite make out what.

“Spent the morning alone. Everyone had shit to do with their loved ones. But late that night, Renzo and Lore had a little holiday party. Most of us went there. Had some good times. Dunno if that’s gonna continue, though, once they start having kids.”

“Do you want them?”

“Do I want what?” I asked, my fingers sliding up her back to sift through her hair.

“Kids,” she clarified.

“I dunno how much thought I’ve given it, if I’m being honest. Haven’t really even been around a lot of kids. But I dunno. I could maybe see it. You?”

“I didn’t want them in, like, my past circumstances,” she said, dangerously close to actually telling me what her old life was like, what she was clearly running from by coming to Brooklyn after a lifetime in the Bronx. “I mean, it’s not like my life is stable now either,” she added, voice going a little thick.

Was she going to cry?

But before I could suss that shit out, she was straightening. “I need ice cream!” she declared, putting a little too much cheer in her voice, making the effect fall flat. But before I could say anything, she was rushing out of the room to get the ice cream.

Then the moment was gone.

And I couldn’t ask.

That had been happening a lot.

The conversation would start to go somewhere deep. She would start to get emotional. Then she would quickly change topics, or find some reason to walk away from me until she had herself together again.

I wanted to know what it was all about.

But I also had no idea how to ask her, to bring it out without pressuring her.

What can I say? I was used to straight-talkers. To people who didn’t hold back. And if someone was being secretive for some reason, one of us would force it out of them.

It didn’t seem right to try that with Kick.

So until I could figure out how to coax the information out of her, I was going to have to learn to be okay with being in the dark.

But as the days passed, as feelings really started to take root and grow, that shit got harder and harder.

Sometimes—especially at work—I would find her with a faraway look, or a worried one. And it took everything I had not to grab her, drag her into the back, and force her to tell me what was making her look so upset.

I couldn’t, of course.

Hell, half the time, I had to stay in my office and away from her because I was pretty sure there was no way I could be around her without making it obvious to everyone that we were involved.

I mean, no, the company didn’t have some sort of anti-fraternization policy or anything. Mostly due to the fact that it was just a bunch of guys working there. But I couldn’t imagine it would look good to the others to know the boss was fucking their coworker. They would start to question things like her salary, why she got off certain days, if she was getting some sort of preferential treatment.

Just a bunch of headaches I didn’t need.

At least not yet.

Eventually, if shit kept going the way it was with Kick, there wouldn’t be hiding it anymore. I was fine with that. When or if the time came. It wasn’t like any of my employees were gonna get too mouthy about the situation, knowing their boss was a fucking mafia capo.

As week two slowly made its way toward week three, though, there was a knock at my office door, pulling me out of thoughts of trying to convince Kick to maybe spend the holidays at my place. I figured I could order in. Then the three of us, Bass included, could have a nice little meal.

But I hadn’t quite figured out how to phrase the invite yet. Let alone plan to get a tree, lights, ornaments, all the shit you needed to host a holiday.

“Yeah?” I called, turning to see Bastian moving into the office.

He was tense.

His spine was straight, his jaw ticking, and his eyes hard.

He had the laptop in his arm as he stepped inside the room.

I looked past him, seeing the clock on the wall. Somehow, the store had closed down around me without me even noticing. I really should have been on my way to Kick’s place.

“What is it?” I asked as he moved to the other side of the desk, taking a dramatically deep breath.

“It’s Kick,” he said.

“What is? She alright? Didn’t she leave again? Where is she?” I asked, already starting to get out of my seat.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Everyone is gone. The place is locked down,” he told me. “That’s not what I meant.”

“What the fuck are you talking about then?” I asked, feeling the frantic punch of my heart against my ribs at the idea of something happening to her.

“It’s Kick, Rico,” he said, voice careful, eyes looking, I dunno, regretful.

“What’s Kick?”

“It’s Kick who has been skimming from the register,” he said.

I swear it felt like the fucking floor fell out from under me. I dropped back down into my seat, already shaking my head at him.

“No. No fucking way.”

“I wish it wasn’t,” Bass said, carefully placing the laptop down in front of me. “But it is. Trust me, I checked and double-checked and triple-checked, wanting to find anyone else acting sketchy. But she wasn’t just acting sketchy—jumpy, looking over her shoulder, all the typical shit—you can actually see it happening,” he told me as he opened the laptop and brought up the windows he had open.

There weren’t just two of them.

There were half a dozen frozen videos.

My stomach clenched hard as Bass reached around the laptop to click play on the top video.

There was Kick, doing a cash transaction for a customer.

Honestly, I would have missed it if I wasn’t looking for it.

As she counted out change, her hand slipped over toward the large bills, curling several into her palm, then carefully tucking it into her front pocket before grabbing the coins for the customer, closing the drawer, and moving out of the frame to give the customer their change.

“She wasn’t always so smooth about it,” Bastian told me, toggling over toward another frozen video and pressing play.

There was Kick another day, her hair pulled back in a braid instead of her usual ponytail.

She wasn’t getting change for a customer. She was pulling the cash drawer out of the register to, I assume, bag up the extra money and put it in the cash drop.

She placed it down next to the register, though, on a small piece of counter near the wall, her body blocking it from view.

But she paused, looking over both of her shoulders.

Then she was shoving something into her pocket before taking the drawer to the back to drop the remaining money.

No.

No, this couldn’t be happening.

Seeming to sense my inability to accept the reality right in front of my face, Bass clicked another video.

The most damning of them all.

Not because she was stealing more money or anything, but because I remembered that day. The one where I’d run into her. Where she’d been oddly clutching her sweater to her chest, then shoved it into her locker in a ball.

This time, though, I got to see the moments leading up to that.

Why she was so jumpy.

Why she was clutching the sweater.

Because as she skimmed the money out of the register, something startled her, making her jolt and drop the cash.

Seeming paranoid about the noise, and maybe being caught, she threw her sweater over it on the floor, then scooped the cash up into the sweater, held it to her chest, and made a mad dash toward the back.

As much as I didn’t want to believe it, there was no denying something that was right in front of my face like this.

Suddenly, I was going back over every haunted look, every time she tried to change the subject, when she seemed jumpy or guarded.

It wasn’t because she was hiding her past from me.

It was because she was fucking stealing from me.

My heartbeat was thumping hard and bile was creeping up my throat.

No, this wasn’t the first time I’d been betrayed. But, fuck, this cut deeper. This was personal.

I was fucking falling for this woman.

And she was, what, scheming behind my back? Laughing at my gullibility?

I couldn’t tell which was stronger right then. The burning in my gut of betrayal. Or the crushing feeling in my chest that seemed to make it hard to breathe.

“When?” I growled.

“What?”

“When did it start? How long has she been stealing from me?”

“This is the first one,” Bastian said, clicking to a timestamped video.

“You’re sure?”

“Went back to the beginning of her employment, man. She’s never so much as skimmed a quarter before. Actually, once saw her drop a quarter under the counter. When she couldn’t get it out, she went and got another quarter out of her purse to replace it. This shit just started when you saw the anomalies in the books.”

Why, though?

Why just the two and a half weeks?

What had changed?

The robbery?

When we started getting less than professional?

No.

That shit didn’t make any sense.

There had to be something else going on. Something she was hiding. Something that was making her jumpy and haunted-looking.

I didn’t know what it was.

But I was sure as fuck about to find out.

“Don’t tell anyone about this,” I demanded, slamming the laptop. “Not yet,” I added, knowing I never kept shit from Renzo for any length of time. That wasn’t how being in the family worked. We didn’t get the luxury of secrets from the boss.

“Where are you going?” Bastian asked.

“To get answers.”