Free Killing The Rat (An Organized Crime Thriller) by Dani Amore

same money that came from crimes the FBI was trying to stop – could undermine the government’s very own people. The voice spoke briefly, and then disconnected immediately after delivering the requisite information.
    Romano looked in the mirror. The sixty year old man looking back at him was tired and nearly beaten. But now he saw a gleam of fire in the eye, and he momentarily forget about the sacrilege that had been exercised on his torso.
    He punched in the number that he’d used many times before, but always with great caution.
    Romano heard Jack Cleveland’s voice on the other end.
    “Yeah,” it said.
    “It’s me.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “He’s at the Prescott Hotel in Ann Arbor. Room 914.”
    “Okay.”
    When Romano heard the voice on the other end acknowledge the message, he disconnected immediately. Romano had the house swept regularly for bugs, and cell phones were notoriously hard to eavesdrop upon, but one never knew.
    Romano went to the giant whirlpool tub and started a hot bath. He couldn’t get the stitches wet, but he would try to relax. He poured himself a tumbler of 20-year old scotch and sat on the edge of the tub, breathing in the steam from the hot water.
    His stress level was at an all-time high right now. He’d been robbed, and who knew what Tommy Abrocci was doing? He was probably running to the Feds, but Romano knew he would never make it.
    Jack Cleveland was going to kill him.
    For that, Romano raised his glass in a toast.
    “Here’s to sending you straight to Hell, Tommy.”
    He drank, and felt the warmth spread from his mouth, to his throat down his chest and to his stomach.
    The pain around his upper torso momentarily disappeared.

18.
     
    One day, a co-worker mentioned to Loreli that women tend to marry men like their fathers.
    The concept had rocked Loreli to her core.
    Because she realized that she had simply replaced her father with Ted.
    Ted the deadbeat. Ted beat.
    She also realized that all of her boyfriends had been deadbeats. Even though she’d met and known plenty of nice guys, she’d always found something wrong with them. Some reason not to get involved with them. They’re too boring. They’re not exciting. Too fat. Too short. Too skinny. Too stupid. Too smart.
    That’s what she’d told herself, anyway.
    Of course, she had understood it too late.
    Liam was two years and old and Ted was out of her life. Sort of. He was gone most of the time. But every once in awhile he’d come back. And Loreli always let him in, both physically and metaphorically.
    That was what had really made her sit up and take notice. Because it had reminded her of her own father’s infamous pattern of disappearing and reappearing on a whim. Loreli’s father had often left them. Abandoned them for days, weeks, even months at a time. Her mother, a waitress at a truck stop, had stopped asking when he’d come back. For the longest time, Loreli had believed what her mother said, basically that all men were shit. A fact her mother often recounted night after night when it had just been the two of them, making ends meet. Sitting in the living room, watching t.v. on the little black-and-white with the giant, bent rabbit ears that you had to adjust every time you watched a show on a different channel.
    Finally, for money, Loreli learned how to use her taut body and pretty face. It wasn’t long before she was a hit at the topless bars along 8 Mile Road. The money was good, but not good enough. Through the other dancers, Loreli learned of a woman, not a pimp, no one ever used the word pimp, in Hamtramck who hooked up girls with white-collar johns. Johns who paid extra for young, clean girls. In fact, it was a girl in the psychology class who had approached Loreli about the business.
    Loreli had been reluctant, but then the girl had offered Loreli five hundred bucks to come to one of her jobs and watch. Apparently the guy liked to have a girl watch. Loreli did, and it was the easiest money she’d ever