Stone Walls by A.M. Madden Read Free Book Online

in.”
    “Um, sure. Take care, Peter.”
    “Bye, Ella.” There’s a short pause before he says, “I do miss you.”
    I can’t say I do as well. Does that make me a shitty person?
    Yes.
    “Bye,” I mumble before hanging up the call. I look up at Andrea who’s rolling her eyes so severely that it looks like she’s having an aneurysm.
    “We are evil.” I point at her and chastise, “You are evil.”
    “Oh my God, blah, blah, blah. Put a bullet through my head. Go get dressed.”
    “Why?” Maybe she did have an aneurysm.
    She sighs and widens her eyes. “Go. Get. Dressed.”
    “What. For?” I enunciate each word in the same annoying manner
    “Rob texted me while both you and yap-face were catching up. We’re meeting them at The Grind.”
    “Them?” She doesn’t respond. “Them who?” Again she doesn’t respond and sighs impatiently. “Andrea, it’s almost eight. I’m in my pajamas and very happy being in them.”
    “Do you turn into a pumpkin at eight? It’s a cup of freakin’ coffee. It makes sense, so Rob doesn’t have to come all the way over here to get me and then go all the way uptown to take the bridge.”
    “But my apartment is on the way to the bridge.”
    “What do I look like, an atlas? Get dressed.”
    When I continue to gawk at her, she pulls me off the couch, pushes me into my bedroom, and starts stripping me naked. “What the hell?”
    She leaves me in my underwear while rummaging through my closet. “Here,” she says, throwing a pair of jeans and a skimpy tank at me.
    “He’s. Not. Interested.”
    “I say he is,” she responds with her nose in the air.
    As I put on my clothes, she starts yanking a brush through my hair.
    “Ow.”
    She ignores me and continues to yank, deciding to put my hair in a ponytail when it doesn’t cooperate with her. My hair is probably terrified of her. “Okay, then I’m not interested,” I say through gritted teeth from the pain she is inflicting.
    “I say that you lie.”
    My nerves get the best of me, mixing with the pizza in my belly to make a very bad combination. “Sometimes I think you take full advantage of how grateful I am for all that you did for me.”
    She stops brushing to meet my eyes. “Of course I do.”

I’m consumed with this case. I’ve been thinking of nothing else since Farley slapped that folder on the table in that briefing room. A small part of my logic says Rob’s right. It doesn’t mean I’ll walk away. It’s why I became a cop. I would never risk Rob’s life. I’d protect his with mine in a heartbeat. He trusts me. Besides my brother, he’s the only person I trust with my life.
    We met with Farley’s team at eight this morning and are only now leaving twelve hours later. He admitted he’s a machine that rarely eats, sleeps or pisses. He expects the same from his people.
    Farley has seven agents on the case, each with their own sub-team, so basically an FBI army to take down Politto. He introduced us to the head guys on his team. We were all supplied with preprogrammed burner cellphones, Politto’s address, other candid shots, a list of all the Volante goons who now work under Politto, as well as a list of Politto’s goons he personally hired.
    “In the past six months, two of Volante’s main men have gone missing. Both would frequent a strip club called The Pole .” Farley flashed a slide showing the front of the strip club. He then switched to side-by-side shots of the two missing capos.
    “Politto owns the club. He also owns pieces of the largest construction firm in the five boroughs, a few car dealerships, and three gyms. Frank runs The Pole . He’s the stupid link in the Politto chain of command. Chances are if he had anything to do with their disappearances, he fucked up somewhere, and we’ll find it.”
    Farley flips to a slide of another man. Portly and older, his smiling face makes him look more like a grandpa than a mob boss. “We predict Razzo is next on the list to disappear.