“I’ll fix it,” I said finally.
“We’ll fix it,” Luca replied. He clapped his hands. “All right, go, we don’t have time to fuck around. Every second this issue is out there, it gets worse.” We all stood up, but as he typically did, Luca pointed at me. “Hang back.”
Was I going to get the proverbial ass-kicking now? Ricky and Gabriel left, and I sat back down in my chair.
Luca interlocked his fingers and pressed them to his lips. “Only our organization has access to that network on our app, right?”
“Right,” I replied.
“Can you still see everything everyone does?” he asked.
I nodded and pulled out my phone. “At the click of a button.”
“Check who Marco’s phone communicated with.”
I found the IP on our network that didn’t have a name attached to it and figured it was likely Marco’s phone. I traced back communications and found that that IP address had communicated via intercom with a different phone on our network.
“Horatio,” I replied, a driver in our ranks.
“There’s our mole,” Luca responded, and the next look he gave me was devoid of any of the warmth he’d just displayed. “We’re gonna have to teach him what happens to moles. Find out everything you can.”
15
Willow
Every day was a new adventure for me. I thought I’d be back in California after just a few days, and I was still in Philly two weeks later. I wondered what this girl was thinking, the version of me that had clearly taken over my body and was making all of the decisions. Sure, it had been nice hearing from Alessandro that he didn’t want the life anymore, but that didn’t really mean anything for me other than that, now, we were both reluctantly involved. Alessandro was still one phone call away from being dragged back into his family’s world, which meant I was still a single link away from the dark and dangerous organization I’d sworn to leave behind.
But the logical part of me had been locked in a cage by the part of me that was now rapidly remembering how good Alessandro was at sex, while the part of me that still had feelings for him poked at her with sticks.
I was still in bed with my laptop situated in my lap, sifting through purchase options for Sasha’s upcoming red carpet for the blockbuster movie she’d starred in. She typically liked four outfits for an event such as that one. One for the actual red carpet, one for the inner walk—a second carpet walk that the public didn’t typically see, where different celebrities and other people walking the red carpet could actually enjoy showing off their fashions and mingling with one another—a third one for the screening, which generally took place two or three hours after the red carpet, and a final one for the after-screening party.
Sasha was a hard woman to nail down sometimes. She went through more trends than the fashion industry. On occasion, she preferred to be a trailblazer, stepping out in fashions no one had ever seen before and setting the trend. Other times, she liked to be on par with everyone else, wearing what was in season. Sometimes she wanted to purposely be behind the ball, wearing last season’s fashions as if to say she does what she wants. She’d shied away from doing anything too camp, which was good because I honestly didn’t understand it.
I closed my web browser and opened up my video chat app. I pressed Sasha’s number and smiled at her profile picture of us wearing oversized hats with puckered lips. I missed her.
The video feed went live, and Sasha appeared on the other side. “Oh my god, is that Willow Morietti? How long has it been, three years? Four?”
“Thank god you are in drama,” I groaned back.
Sasha giggled. “Hi!”
“Hey! Did you dye your hair?” Her typically feathery blonde hair was now a turquoise blue color.
She touched it. “Did I?”
“The least you could have done was tell me, Sash. I’m shopping for you right now!” I rolled my eyes, mentally crossing out all of the green and orange numbers I’d added to my list of potentials. They’d never go.
“Hey, I dyed my hair, like, a week ago, and I’ve put about twelve million pictures on my Instagram. Is it my fault that you’ve been ignoring me like a poor beggar child?” She threw the back of her hand to her forehead. “Oh, woe is me. My best friend doesn’t love me anymore.”
“You are terrible.” I laughed. “I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, though. Things got complicated fast around here.”
“Well, can’t say you didn’t see that coming,” she responded. “What’s going on? How’s Alessandro?” she said his name with a thick Italian accent.
“He’s good. Really good.”
Sasha squealed and clapped her hands. “I knew it. I fucking knew you were gonna sleep with him.”
“We’ve been dating, too, I guess. He recreated our first date a week ago, and we’ve been out a few times since then.” I was desperately trying to stifle the wide